A challenge to your thinking

Written by James Kempton and published in James Kempton is the Leader of Islington Council on Sat 12th Jan 2008

The pupil premium marks a welcome shift in Lib Dem education policy. It contrasts with higher spending, smaller class sizes, greater teacher autonomy in the classroom, slimming down inspections. To date our policy platform has had more than a hint of defending the provider interest and of teacher knows best, which is not the sort of Liberalism I feel comfortable with.

While Blair's "education, education, education" was centre stage nothing we said mattered very much - it does now. Magpie Blair (stealing higher spending and early years policy from us, and GM-type schools and Chris Woodhead's Ofsted from the Tories) has gone. And as politics realigns on more traditional lines, no area offers greater political opportunity for us than education policy. But in seeking to assert for the first time in the C21st where the LibDems stand on Education policy, it would be a mistake to simply rework past policy lines. There are elements we must take with us, but in my view we must largely build anew.

I have space here for just three ideas: funding pupils not schools; making schools accountable for pupils' progression; more engagement with employers.

Funding pupils not schools

The pupil premium's concept of attaching funding to a wider group of individual pupils needs is a good place to start. We must break the notion that schools can receive funding based on pupil number and pupil needs and then spend it as they wish. We need to begin to explore mechanisms where the parent, and as the children get older, the pupil is seen as the budget holder for education rather than the school. The easiest place to pilot this reform is in the 14-19 phase. We should develop policies to embed it there first.

Making schools accountable for pupils' progression

We should abandon exam based league tables. These obscure the obvious fact that the end point of schooling is not an exam rather should be about giving pupils the skills and qualifications to access the next thing they want to do. So schools would be assessed against college or university places achieved, acceptances onto apprenticeships etc and schools would continue to carry some responsibility for retention rates in these progression routes. Failure would no longer be based on numbers of A*-C passes, but on the number of young people not in employment education or training (NEETs) at 16 18 and to some date beyond. Ofsted's role as the schools hate figure would probably be taken over by those providing independent advice and guidance to pupils and parents. And unlike it is now this would be truly independent of the school/college. And over time primary schools (and early years providers) would be accountable in the same way.

More engagement with employers

We should oppose extending the legal school leaving age to 18 and instead invest in the young person's entitlement to a school or college place or apprenticeship or other supported learning. Achieving this would replace a focus on criminalising NEETs with a real focus on quality and relevant education as well as enabling better engagement of employers.

Starting here would not give us an education policy based around governance arrangements with schools, or class sizes or the number of qualified maths and science teachers. If the past ten years have proved anything it is that to focus on schools as institutions is to miss the point about what they should actually do. My approach would give the LibDems a policy about pupils and schools and a policy about bridging young people into economically active adulthood. It would also offer a key role for local government as children's champions and the providers of independent information, advice and guidance through which future generations are empowered to achieve their aspirations and potential.