We must learn how to be free
TOO little stress in your life? Become a parent governor at your local school. For the past 18 months I have undertaken this role at a nice, mostly middle-class school in the Midlands.
I stood for the post on a “platform” of bringing better communication to parents and to deploy a smattering of common sense. The first worked, the second is a vain hope.
Over the past 18 months each crisis that has befallen the school and its governors has been caused by the council. Most irritating was when it simply “stole” our wonderful deputy head on secondment so she could run a failing school. Thanks for nothing.
Then it wanted to double the size of the school, only to change its mind. Budgets have also been cut, only for bureaucrats to miraculously find some cash if you stand up to them. Now, on another whim, they want to rewire the school at a cost of £180,000 (to you!), and we have to pay £20,000. Good, eh?
Last week my saviour appeared to arrive in the form of new Education Secretary Michael Gove. He said primary schools, as well as secondary schools, can now apply for academy status, releasing them from the control of the local authority. “Hurrah!” was my first reaction. My second was: “It’ll never get past our governing body.”
What is an “academy”? Set up by the last government, this status allows schools to opt out of the local authority. Some have private sponsors, such as Carpetright king Lord Harris. Most importantly they can set their own budgets, hire and fire teachers, set pay and hours, even choose what to teach. They also receive an extra eight per cent in cash from the Department of Education, money that would otherwise go to the council, to jointly run services in the borough such as school buses.
For our single-form entry school, with an annual budget of around £1million, that’s a huge injection of funds, about £80,000.
Many of the powers mentioned already rest with headteachers and, ultimately, the governing body but finding ourselves completely divorced from the borough would be truly inspiring. We would instantly be released from the choking bureaucracy that rains down upon schools every day. Last week we approved an e-safety document (protecting children from the internet) of more than 100 pages. Most of this could have been summed up in a single page and indeed was by one of our teachers.
Add to that constant “self-evaluation” and school improvement plans (SIPs) and you can see why headteachers do nothing but fill in forms and hold meetings. Just how valuable would it be to have them back in the classroom for a change?
In terms of the constant paper chase our last full governors’ meeting had to read and approve more than 100 pages of documentation, most of it from the council and the rest from the Education Department.
What reaction do you think the suggestion from myself and another parent governor to apply for academy status received though? Stunned silence. The headteacher hadn’t even looked into the possibility. It’s early days but already there’s stubborn resistance from the community governors(borough-appointed), one of whom suggested: “there’s going to be regulation on regulation.” I doubt it. Not with this Government. Another parent governor warned: “We have to be careful not to throw away Rome before we know what we’re going to put in its place.” Fair enough but let’s keep an open mind.
Our school is rated “good” by Ofsted so cannot automatically claim academy status but we may qualify in the next tranche.
Judging from initial reactions in the room there is a distinct love for bureaucracy and dependency. We have become accustomed to relying on someone else to sort out our problems and plan for the future. Those days are over simply because the ideas of the past have failed.
For a mid-table school such as ours, failing to sign up for academy status will mean a squeeze on our funds from the borough. There simply won’t be enough to go around but teachers and many governors still use local authority control as a crutch: someone else will look after me.
Throw away the crutch and walk on your own two feet.