A Tribute to Professor Richard Pring
Blog 28 The SEA is sad to report the death of Professor Richard Pring, nine years our president and someone who throughout his life worked for a humane, equitable and inclusive education service.
Sally Tomlinson (Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths College, London University, and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK) writes about her colleague.
Much loved and admired Professor Richard Pring, Director of the Education Department, University of Oxford 1989-2003 and President of SEA 2008-2016 died peacefully at home on 6th October 2024. He was a passionate supporter of state-maintained education and regarded the competitive market-oriented system developed over the past thirty years with great sadness. The idea that certain groups or classes of people were 'less educable' or should be denied the full education available to a select minority was incomprehensible to him.
The shift over the last two centuries towards a more democratic society through an extension of the franchise and eventually acceptance of the notion of a common 'comprehensive' education system was to Richard the only acceptable direction for human flourishing and a common humanity. In his many books and articles and in his teaching done with his characteristic gentleness and slightly sardonic humour he engaged with philosophical and moral debates on education and what makes for human flourishing. He was fond of quoting the advice given in 1944 by the Permanent Secretary to younger civil servants (he was one in the 1960s) to "Be prepared to die in the first ditch as soon as politicians get their hands on education".
Alas, they gradually did so, and "When the 2010 Act was passed with its radical changes to institutional arrangements for schools under the Academies programme.... Education had been handed over to the politicians" (Education, Social Reform and Philosophical Development. Routledge 2022). With many others concerned with education at all levels he believed that schools should be brought back under local democratic control, and be part of a reformed system committed to ending inequalities, poverty and all forms of discrimination. He also consistently wrote about and supported developments in further and vocational education and youth work, and deplored the increase in school exclusions and denigration of young people who would not or could not, fit into the current test-oriented schooling with its narrowed curriculum..
Richard was born on 20th April 1938 and at 17 went of to Rome to the English College and Gregorian university with the intention of training for the priesthood. After seven years he abandoned this, although awarded the Bene Merati medal by Pope Pius X11, and returned to train as a teacher at the College of St Mark and ST John and the Institute of Education (now UCL) for his PhD.
In the 1960s he was an Assistant principal in the then DES, learning the ways of government, then lectured at Goldsmiths London University, and the Institute of Education, followed by a Professorial post at Exeter University 1978-1989, then Oxford University and it's first Chair in Education. He was a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Professor Emeritus from 2003 and was given Honorary degrees from UCL and Kent University. He managed his writing and campaigning for comprehensive education in between running twenty-seven marathons, and had loving care over the years, from his wife Faye and three daughters.
He was my friend and colleague for over thirty years and with others,I will miss him greatly. Richard was working on a book in his last years " Religion in a secular society" and we both agreed that God in all forms had created a heavenly comprehensive school (sponsored by St Peter and old SEA members) which awaited a visit.
What Labour Should do Next on Academies
Dave Barter, SEA NEC, argues Labour can’t avoid the ‘structures’ issue and maps out a way forward
Plenty of people are saying that the issue – under the shorthand ‘structural questions’ - needs addressing. Sam Freedman put it this way recently in the TES
Beyond these immediate priorities… there is the question of a longer-term strategy for the school system.
The Tories let things drift for years, failing to pass bills that would have created some clarity in both 2016 and 2022. Labour’s team will now have realised that their pre-election approach of keeping clear of structural questions isn’t viable now they’re in government.
Most of the levers available to ministers are, by definition, structural. If they want to make meaningful changes to Ofsted, or inspect MATs, or introduce new approaches to school intervention and support, they will have to get into the knotty structural questions.
The legal framework, such as it is, will need to be reconfigured. Whether the government figures all this out in time to include it in its initial bill - set to be introduced to Parliament in the coming months - is yet to be seen. We may see further legislation in the next session.
I am not convinced that the shorthand ‘structural’ actually does justice to the issue, rather than blurring over what it really is. Local authority maintained schools have to, by law, have governing bodies that oversee the running of the school including its budget, staffing, compliance with legislation such as the equalities act. Academies do not – all those matters can sit with a trust board for the MAT as a whole, appointed by ‘members’ (like company directors appointed by shareholders). ‘Local governing boards’, as they are called in academies, only the have the remit they are given by those unaccountable trust boards, and can have that remit taken back by them.
Local authority maintained schools’ governing bodies have to, by law, include elected parents and staff. Academy local governing boards do not, and nor do the trust boards that run the MAT as a whole.
Local communities have some say – however imperfectly – in ‘local authority maintained’ schools. Local councils can appoint governors, have a seat when headteachers are appointed, and have powers of intervention when things go wrong. Anyone in the local community can take up a case with their local councillor. Try that with a MAT!. ‘Accountability’ does not include anyone local, but is only upwards to the secretary of state via ‘regional directors’. And, no, that doesn’t work.
One by one communities have lost their structural link to local schools. And the radical wing of the academy movement – the ‘free schools programme’ – is taking funding from existing community schools with no-one locally every having a say (as in the Eton-Star super-selective sixth forms, for example). And for staff going into some MATs that includes losing their trades union recognition. (And of course the whole MAT system is hugely expensive9).
So that is the irony of the one mention of academies in the Labour manifesto being under the title ‘accountability’. These are not abstract ‘structural questions, but ones of democracy and accountability. Quite simply they are the question of whether or not the communities of and around schools should have any say or not in how those schools are run. Whether there should be transparency, or none.
The SEA view is that the Labour government must address this democratic deficit - “end this experiment and hand schools back to local democratic oversight and give communities back a voice in their schools.” The SEA manifesto9 outlines a number of measures the government could put in place to achieve this, including all schools and colleges having “governing bodies with delegated powers”. (It also refers to “elected staff, parent and student members”, “a duty on schools and colleges to set up students’ councils and other forms of democratic engagement of students”, local councils controlling admissions, establishing “representative parent and carer forums” and so on).
If the ‘Children’s Wellbeing Bill’ when published contains none of this, then Labour MPs should put down amendments to this effect. Most important in the immediate term would be, in my view:
· Ending the forced academisation of schools judged ‘inadequate’ to bring this into line with double-RIs.
· Ending the ‘free schools’ programme.
· Bringing back ‘local management of schools’ - by requiring every school to have a governing body with elected members with oversight of staffing, budget, policy etc.
These measures could sit alongside the current ‘mixed economy’ of academies and community schools, This could leave MATs intact but with a role closer to that of foundation trusts or dioceses, or could be more like the 1998 removal of ‘Grant Maintained status of 1196 schools. Either way, creating (or recreating) some form of local democratic oversight of schools is also essential to make all this work.