Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 24 November 2023

And for education, the big story has been why was there so little in the Statement for education?

‘Barely a mention’ according to ASCL’s Geoff Barton; ‘sidelined’ as the NAHT saw it; ‘little here for further education’, the verdict from David Hughes of the Association of Colleges (AoC); ‘a missed opportunity’, the view from bodies such as the Sutton Trust and the CIPD.

And to make things worse, no indication in the Statement either of any increase in departmental spending for the foreseeable future. Rather, a likely hefty £19.1bn drop against earlier forecasts in the real value of department spending by 2027/8 because of high inflation. As the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) judiciously put it: ‘this would present some challenges’. Challenges like ‘pressure on the DfE to cut funding in FE, a sector which has lived through a decade of funding’ as David Hughes explained.   

It may be, as some have suggested, that the government is holding fire on the big announcements, including those for education, until next year’s Spring Budget in the hope of providing a strong election platform. Either way, it’s left many in education feeling pretty left down after the PM’s promise at the Party Conference last month to prioritise education spending. 

As for what was actually in the small print for education, here are ten points from the full report. It’s not all new. 

• Commitment to deliver the Advanced British Standard (ABS).
• Reference to the £600m over the next two years already announced for early career teachers, the Education Endowment Fund, and 16-19 support.
• Per-pupil funding claimed to be at its highest level in real terms in 2024/5.
• The 2% cut in NI likely to help ‘an average teacher on £44,300 with an annual gain of over £630’.
• Support for an expansion of the Youth Mobility Scheme and for the creation of a National Academy focused on Mathematical Sciences.
• £4.5bn over five years for eight manufacturing sub-sectors, including automotive, life sciences, and clean energy.
• £50m for a two-year pilot to encourage apprenticeship growth in key sectors.
• Implementation of the Back to Work Plan announced last week. 
• Confirmation of the increase announced the day before, of the increase in and extension of the National Living Wage.
• £7m over three years to help tackle antisemitism in schools and universities, and for organisations like the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Reactions to the Statement have inevitably been mixed. 

On the positive side, the CBI argued that 'the Chancellor was right to prioritise ‘game-changing’ interventions that will fire the economy'. The British Chambers of Commerce said ‘it gave hope to business’, while the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said ‘it was a step in the right direction’. 

More broadly, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IfS) expressed some concern about how the NI cut would be paid for and how far this would lead to further squeezes on public service budgets, let alone personal taxes. Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation said "the government was delivering a grim new record on living standards". And the Chair of the OBR said, "while the economy has proven to be more resilient to the shocks of the pandemic and the energy crisis, we now expect it to grow more slowly over the next five years".

More critically, the Shadow Chancellor noted that “taxes will be higher at the next election than they were the at the last”. The New Economics Foundation said it was a missed opportunity to tackle the cost-of-living, and early years providers said the Statement prioritised pints over childcare.

So what else has been happening in education this week?

In general news, the National Audit Office (NAO) published an overview report on the DfE, complete with useful charts and breakdown of the department’s £83+bn budget for the year. The report ends with five things to look out for, potential concerns perhaps, including the rollout of childcare entitlements, changes to children’s social care, progress in the SEND plans, potential changes to Ofsted inspections, and college funding and financial reporting. 

Elsewhere, it’s been a week of big conferences. The CBI recovered its business voice with a well-attended annual conference addressed by both major political parties. It publishes its Business Manifesto for the first 100 days of a new government next week.

The British Council hosted its Going Global Conference with a focus on ‘sustainable, scalable and equitable partnerships in tertiary education.’ As UUK President Dame Sally Mapstone and VC at St Andrews outlined, “Universities are stronger when they work alongside their international partners to find solutions to shared challenges”.

And the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) held its annual conference, with the President of the Association declaring, 'we need female voices in every sphere, and every part of our world not for personal advancement, but because it will make the lives of every person in our world better, just as we need all voices as that diversity makes the world richer'. 

Moving on to schools, where there has been a number of important reports out this week including a fairly damning report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee on school buildings. “The Committee is extremely concerned that the DfE does not have a good enough understanding of the risks in school buildings to keep children and staff safe”. Among its ten recommendations, it called for an accountable strategy within the next year from government to sort things out.

Elsewhere for schools, the consultancy Public First published a legacy report on Free Schools, suggesting that the programme was at risk of losing momentum. Teach First celebrated twenty years, and the think tank Policy Exchange raised concerns in a new report about ‘self-censorship and security fears among British teachers’. 

And two reports carried on the debate around school accountability, and more particularly the role of Ofsted, with one, from the IPPR think tank, providing a road map to an alternative system of ‘improvement through empowerment’ and a new system of reporting school performance.

And talking of Ofsted, the inspection body published its 2022/23 annual report this week, the last under Amanda Spielman. 

The report has a mass of summary detail on the performance of different parts of the education and care system, based on inspection evidence from over the past year, and ends on a positive note. 'The evidence of this report shows that we can be optimistic about education and care in England'. That said, one of the most telling comments in the report is about ‘the fracturing of the traditional social contract between schools and families', leading to problems around attendance, behaviour and more. This remains one of the challenges for the future.

FE this week saw further debate in Westminster about the apprenticeship levy, with Opposition MPs calling for greater flexibility and the skills minister stoutly defending the current system. “The reality is that the moment the apprenticeship levy is diluted, there will be gaming of the system and much less spending on apprenticeships”. Either way, at least the Autumn Statement put more money into apprenticeships, although as Tom Richmond tweeted, it’s not quite clear how the money will be used.

In HE this week, tertiary provision has been a notable theme this week, with both London Higher and HEPI hosting reports on the issue. As David Phoenix, V.C. of LSBU and author of the HEPI report put it 'England’s post-16 education system suffers from so many multiple and overlapping dysfunctions that it has become a misnomer to call it a system at all'. 

There are interesting ideas in both reports about how to create a more coordinated and locally responsive tertiary system, with the calls for action becoming increasingly vocal.

Links to most of these stories below, starting with the headlines.

The top headlines of the week:

• ‘Ofsted fuelling ‘football manager culture’ of firing school heads, says report’ (Monday).
• ‘Labour calls for exam help for pupils affected by RAAC crisis’ (Tuesday)
• ‘OECD chief: UK doesn’t need more people going to university/THE’ (Wednesday).
• ‘Hunt accused of abandoning schools as Autumn Statement ignores concrete crisis’ (Thursday).
• ‘School leaders in England feel lockdown ‘broke spell’ of bond with parents’ (Friday).

More specifically ...

Schools:

• School buildings. The Public Accounts Committee published a critical report on the state of school buildings including RAAC and asbestos, calling for the government to get a better grip of the problems andto set out a strategy for managing repairs and refurbishment.
• Exams 2024. Ofqual published guides for students, schools and colleges on exam and assessment arrangements for 2024, running through who does what in the exam system along with preparation for exams, assessment and grading procedures, special considerations, appeals, malpractice and useful contacts.
• Annual Report. Ofsted published its 2022/23 Annual Report suggesting that with improvements in reading, more schools rated good or outstanding this year, progress in teacher training and growing interest in the skills agenda there is much to be optimistic about as the Chief Inspector prepares to step down but highlighting continuing concerns about teacher recruitment and pupil absenteeism and significantly post-pandemic, a worrying breakdown in the relationship between parents and schools. 
• Times table. The government reported on this year’s Yr 4 multiplication tables checks showing an average attainment score of 20.2, with 29% of eligible pupils scoring full marks, slightly up on last year with London the highest performing region.
• 2023 GCSE grades.The data analysis body School Dash examined GCSE exam grades from this year, finding that while in many cases GCSE grades had returned to ‘normal’ post-pandemic this was not the case for all, with many pupils, especially in schools with low Ofsted ratings, failing to achieve grades notably in English and maths.
• School improvement. The IPPR think tank published an authored report proposing a new model of school improvement which ‘moves away from high-stakes accountability to empowering both teachers and schools,’ through for instance the use of ‘narrative-driven reports for parents.’
• Ofsted. The NAHT published the results of a survey of its members on Ofsted, indicating that most had little confidence in the inspectorate’s approach or judgments, promising to provide a full report of their findings for the new Chief Inspector to consider. 
• Free schools. The consultancy Public First published its report, commissioned by the New Schools Network, into the free school programme, arguing that it had been one of the most radical education reforms of the last 30 years but was currently in danger of losing momentum, calling as a result for a new commitment from government focused on innovative approaches.
• Teacher security. The Policy Exchange think tank called for statutory guidance to be issued for schools and teachers around freedom of expression as it published a new report showing teachers adopting self-censorship and expressing worries about their physical safety in light of growing activism.
• Exclusions. FFT Education Datalab looked at where school-age pupils who had been permanently excluded over the year ended up, finding three-quarters enrolled in a state funded school, 34% in state funded alternative provision but 12% in ‘no observed destination’.
• School holidays. The Welsh government put forward plans, that have not been well received, to cut the summer holiday to five and possibly four weeks with the weeks transferred to the autumn half-term break instead, claiming the long summer break was too disruptive to children’s learning.

Important numbers

Not-to-be-missed numbers of the week:

• 2.8%. The forecast for headline inflation by the end of next year, according to the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement.
• 0.7%. The growth forecast for the UK economy next year, rising to 1.4% the year after but down on previous forecasts according to the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement.
• 700,000. The number of people with health conditions that the government is looking to get back into work over the next five years, according to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
• £11.44 an hour. The National Living Wage from next April, up from £10.44 currently according to a Treasury announcement.
• 3½%. The drop in living standards by 2024/5 compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to economic analysis from the OBR.
• £203.3bn. The face value of all outstanding student loans as of 31 March this year, according to a report by the NAO into the DfE. 
• 2.2m. The number of vocational and related qualification certificates issued in the last quarter, July-September, down compared to the same period last year but up for the year overall according to the latest figures from Ofqual.
• 700,000. The number of pupils in England being educated in schools that need major rebuilding or refurbishment, according to the Public Accounts Committee.
• 93.7%. The pupil attendance rate across schools in England for the w/commencing 6 November, according to latest government figures.
• 3,104. The number of permanent exclusions for the autumn term 2022/23, up on the previous year but slightly down on the final pre-pandemic term according to latest government figures. 
• 701. The number of free schools currently open with a further 142 approved to open in the future, according to a report from Public First.
• 29%. The number of Yr 4 pupils in England who scored full marks in their multiplication tables check this year, according to latest government figures.

Everything else you need to know ...

What to look out for next week:

• Pearson National Teaching Awards UK Ceremony (Saturday 25 November).
• Government response to Education Committee report on persistent school absentees and support for disadvantaged pupils (Monday 27 November).
• Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court Palace (Monday 27 November).
• Launch of SMF report on ‘The education divide and the future of British politics’ (Monday 27 November).