Time For Change in Education. Vote Labour
The SEA publishes its election statement. Reverse the damage the Tories have inflicted and start rebuilding a fair, more democratically accountable education service
SEA Election Statement
The Tories have caused a major crisis in state education through underfunding, marketisation and central ideological control. Child poverty is reaching record levels. Absence rates among pupils are increasing, the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and others widening, and teachers are leaving in droves. Provision for children with specials needs and disabilities (SEND) is being cut back leaving the most vulnerable bereft. School buildings are crumbling. Early years provision is in crisis too through underfunding and privatisation. Apprenticeship schemes are inadequate and post 16 vocational students are forced to follow untried T level courses, whilst successful qualifications are being defunded. There is a blatant attempt by the Tories to make courses in the arts and humanities unviable in universities which cater for a more working-class intake. Universities are under threat from the current funding regime based on tuition fees and restrictions on recruiting international students.
The Tories have created their own ‘blob’ made up of academy chiefs, OFSTED and a few chosen academics to run the system. They ignore and actively deride the voices and experiences of the profession through their professional and subject associations and their education unions. Most academics, parents, governors and, of course students, are similarly marginalised. Instead they have built a rigged market around unaccountable and wasteful academies.
In order to stop this mismanaged Tory project in its tracks and start to build a fairer and democratically accountable education service, we urge everyone in education to vote Labour.
We welcome Labour’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and commitments to:
· tax private school fees to free up resources for the state sector
· recruit more teachers- we hope the 6500 figure is in addition to the massive shortfall in recruitment caused by the Tories
· improve mental health services in schools, make quality careers advice available to all pupils and provide breakfast clubs for all.
· review curriculum and assessment giving a higher priority to oracy and creative subjects.
· reform the apprenticeships programme
Labour should recognise the depth of the crisis in the service and go further.
We urge Labour to:
· provide healthy free meals for all starting with primary pupils as Labour Wales and London plus Scotland have done, as part of a child poverty strategy
· tackle the funding crisis by committing to spend, over time, the same proportion of GDP (5.4%) on education as the last Labour government
· bring back an integrated, local authority run, early intervention programme similar to Sure Start
· end academisation and bring academies back under local authority oversight
· develop an in-depth response to the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, by restoring pay levels, removing unnecessary testing of pupils which check on schools and teachers, replacing OFSTED with a peer review process, instigating national pay and conditions for education workers and giving the teaching profession back its autonomy
· give parents, students and local communities a voice in the running of schools
· conduct a root and branch review of SEND and alternative provision with inclusion as its aim.
· commit to a new qualification framework along the lines of Tomlinson which treats academic and vocational elements equally
· tackle the higher education funding crisis by moving away from tuition fees and towards a grant-based system
Time to Fell the Oak
Ian Duckett, SEA NEC and Secretary of SEA East, calls on Labour to defund Oak Academy which started as a helpful resource during the pandemic but is now a vehicle for central control
Before the election was announced, Oak National Academy, would have been the focus of an independent review to ensure its “efficacy” as a public body. The Tories, under pressure from education publishers, wanted to establish the ‘market impact’ of Oak. In this blog I will attempt to chart the course of the project to support schools and learners in the pandemic.
Last year Matthew Hood, co-founder and Principal of Oak National Academy, the national online classroom and teacher resource hub created during the COVID-19 pandemic, said that school resource providers like Oak can help banish the notion that using ready-made resources is a ‘shortcut’. At that point, the TES warned that on-line providers like Oak, while not a ‘silver bullet’ represented the ‘start’ of a process that would solve schools’ problems like teacher shortages, staff absence and pupil attendance as well as bolstering the curriculum. Now many teachers would like to fire a silver bullet at it.
There are a few things to note about Oak. It provides teachers with free lessons and resources for pupils aged from 4 to 16. Oak also includes a bespoke curriculum for supporting pupils who normally attend specialist settings. In response to the 2020 United Kingdom education shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government set it up as a free bank of lessons and resources to support the switch to on line learning. It remained available for teachers to use throughout the 2020/21 academic year to support schools with disruption. Oak became an independent public body in 2022.
However, by the end of 2023 Schools Week was reporting (30 October, 2023) that leading academy trusts that helped to found the Oak National Academy at the height of the pandemic appeared to be in the process of severing ties with the government quango after choosing not to bid to supply lessons. Meanwhile, Schools Week, reported, that publishing and award body giant, Pearson has won one of the twelve contracts worth a total of £8.2 million to create curriculum packages for the website.
Even as far back as 2022, Schools Week was expressing concerns about the direction Oak was going in (9 September, 2022). Initially, it was called the Future Curriculum Non-Departmental Public Body (FCNDPB Limited) and registered as a new provider. When FCNDPB changed its name to Oak and control of most of the assets of the former Oak collaboration were redistributed .
At least seven of Oak’s original eleven trust curriculum partners have snubbed the new arms-length government body. Notable among that number are Ark Schools, Reach Academy Trust and United Learning. Ark Schools is said to be one of the country’s leading trusts in terms of curriculum development. Reach Academy Trust acted as a nursery for the little Oak sapling before it was turned into a national asset. As for United Learning, Sir Jon Coles, its chief executive has already torn up the roots of the Oak and removed the trust’s lessons from the platform. He pointed out that few of the original schools’ groups who supported Oak are now prepared to work with it showing just how far it has moved away from its original model.
This is somewhat at odds with Oak’s own assessment of its value. When reviewing its impact for the 2022/23 academic year, Reka Budai, Research and Evaluation Manager at Oak said: ‘The last school year saw big changes for Oak National Academy. We became an independent public body focused on creating and supporting in-class teaching resources built around a high-quality curriculum. However, one thing that has not changed is our unwavering commitment to measure our impact, understanding each year whether we are progressing towards our mission.’
When first established there was no other agenda for those involved. Oak was not a company, a business, or a government project – it was a collaboration. Reach Academy Trust employed a small central staff at their own risk and secured philanthropic funding to make it possible.
Next, Government provided some funding, which accelerated the progress of the project. However, they expected something in return and have now assumed more control. During the period of extended funding, there was a management attempt to ‘float off’ as a private profit-making body.
During the academic year 2022/23, the DfE established Oak as a legal entity, which it owned. Its purpose is now a long way from the original charitable Covid response. It started to procure and promote a set of curriculum resources which exemplify ministers’ curriculum ideals. Increasingly, it has become part of centralisation and the growing encroachment on curriculum matters by government since 1988. Now government seems to have decided on a preferred model of how to teach everything. This now includes lesson-by-lesson schemes, which books to read, as well as what it wants teachers to say and not say. The Oak approach is in danger of regimenting the delivery of the National Curriculum in an unprecedented way undermining teacher autonomy and professionalism.
Labour should close Oak Academy leaving the resources it has created available for schools and teachers to use if they choose. It should divert the funding to collaborative projects to provide ideas and resources for Labour’s curriculum changes for example the importance of oracy and creativity.