QC’s opinion won’t please 3-tier fans
In the increasingly shrill and desperate bid by supporters of three-tier education to defend middle schools I have been accused of lots of things, including supporting two-tier because I want to have a primary school named after me (!!!).
Recently the frenzy has been over who takes the final decision, myself alone or the executive composed of nine members from all groups plus me as chairman, or by full council. Three-tier supports are arguing for full council.
As I have pointed out many times, to individual correspondents and the media, I would also prefer it taken by the full council of 36 members plus me. In the event of a tie, the Speaker would have the casting vote. In other words my vote would be one among 37.
This is not an issue which has been faced by any directly-elected mayor so it was decided to seek counsel’s opinion. It has now come back and I can’t help smiling at the irony.
The recommendation has to go to the executive. Any decision to change will go forward to full council. But if the decision is for status quo it can be taken by the executive and would be final.
In other words, if I and the executive were to take the decision it would signify that supporters of three-tier had won. If it goes to full council, it will still be to play for.
The middle-school defenders should remember the old saying: be careful what you wish for.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Having been educated under the 2-tier system, (actually, as infant and junior schools tend to be separate in Herts, even if on same site, “2 tier” doesn’t do exactly what it says on the tin and never has) I would observe that for any pupil of average ability and above, the last year of junior school and the first year of secondary school tend to be completely wasted.
Superficially, this is because the junior school is there to teach everyone up to a certain point, this takes some about a year longer than others to grasp, so the narrowly above average pupils reach this point aged ten and then the staff stick them in a corner with some reading matter or a chessboard and ignore them as long as they are quiet.
At secondary school, the only ones learning in the first year are the school staff and those utterly failed by the junior schools, as teachers try and find out what the new intake know and teach them anything they should know, but do not.
The government and teaching unions are happy with this, as it’s a real pain in the arse if some gifted child attempts to live up to his potential and gets ahead of the mass- -revealing that the majority of teachers know exactly enough to wing it through the curriculum and not a shred more.
However many tiers you have, what you need is a series of plug-in extra courses to keep the brains of the able ticking over while the others catch up. I don’t suggest that you attempt to actually realize their full potential, because this very obviously is not what central government wants and you would be stopped.
The more dumbed-down the national curriculum gets, the faster the more able pupils will cover the curriculum for their age range, so this problem can only get worse in the coming years.
In an ideal world, there would be an “escape stream” whereby any pupil who covered a given stage of the curriculum early, could be taken out for a while and taught something deeper and more meaningful, before re-integrating with his fellows. I think this might be wiser than the Daily Mail’s preferred option of grammar schools, which just shove pupils further and faster up the same linear track. But you might not be able to measure and tabulate depth and breadth so well.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
hello frank
well i am the person that wrote the coment about the Frank Branston Primary School, and i will say i wrote from the heart and i think this is not an inapropriate comment, as some one tha had to endure the last time bedford changed its education around, i think i can make a well balenced jugement of the pitfalls and time i takes to get it right, am i am sorry to say all the comments i see fill me with dread, firstly i have two children about to embark on there education, if this change will take place can you garantee that their education will not suffer, and can i hold you and the elected officials responsable even after you have left office to task over this and if nessary hold you responsable, i am willing to meet an talk over my concerns with if you so wish?
on another level i work in a school that will probaly close and due to my postion of being support staff and being by the time school close i will be 53 unlightly to find a new job, so i will be interested how you intend to address these issues across the county as many staff like myself will probaly become uninployed, as simple mathamatics says three in to two will not go, ok teachers still needed but the rest?? so how many jobs will go 200, 300, or by my best calculations 600??
one last point i am dislexic but i cope, but i fell through the system because in the last change no one cared and this may happen againe because all lower and upper staff will be strugaling to cope with all the new students and simply 700 lower and 2300 upper means you will miss the ones that need the help, and how long before small or lower schools that donot have the space to expand start to be moved, merged and closed dispite what your document says simple maths again
you can contact me on jonathanccna gmail dot com ok
regards jonathan Parsons
One time supporter and voter
July 13th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
On a more personal note;
I’ve a six year old who’s response to the question ‘What did you do today at School’ (State run) is more than often ‘The same as Yesterday - why do they do that Daddy ‘cos it’s boring’. Two or three tier I doubt anything will change except the class size will increase and the personal attention will go down even further - I’ve sat in on some classes and the majority of the teachers time has been taken up by students with English as a second language - I don’t have a problem per se with that but MY CHILDS education is suffering as a result and I can see this becoming much worse if the classes were governed by a Head having to cope with a larger age range with the results measured on an arbitrary fashion ie what percentage of students passed rather than what percentage of students attained their potential?
July 13th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Some good points but not all specifically about 2/3 tier. As always don\’t rely on the schools totally, much education goes on at home, equally schools should be able to cope with the gifted and talented children. I went through three tier and the prospect of exams came as a bit of a harsh reality and there was very little time to get up to speed. My experience then, and since is that middle schools are not sufficiently focused on exams and like it or not results count (yes there is much beyond this that children need to be taught but back to my first point).
July 13th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
In response to Jonathan Parsons Nobody can guarantee that two tier would be an improvement. Equally, nobody can prove that three-tier weould be better. All that is known is that the current three-tier model is not producing good results at GCE O-level stage and that is what parents and employewrs want to see.
The vast majority of educationalists support two-tier and while they MIGHT be wrong, if one ignores experts what has one got left.
And I still say that accusing me of going through this process to get my name on a primary school is insulting. My desire is to do my best for Bedford children - many as yet unborn - in decades to come. It is your privilege to say I am going the wrong way about it but don’t impugn my movtives.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:15 am
I have to declare an interest, being Frank’s daughter. I was educated in the three-tier system. I recall middle school as being something of a limbo period. We weren’t in junior school any more but nor were we focusing on anything in particular (not meant as a criticism of our teachers, who had to work within the system). It was a waiting pool for upper school. I recall there being a vague awareness of the fact that sooner or later we would need to do O-levels or CSEs (as they were then) and there was a certain amount of anxiety amongst some pupils about which streams we might be put in once we got to upper school.
While in middle school it was not possible to get used to the teachers who would be teaching the exam curriculum or the subjects that might be on offer at whichever upper school we ended up in and exam preparation possibly ended up being more truncated and disjointed than it would have been had there just been one change of school. The system simply meant moving schools not once but twice for no apparent reason, with all the disruption that that entails for children and parents. Yes, there are issues about school and class size and the extent to which children’s individual needs can be catered for, but these issues will exist whatever system is adopted (or retained) and separate solutions will need to be found for them.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:57 am
naomi
i guess you were on of the gifted upper sets then, and since you and i were at middle school, But things have moved and improved beyond anthing you may reconise, but poping to a local middle school near you and see for your self, you may see that Middle is worth saving or at least looking at
jonathan
July 14th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Naomi’s comments were entirely unsolicited and I did not know she was writing. And it’s six months to her next birthday.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Dear Mr Branston,
I have to declare an interest, an interest in democratic decisionmaking when it comes to such major issues as these. So I’m not sure what you are smiling about - I don’t get it - but am glad that it will come to full council. For someone who had (from what I have read and heard in the media) declared an open mind on the matter, you appear remarkably smug about something, the nuances of which escape me.
The problem as I see it is that your officers have wished to obstruct a meaningful consultation by presenting a false choice. There will be conflicts of interest on all sides but at the root of it, we all want improvements in the most general sense. The consultation document is clearly biased with the implication that the existing system has no realistic hope of improvement (in the narrow but important area of resulsty statistics). Perhaps those constructing the consultation didn’t believe those being consulted are intelligent enough to be able to weigh up two sides of an argument.
I say thank goodness there are some 3-tier fans because at least that means we get to hear some of the arguments and a proper debate.
For such a far reaching decision, I have been appalled by the paucity of information that has been presented or seems to be available. The old Bedford County Council did a far better job of presenting a detailed technical document which is now out-of-date. The consultation reads like piece of propaganda once you start to look at it in a bit of detail.
As our mayor, I would like to see you promoting debate and being genuinely glad when democratic process is the winner.
Best regards,
Martin Hamilton
July 14th, 2009 at 9:21 am
thanks for that but i simply asked has she been to a middle school in recent times as seems she did not enjoy or find usefull but as it was maby at least 25 yeas ago time and middle schools have moved on and now are very much a learing envroment but perhaps you could both pop in and see one day
July 14th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Well I have recently left the two tier system (and yes, that is recently enough to have taken these new-fangled GCSE whatsits). After having been dragged through the state two tier system I can genuinely say, the faults that plague the 3 tier system seem to be exactly the same as the criticisms I would level at the two tier system. In junior school I was coached relentlessly for SATs (entirely useless) without sufficient facilities to even teach anything as useful as a modern foreign language let alone access to a proper science lab (unlike the middle schools). You are then dumped in a high school half full of children and half full of young adults, that is so huge you don’t even know the names of half the teachers. The teachers are all concerned with GCSE results meaning that from age 11 - 13 (3 years) your education will take a back seat EVERY time there is a problem, because resources must be directed to the GCSE students. Now I have friends that also found school to be disjointed and uninspiring, anxiety causing and fraught, but those that have been through the three tier system say the same as those through the two tier. The problem seems to be a lack of resources for those less and those more able students leading to middle of the road teaching, not the fact that there is one more school change at a different age. I would like to know how many 16-18 year olds coming out of each system have been asked for their opinion of what they have experienced - it would be recent enough to be relevant.
I would also question the logic of spending money changing the system, when the flaw obviously (to those of us in education, anyway) is a lack of funding not when/if we change schools.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Martin Hamilton can’t see what I’m smiling about so let me explain.
Three tier supporters have been fearful that a decision on reorganisation taken by the executive would most likely be in favour of two-tier. So they were whipping up a campaign for a full council decision (which I support anyway).
As it turns out, the only decision that could be taken by the executive is NOT to go ahead with two-tier. If it wants to pursue that option the full council MUST decide.
The irony is, therefore, that a decision by the executive, which they were most vociferous in opposing, would be the one that gave them what they want. Geddit?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Naomi,
Yes I agree the direct educational benefits of the middle tier are a little suspect, but would you have liked moving from a School with a few hundred students (in many cases much less) to a School of a few thousands (if the changes go ahead) without gently being eased into the idea, through a second tier with more but not substantially more students?
So perhaps it’s not just about education, but the issue may also involve things like Bullying, Self Esteem and Motivation as well as many other considerations - not least saving money.
When will we get to vote on this issue?
July 14th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Jonathan Parsons wants to know why I have not used his latest comment. It is because we have already published one verry long comments and two shorter ones from him today. I do not want the comments section monopolised by one person.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I have heard many representations from those representing Save Middle Schools. Their overriding concern has been that the process should be democratic. This is not to say that they would be overjoyed if a democratic decision went against their wishes but they would repect it, if the process was fair. I am sad that the Mayor adopts a cynical tone in his bog; he may well have been on the receiving end of extreme comments from some, but he should rise above this and accept that those who are organising SMS do so out of a conviction of fair play and a desire that BOTH SIDES of the debate are clearly presented. They will not be upset that a decision to change must be made by the full council.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
But I DO think both sides should be fairly represented. I would have thought the comments on this blog demonstrate that. My comment was merely that there is an irony in the situation. Irony and cynicism are not the same.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:48 am
The number of tiers isn’t what’s wrong with the system.
Even if two tiers is “better” in some way, is it better enough to be worth many millions of pounds?
That money should not be spent until there has been a debate, not just about three and two tiers, but about other ways in which the cost of that conversion could be invested in education, possibly to greater effect.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:44 am
The Government has allocated £340 million to Bedford under the Building Schools for the Future. This would be enough to build or modernise all our upper schools. Despite what may have been said in some quarters I am certain that no more than a small part of this will be available if we maintain status quo. It will be for the council to decide on the relative importance of the issues.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:22 am
I thank the Mayor for responding to my comment. May I clarify what I was meaning?
The cynicism I mentioned refers to the headline, “QC’s opinion won’t please 3-tier fans”. Why would the Mayor think that this decision would displease “3-tier fans”, unless he supposes that they regard their personal preferences as more important than living in a democracy? I don’t know whether or not those who inhabit political circles adopt the view that you should achieve your goals by whatever means, but that most certainly in not the viewpoint of those running the SMS campaign.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Dear Mr Mayor,
Thank you for your reply but taking your comment reproduced below - I am sorry but I no longer geddit (your word) - I am getting more confused.
You stated - “As it turns out, the only decision that could be taken by the executive is NOT to go ahead with two-tier. If it wants to pursue that option the full council MUST decide.”
These two sentences do not make sense to me. You seem to be saying that if the Executive chooses not to go ahead then the full council must then endorse that decision.
But that is in contradiction to what Mr Simpkins has written and I quote “For clarity, if the Executive decide that there should be no change to the school structure there will be no need for the Special Council meeting”
Which is it? These can’t both be right can they?
Best regards,
Martin Hamilton
July 15th, 2009 at 7:30 am
One welcomes money spent on education, of course.
But £340M for one Borough seems a lot and might translate into an impossibly large overall sum if a similar promise was actually made good in all Boroughs and Counties.
Which makes me wonder if the kind and generous allocation has any purpose other than to provoke “debate” and divide a non-labour council?
Am I cyncial, or have I, like everyone else, just completed twelve years training in smelling rats?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Dear Mayor,
We could debate the positive feeling the word “allocated” creates, but whether one’s preference is for significant change or incremental change, it is actually the funding of the move from lower to primary that is the biggest financial concern with the proposal.
As you say, £340m spread between 8 secondary schools is a well funded programme. However, the other piece of this jigsaw is the maybe £45m that needs to fund turning 50-odd lower schools into primaries.
I will reiterate that, because of its huge significance - £340m spread across 8 secondary schools and £45m spread across 50 primary schools.
By definition, move two year groups from middle schools to uppers (secondaries) and retaining two year groups from middles to lowers (primaries) means that broadly the same number of additional children will need to be accommodated at both ends of this transition. Most people would accept that secondaries are more expensive because of their requirement for specialist facilities and so would expect a larger proportion of funding to go to secondaries - but, hey, come on there is a massive disparity in the Borough’s assumptions. I will say again, £340m between 8 schools and just £45m between 50 schools - the numbers are just not comparable.
Looking at this objectively we have figures produced for the new Biddenham loop schools where Mike Berrill has needed to propose two solutions; 3-tier and 2-tier and the difference between a 3-tier lower and a 2-tier primary is £2.7m. This £2.7m difference between lower and primary is for 2-form entry.
My school is in the slightly unusual position that we have architectural drawings for how we would accommodate a change to 2-tier primary. We have 1/2-form entry and the build cost of the change is around 800k.
Comparing Mike Berrill’s figure with our figure demonstrates quite a good correlation between the costs of moving from 3-tier lower to 2-tier primary at around £1.4m per 1-form entry.
In the consultation document we end up with (roughly) 75-form entry across the Borough or around £100-110m to transform all lowers to primaries.
All of the above assumes full permanent accommodation for children as I understand is the plan. The above also doesn’t take into account any overhead incurred by working through a LEP (the NAO’s view seems to be that there is overhead, rather than savings in the experience todate).
As I stated at the beginning, we could debate a preference for incremental rather than massive change but the numbers are deeply worrying whatever your view.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I too am struggling with the Mayors sense of irony. In particular ‘be careful what you wish for.’ It escapes me.
More importantly does the Mayor recognises the irony of his statement “The Government has allocated £340 million to Bedford under the Building Schools for the Future. This would be enough to build or modernise all our upper schools. Despite what may have been said in some quarters I am certain that no more than a small part of this will be available if we maintain status quo.”
Yes statements have been made to the effect that 2 or 3 tier makes no difference. But our Mayor does not believe them. However our Mayor does believe that in the present economic climate and with an almost certain change of government the money will still come to Bedford. Stroll on.
By the way on an educational matter ‘mayor says’ needs a capital M
July 15th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Not directly relevant to the debate (apologies fellows) but a salient point I feel.
Blog space isn’t limited is it? I would be rather interested to see what Mr Parsons had to say (I am sure those that aren’t are clever enough to scroll past it). In my humble opinion, Mr Mayor, I can sensor my own material. As I see it that is half the point of a blog, as opposed to a newspaper.
Just my opinion, which I hope isn’t one too many sir?
July 17th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
All involved in this debate should take a good hard look at the collapse of the Learning and Skills Council, which led colleges all over the country to believe that they could have £90-140M each for upgrades, until it was realized that all the promises added up to several times its budget. Leading to hundreds of millions spent on planning, and even building commencement, which is now abandoned and utterly wasted. By promising colleges the moon, they effectively deprived them of the money and facilities they already had.
I do not believe that you will get the £340M at all, although no-one will admit this until some time after you have committed to the change. Because once you do that, you will have to go through with it somehow, whether you get the money or not.
Frank, there is no way on Earth that the government can honour this pledge (unless Bedford is the only Borough the pledge has been made to, which I would see as unlikely), and there is a horrible precedent for directly equivalent pledges not being honoured, because those who made them were away with the fairies.
The press and the select committee haven’t yet put two and two together, but the government had been toying with the idea of going to the country last May, and if it had done, the election would have taken place BEFORE the LSC’s false promises were exposed, and just about every constituency in England would have thought it was getting a £90M new college or expansion of an existing one. I note that the head of the LSC did resign, but was generously treated (£100,000 severance pay!) so his apparent incompetence in no way dismayed the Prime Minister.
Ask the bosses at Bedford College if they truly believe you will actually get the money now! You could find yourselves being forced to implement an unfunded conversion. Beware!
July 18th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I am as cynical as anybody about government statements but last week I was present when Bedford’s plans were being reviewed by civil servants seconded to the BSF programme.
They praised the work Bedford had done in preparation for Building Schools for the Future and said unequivocally that the money was committed to Bedford once its strategy and preparatory work had been approved.
I am good at listening for weasel words and I didn’t hear; and nor did the Bedford officers who were also present. My judgement is that the civil servants meant what they said providing the preparatory work is done before a new government takes over.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
Sadly I am not surpised at the piece of rubbish that was handed to me masquerading as a “Consultation document” - much of which was taken up with asking which language I spoke, which ethnicity I am etc i.e total irrelevance - given the general ineptitude and ego parading that is our local government.
I have six children in Bedfordshire schools at the moment - some in each tier - so have some experience of the current set up both as a parent and as an ex pupil. I cannot believe you are willing to trash such an excellent system! Have you actually physically been to see the size of our lower schools and their grounds? Do you not realise how small and cramped many of these are? Bedford Road or Camestone Lower for example are very built up sites with stupidly limited play space - add another two year groups to them and they will be intolerable.
I would maybe have taken these proposals a bit more seriously had you proposed building infant units on -our generally very generous and well equipped - middle school sites, surely these are better able to house larger numbers of children and the associated extra parents, siblings etc for events?
But I suppose you won’t get such a large pay off selling the cramped lower school sites will you? Poor developers we must make sure they get their pound of flesh, no matter the cost to our children eh?
Naomi Branston, how may children do you have in the school system?
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your middle school years, I enjoyed mine very much indeed, worked hard, learnt a lot and enjoyed moving up through the school and the rite of passage of leaving and going up to Upper School and the fresh motivation and excitement of that and seeing that currently in my childrens lives too. Why you feel the need to pander to daddy’s latest scheme?
Please now stop mucking around with my childrens life chances, get the funding that (possibly) is available and help the struggling schools with it, it is not an issue of when you change schools it is an issue of being statstics obsessed - please watch The Wire season 3, you are running the risk of very much the same thing but you are so blinkered and self serving you don’t want to admit the damage you’ll be doing.
I’ll be happy to see you in court should my children suffer in the slightest. As i’ve said I barely trust this local government to run what is there currently let alone implement a whole new system!
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I wonder why supporters of the status quo feel the need to hector anybody who disagrees with them. I am pleased to say that if either of my daughters disagreed with me they would say so, perhaps privately, but they certainly wouldn’t agree in public just to please me. In any case, they no more know which way I will finally vote than you do.
And, Carlie Felts, the threat in your final paragraph will not affect my judgement one way or the other.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Perhaps the force of peoples feelings should alert you to the fact that we feel very very strongly about this issue? There is a pervasive feeling of “I’m all right Jack” because the decision makers don’t really have children at these schools, many of you have been happy for your children to be educated in the Bedfordshire three tier system and taken advantage of the great all round benefits of it and now want to pull the ladder up after you leaving MY children to goodness knows what!
July 24th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Just count the number of comments I have allowed from tree-tier supporters before you complain. My objection to some of the emails is that they will not accept that people on the other side of the argument believe as passionately as they do but prefer to make their case without sneering at their opponents. Ms Felts’ contributions are a good example of the latter type of comment.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:52 am
Little bit hypocritical when you are renowned for personal attacks on people?
Which people on the pro two tier argument believe passionately? The Lower school and Upper school heads who obviously want to keep their jobs? They’ve been happy enough with the status quo though haven’t they? Happy to accept a wage for something we now hear they don’t really believe in? I can’t accept that as passion or they’d not have accepted jobs in the three tier system surely?
Off topic but I spotted two of the yellow buses sitting around today, like you said elsewhere it is a real shame they seem to be underused. Would it be at all possible (not knowing the ins and outs of the funding etc) for them to be used for some of the free bus pass transport? I.e 10am to 2pm in term time? Or for school trips? I know a lot of the money we pay for school trips goes on the coach and insurance, i’d far rather be subsidising the smart yellow buses. Would be nice to see them used for more school transport too, some of the stagecoach buses are ancient.
July 24th, 2009 at 7:28 am
And heads of middle schools aren’t concerned with keeping their jobs?
I can assure you that all the upper school heads and a large majority of lower school heads are passionately pro two-tier which makes a very large majority of schools supporting two tier.
My objection to the line being taken by some SMS supporters is that they are unable to accept that people who disagree with them are as sincere as they are.
With regard to school buses, this is a substantial element of our review of public transport (see front lead of T & C two weeks ago).
July 24th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I think you’ve missed my point:
Upper and lower heads pro two tier beacause the proposals will see them keep their jobs
Middle school heads anti two tier as they will be out of a job.
I don’t read the T & C anymore as it seems to be mainly promotional material for the public schools or cobbling together articles by repeating one statement over and over but i’ll have a look at the website to see what was said. I’d love to send my eldest to school by bus but stagecoach cheapest bus pass is over £200 per term!
July 25th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Is it a good thing that there is so much passion about this - surely there should be a strong emphasis on using our heads. Change is always difficult, especially when there is little clear evidence. My experiences make me think two-tier would be better, I have no regrets but from talking to friends with similar backgrounds I think my time at middle school was fun but educationally marking time. I would suggest a little less passion and certainly no personal attacks is what is needed, just rational debate.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The consultation period is now ended so with that comment, with which I heartily agree, this subject is now closed