Beside the seaside

Written by Andy Cook

What are we to make of the political landscape for independent schools in light of the political conference season which ended last week with the Conservatives in Blackpool?

Let’s start with Labour. The big themes set by Ed Balls at the conference were: tailoring education to individual needs, improving results for the most socially disadvantaged and aiming for a world class education for all. Interestingly while Balls had some unkind words to say about academic selection, he always spoke of aiming for the standards enjoyed by the “privileged few”. With Gordon Brown promising much more 1-2-1 education, as part of his tailoring agenda, another boost in state sector funding per pupil would seem to be on the cards.

Off platform, Balls and schools minister Jim Knight handled almost all of the fringe events. OFSTED received a battering from the unions (”death by tick boxes” was one memorable phrase) and Balls said that he wanted it to become less burdensome.

Balls also faced some flak from members over academies. The oft repeated question was: “why can a flat earth society buy into our children’s education for 2m?” Balls said: “We are trying to bring academies into the mainstream of education . . . they are becoming part of the family of local schools.”

Partnerships were also a big theme. As well as closer working between schools, Balls is keen to see schools working with children’s services.

Over at the LibDem conference, education front bencher David Laws came up with the one of the surprises of the week: a pro-choice, independent-leaning philosophy. “We wont tell head teachers how to spend money . . . we will give teachers the freedom to innnovate . . . choice is not a dirty word.” The caveat, though, is no freedom on admissions and a minimum set curriculum.

Finally the Conservatives. Heavily based on the widely trailed public services review carried out by Dame Pauline Perry and Stephen Dorrell (Conservatives Public Sector White Paper), the press picked up on Michale Gove’s “blazers for all” policy but behind that facade were serious proposals for pioneer schools (similar to US charter schools), a benchmarking scheme called Comprehensively Excellent, more power to heads over discipline, reduced liability for accidents on school trips, an end to forced inclusion of special needs students and a return to Churchill on the curriculum.

I’m only four weeks into this job and the sector (other than as a parent and partner to a state school teacher), so I’m not sure what to make of it all other than: if it’s Labour we will all need to review our partnerships with state schools and children’s services; and if it is the Tories we may be facing some interesting new competition (or opportunities) from pioneer schools. What’s more, if the LibDems hold the balance, it is unlikely to be a disaster.

What do you think?

Andy Cook

ISC Communications Director

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 12:10 pm by Andy Cook and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.