Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 11 October 2024

Some interesting developments this week.

These have include the latest build up to the Budget, a significant new piece of legislation, a thoughtful report on oracy – “I can’t tell you how much I love the new oracy report” – one tweeter enthused, and the latest annual report from the HE Policy Institute (HEPI) on its intriguing UKHE Soft-Power Index.

Let’s start with the Budget where this week the Chancellor sent in for scrutiny the first big draft of her Budget proposals to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the IfS, in conjunction with Citi, held its regular pre-Budget review, its so-called Green Budget.

Paul Johnson, director of the IfS, reckoned that this first Budget of the new administration “could be the most consequential since at least 2010.” It certainly feels like it.

The headline message from their 30-page analysis is pretty stark. “Our Green Budget forecast suggests that, even with Labour’s planned £9 billion tax rise implemented, achieving current budget balance whilst avoiding cuts to public service spending would be on a knife edge.”

To avoid further cuts to public services, meet promises and kickstart growth, let alone face growing challenges of higher spending on debt interest, pressures on pensions, health, social care and climate change, a further £16bn will be needed on top of that £9bn, making £25bn in all.

As Paul Johnson went on to say “if Ms Reeves does not grasp the nettle on 30 October, it could come back to sting her again before the next election.”

Nor does there appear to be much relief in the prospects for economic growth. In a memorable phrase, Citi described ‘the cyclical outlook as one of near-term sogginess and medium-term optimism.’ As it concluded “there is an urgent need to raise trend growth.”

None of it easy reading for the Chancellor.

More positive headlines, the government hopes, will come from its Employment Rights Bill introduced this week.

The 158-page Bill has been heralded by ministers as a landmark piece of legislation, “the most extensive overhaul of workers’ rights in generations” although much of it will not come into effect for a year or two.

Its been the subject of intense debate in recent months as ministers, employers and employee bodies grapple over such matters as when workers should have the right to demand more stable contracts, sue for unfair dismissal or claim sick pay.

Key proposals in the Bill include an entitlement to statutory sick pay and reasonable requests for flexible working both now from Day 1, enhanced parental leave, consultation on a statutory probation period of nine months, guaranteed-hours contracts for eligible ‘low-hours’ workers, and the banning of firing and rehiring in all but the most extreme circumstances.

"We’re raising the floor on rights at work to deliver a stronger, fairer and brighter future of work for Britain," Angela Rayner enthused but there’s a lot of consultation to go and not everyone’s happy.

The Federation of Small Businesses called it ‘rushed, clumsy and chaotic,’ the CBI praised the government’s efforts but rather reserved judgement: ‘it’s important to get the detail right.’ The TUC, however, saw it as “a positive and ambitious plan” while the Chartered Management Institute reckoned ‘smart employers’ already do much of this already.

The Second Reading for the Bill is set for the 21^st of October and the toing and froing will continue for many months to come.

Moving on to oracy and a report which seems to have ticked a lot of people’s boxes this week. It came from the independent Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, set up last year under the stewardship of Geoff Barton.

Oracy is an ungainly term for some people – the Commission defined it as “articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication” – but it’s a critical ingredient for children and young people growing up.

As such, the report called for oracy to become ‘the fourth R alongside reading, writing and arithmetic.’ “We want to move oracy more centrally into the experience of all young people in their journey through education, as Geoff Barton explained in his introduction to the report.”

The report examines the dimensions of language from a number of perspectives along with some interesting case studies and concludes with a handful of recommendations.

These included embedding oracy into the curriculum, building it into teacher training and considering the case for spoken language and communication “to be part of a functional skills passport at 14 or a new GCSE English Language qualification.”

ASCL welcomed the report saying ‘oracy had slipped backwards after it was dropped as part of the grade for GCSE English Language 10 years ago.’

As for HEPI’s latest Soft-Power Index which lists the number of serving senior world leaders who’ve undertaken higher education in another country, it seems that the US has, in the words of the report, ‘pulled away.’

It had 70 serving world leaders last year who received their higher education in the US, an increase of five on last year. They can be spotted in leading positions in 58 different countries from Bahrain to Tonga. The UK came second in the listing with 58 serving leaders educated in the UK and now leading 52 countries. France came third in the ranking.

The worry remains, as HEPI director Nick Hillman explained, about how far recent rules have dented the UK’s reputation for being a welcoming country.

What else has been happening across education this week?

In schools, unions put down their marker in a letter to the education secretary as the latest pay review gets under way. “We are clear,” they wrote, “that the recruitment and retention problems will not be solved without significant additional investment to reverse the pay cuts and reduce excessive and increasing workload.” All clear there.

The Education Policy Institute examined how far adding an extra hour a week to the schools might have on attainment, concluding that this would only be ‘modest.’ ‘Not a game changer,’ the NAHT said, adding that as the report indicated, “the additional cost of increasing school time could be better used on other interventions.”

The NFER had a busy week with a briefing on falling rolls in primary schools, the announcement of a new research project into pupil absences and a commissioned report on the effect of the lockdown on groups of pupils who were at the start of primary when the pandemic hit.

Four years on, and largely due to the long-term support put in by many schools, “the negative impact of school closures seen in the immediate years after the pandemic has started to wane.” ASCL called the report ‘encouraging’ but said ‘it’s important to keep studying the impact of the pandemic on pupils’ learning and wider development.’

In other news, Ofsted published two reports highlighting best practice and quality learning in the early and foundation years. “It’s encouraging that there has been some good progress in improving the teaching of early reading and mathematics in primary schools. But schools are still having to navigate the impact of the pandemic, and many children are still catching up on lost learning.” Not everyone welcomed the reports.

And finally for schools this week, that shopping list for the curriculum review to consider just got a bit bigger. The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA) called for financial education in secondary education to be strengthened. They reckoned the current approach is ‘inconsistent and its impact limited’ and urged colleagues to send their thoughts in to the review. Even Father Christmas never had a list this long. 

In FE, the AoC welcomed the introduction of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education Bill with its signalling of the shift towards a new skills regime in England. “We want to see Skills England become a powerful advocate and player across government, bringing about positive and long-lasting change across tertiary education to support a cultural shift in England,” the CEO of the AoC wrote.

Details can be seen in the government’s impact assessment and summary of the Bill.

These came complete with the standard diagram, three objectives for the system overall (less fragmented, less complex, more responsive,) and as the AoC highlighted, a lot of hope that it will all knit together shortly and deliver on the skill needs of the country. “Skills England will transform the skills system to make it truly world leading.” Let’s hope so.

In HE, the Russell Group announced the creation of an expert panel to advise on how HE expertise can be used in delivering Industrial Strategy. “The panel members are leaders in their fields with proven track records in business, politics, research and innovation.”

QAA reported on collaborative provision, pointing to ‘three criteria for successful partnerships’ including robust oversight, a coherent student experience and constructive relationships, listing examples of good practice and areas for improvement in each case.

HEPI published its annual review of the year, listing all its various activities over the past academic year. “A record number of pieces of research and a record number of events, leading to record levels of engagement.”  An impressive hat trick.

And the Times Higher’s latest World University Rankings saw Oxford top the listings for the ninth year in a row with Cambridge and Imperial also in the top ten, but with some concerns about the long-term impact of funding shortages on reputations elsewhere in the sector.

As Oxford’s Professor Marginson put it: “if UK higher education goes another decade without fixing the now bankrupted 2012 funding system, in which it is politically impossible to increase the unit of resource, then it will pay the price in terms of reputation as well as resources”.  

Links to most of these stories below starting with the week’s headlines.

The top headlines of the week:

• ‘Doubts grow over Labour’s VAT plans for schools’ (Monday).
• ‘Special needs funding claims in English schools increasingly being refused’ (Tuesday).
• ‘Oxford University keeps global top spot’ (Wednesday).
• ‘Longer school week improves GCSE results’ (Thursday).
• ‘GCSEs 2024: 1 in 3 teachers say marking was unfair’ (Friday).

More specifically ...

Schools:

• Pay talks. Teaching unions called on the government to tackle longstanding issues around pay, workloads and school buildings as they responded to the latest pay consultation proposals.
• Oracy. The Oracy Education Commission called for oracy to become ‘a core aspect of education,’ built into teacher training and reflected in a reformed GCSE English Language, as it published the report from its Independent Commission into the Future of Oracy Education in England.
• School Day. The Education Policy Institute examined in a commissioned report the academic impact of adding an extra hour on to the school week concluding that the benefits would be small, most schools already offer the full day and any extra time might be more beneficially used in other activities.
• Foundation learning. Ofsted reported on the importance of foundation learning and the aspects of the Reception and KS1 curriculum that can help make the biggest difference to children as they progress, pointing among other things to the need for teaching methods and assessment to be aligned to children’s needs.
• Early years. Ofsted published the third in its three-part research series looking into how to help raise the quality of early years education and focusing here on the four ‘specific areas of learning’ such as literacy and maths, understanding the world and expressive arts and offering pointers for good practice in each case.
• Falling roles. The NFER reflected on falling rolls in primary schools in a new blog putting forward a number of options that schools and authorities might want to consider such as pooling resources and using excess space for new provision, let alone for the government to consider parachute payments.
• Lockdown effect. The NFER examined the impact of school closures on KS1 pupils in 2020 in a commissioned report for the Education Endowment Foundation, looking in particular at the impact on groups at the start of primary, finding the attainment and social skills improving four years on but disadvantage gaps remaining for some groups.
• Pupil absences. The NFER invited applications from schools wishing to take part in a research project that will run to next March and will examine strategies schools can use to help absent pupils return to school and prevent short-term absences turning into long-term ones.    
• Financial education. The Investing and Saving Alliance’s (TISA) Financial Education Council called in a letter to the PM for financial education to be made compulsory in all secondary schools in England, arguing that currently provision is patchy and children are not being prepared adequately for the future.
• Moving school. FFT Education Datalab reported on its recent commissioned research into pupil mobility (moving from one school to another during the year) for secondary school pupils in England between 2021/22 and 2022/23 school years indicating rates were broadly similar in state schools and academies but with a slightly higher inflow of vulnerable pupils to state schools and outflow from academies.

FE/Skills:

• IfATE Bill.  The government published the details and impact assessment for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) Bill which will see the functions of the Institute transferred to the Secretary of State ahead of the creation of a new skills body, Skills England, which in turn will deliver such functions.
• Skills debate. Labour MP Antonia Bance set out five objectives for Skills England including responding to skill needs, working collaboratively, showing leadership, working with the regions and leveraging funding as she opened a Westminster Hall debate on the new skills body. 
• Devolution. Policy adviser Sam Freedman argued in a new report for the Labour Together group that greater powers, particularly over matters like skills provision and school improvement, could be devolved to Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) to help improve public service delivery.

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

• 338,640. The latest figure for apprenticeships starts for the 2023/24 August-July year, provisionally 0.6% higher than the previous year.
• 80%. The percentage of KS1 pupils meeting the expected standards in the phonics screening check this year, up 1% on the previous year according to government figures.
• £7m. The amount of money being made available to tackle antisemitism in education, according to the education secretary.
• 600+. The number of child protection investigations carried out on average every day by local councils, according to figures from the LGA.
• 31%. The number of families who have had to cut their working hours because of difficulties getting early years places and childcare, according to the charity Working Families.

Everything else you need to know ...

What to look out for next week

• UK International Investment Summit (Monday 14 October).
• Education secretary live Q/A online chat (Tuesday 15 October).