Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 22 November 2024

Some worrying headlines this week.

Particularly around children and young people where UNICEF’s report on ‘The State of the World’s Children’ sharply set the tone.

“Today's children,” the report said, “unfortunately live in a world fraught with crises, poverty and discrimination. Where far too many are deprived of opportunities to meet their full potential.” We can and must do better, it argued.

All agree, but domestic reports this week on knife crime, childhood poverty, stress and burnout among teachers, and of a ‘failing’ social care system for children, suggest it won’t be easy.

On knife crime for instance, a report from Ofsted and other inspectorates this week, concluded that “the extent and impact of serious youth violence are more far-reaching than many adults realise.”

The report, based on targeted inspections carried out in different parts of the country between last September and this May, listed a lack of comprehensive guidance, short-term funding, and weak multi-agency working as among the main problems.

In fairness, some partnerships and agencies were working extremely hard to tackle these issues and as the report said “local areas must learn from each other about what works well.”

On childhood poverty, the Social Metrics Commission published its latest Annual Report indicating that while poverty rates vary across the country, “more than a third of all children (36%) were in poverty in 2022/23, an almost five percentage-point increase since 2019/20.”

Children, it seems, particularly in workless families, appear to have been among the groups hardest hit over the past year according to the Commission’s data.

Many of these issue manifest themselves in schools where according to Education Support, teachers are experiencing ‘unsustainable levels of stress and burnout.’

Its latest Teacher Wellbeing Index, published this week, pointed to many teachers experiencing fall-out from poor pupil behaviour, challenging parents, and a SEND system in crisis and finding it very difficult to cope.

In the words of ASCL, “the hostility to which education staff are subjected on a routine basis puts them under intense emotional pressure and is extremely damaging to their wellbeing.” The data provided seemed to bear this out with the report calling among other things for a revised social contract between families and schools and colleges.

There have, however, been some positives this week. For instance, the Education Secretary announced some important reforms for the social care system for children, in a Statement to MPs at the start of the week.

“Ambitious, wide-ranging reform,” as she explained, involving early intervention, the embedding of family-group decision making, multi-agency child safeguarding teams, powers for Ofsted over poor care providers and warnings over those seeking to gain financially from provision.

“The start of much needed change,” she said and a welcome step forward.

What else has been happening across education here this week?

In schools, the consultancy Public First highlighted the challenges around school exclusions in a commissioned report described as ‘essential reading.’

“Exclusions make nobody happy,” the report explained before listing twelve core issues ranging from the impact of social factors, to worsening behaviour, inconsistencies in approach and the importance of early intervention.

Better investment, support, intervention and consistency were among the recommendations called for.

The latest figures on suspensions and exclusions, published towards the end of the week and indicating a notable rise across primary schools in England, suggest serious problems remain.

According to ASCL, “in many cases, schools simply do not have the resources to provide the level of specialist support required to prevent behavioural issues from escalating and so we see this ending up with suspensions and permanent exclusions being used as a last resort.”

Elsewhere, Frontier Economics questioned whether government plans to use spare capacity to create new nursery places were workable.

In their view, the scheme will only work if schools ‘combine spaces across all seven age groups.’ Even then it would struggle to work in regions such as the East Midlands and East of England where spare capacity is low.  The report concludes “that it may be time to explore additional approaches for expanding nursery provision.”

In other news, Ofqual published its regular briefing for schools and colleges as well as students on arrangements for next year’s exams and assessments.

GCSEs, AS and A level exams will take place between 8 May and 24 June 2025. It seems a long way off but as the guidance goes, it’s better to be prepared. Full exam timetables are available on the Joint Council for Qualifications site.

Ofqual also held a Summit and set out a range of measures to tackle qualification fraud.

Measures include ensuring that awarding organisations investigate allegations effectively and working with other licensing bodies.

Finally for schools, today sees the closing date for submissions to the ever-bulging curriculum and assessment review. Spare a thought as desks, or rather laptops, are cleared to be able to plough through the reported huge number of responses.

According to The Times this week, a reduction to the content and number of GCSEs to allow for a more balanced curriculum is on the cards. Plenty more conjecture to come over the next few months with interim findings due in the spring.

In FE, questions about Skills England featured prominently in a debate this week among MPs, with some questioning its status.

For the moment, the organisation, described by former Education Secretary Damian Hinds as a nada (non-accountable departmental agency,) is getting on with its work. As such it is conducting an important consultation on training priorities for the key growth sectors set out in the government’s recent Industrial Strategy green paper.

Two more sectors, construction and health and social care, have been added to the consultation and the results will be published early next year. It could potentially be an important mapping exercise.

The Manufacturers’ Organisation, Make UK, announced an important step forward in tackling skills issues in manufacturing and engineering with the creation of a new high-profile new body: the Industrial Strategy Skills Commission.

With former skills minister Rob Halfon as one of its co-chairs and the backing of a heavy weight Advisory Board, the Commission is likely to become a prominent voice on manufacturing matters.

As Rob Halfon said ‘it has urgent work to do’ and will shortly be issuing a call for evidence.

In HE, the British Academy highlighted continuing concerns about provision for social sciences, humanities and the arts (SHAPE) with a set of interactive maps from its SHAPE Observatory, revealing the ‘cold spots’ where such provision is limited or perhaps non-existent for many undergraduates.

As the Academy explained “With SHAPE facing an uncertain future in UK higher education, these maps help us see where cold spots in provision may have already begun to emerge and will be updated as new provider data becomes available for each academic year.”

The JS Group which works with universities on bursaries and student hardship funds published its latest Annual Report suggesting “that the financial pressures on students themselves have never been so challenging.”

As the Chief Executive wrote on the Wonkhe site, ‘62% of the cash support is being used to support daily student living costs.’

And the Sutton Trust announced plans to commission a research project into the role of HE in social mobility internationally, with a major conference planned for next November.

Finally, in Westminster this week, as indicated above, the Education Secretary outlined reforms for children’s social care while the Technology Secretary announced the launch of a new study to explore the effects of smartphones and social media use on children.

Elsewhere, MPs took part in an adjournment motion welcoming free breakfast clubs in primary schools with requisite legislation promised shortly.

They also discussed Apprenticeships and T levels where former Education Minister, Damian Hinds, opened the debate, getting most of the details right about the decades of chop and change in skills reform and raising some important questions about qualification reform, funding, levy changes and the skills system generally.

 He was particularly scathing about the new skills body. “Skills England will be the 13th new skills agency in five decades. If all it took to solve our skills and productivity problem was a change in the machinery of government, do the Government not think that one of the previous 12 might already have managed it?”

Janet Daby, who responded for the government, disagreed. “Skills England will have an independent board that will provide leadership and direction, as well as scrutiny to ensure that it operates effectively and within the agreed framework.”

In other news, the Public Accounts Committee took evidence from leading officials on support for children with SEND and current work on helping make the system more efficient.

The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee announced a new Inquiry into the relationship between algorithms used by search engines and social media, and the spread of harmful and false content online.

And the Lords began detailed discussion of the Bill to abolish the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and transfer functions to the Secretary of State and in turn Skills England. The next debate is next Tuesday.

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

The top headlines of the week:

• ‘Young people face losing benefits if they don’t take up training’ (Monday)
• ‘Labour plans for 100,000 new nursery places in England unlikely to work’ (Tuesday)
• ‘Visa curbs drive ‘historic change’ in global student flows’ (Wednesday)
• ‘Curriculum shake-up expected to boost take-up of arts subjects’ (Thursday)
• ‘Tests for Year 1 pupils in England should be dropped, headteachers urge’ (Friday)

More specifically ...

Schools:

• Minister’s address. Catherine McKinnell, the Education Minister, addressed the Schools and Academies Conference where she ran through the government’s current ledger of activity and reviews and announced the launch of the new digital support service for schools: ‘Plan Technology for Your School.’
• Exams 2025. Ofqual outlined the arrangements for next year’s exams and assessments, running through the roles of key bodies like awarding organisations, along with preparation for exams and details on marking and grading, results days and appeals.
• Teacher Wellbeing. Education Support published its latest annual Teacher Wellbeing Index, acknowledging some ‘slight’ improvements in workforce wellbeing but also pointing to ‘disturbingly high rates of stress, anxiety, and burnout continuing to affect education staff, exacerbated by pupil and parent behaviour,’ calling for improved support for staff along with a revised social contract with parents.
• School exclusions. The consultancy Public First called for better funding, intervention, support and communication around school exclusions as it published a commissioned research report into current attitudes and data on what continues to be a major concern.
• Qualification fraud. Ofqual hosted a major Summit on tackling fraud in qualifications where it set out a range of measures including working with key enforcement agencies and making it easier to help people spot and report suspicious activity.
• Nursery places. The consultancy Frontier Economics examined the numbers behind government plans to convert spare capacity in England into new nursery places, concluding that while the policy might work in London it was unlikely to deliver enough places in other regions unless schools combined groups.
• School transport. The County Councils Network called for reform of home-school transport, including more efficient local planning, as it pointed to the increase in SEND pupils requiring transport assistance adding to the costs for local councils,
• Bookstart. Book Trust announced that Usborne’s ‘Baby’s Very First Lift-the-Flap Peekaboo’ would be the book given to all new babies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of its Bookstart Baby programme intended to help families with new children discover the joys of reading.

FE/Skills:

• Skills mapping. The government confirmed further details on the consultation exercise being undertaken by Skills England on training priorities for the eight growth-driving sectors listed in the recent Industrial Strategy, adding a further two sectors in construction and health and social care.
• Skills debate. MPs discussed T levels, apprenticeships, L3 qualification reform, Skills England and a range of other training and skills matters in a Westminster Hall debate, with DfE Under-Secretary of State Janet Daby defending the government agenda and its plans for transforming the skills system and ensuring access to qualifications.
• Skills Commission. Make UK announced the launch of a new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission, co-chaired by former skills minister Rob Halfon and former Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson, which will work with an Advisory Board of leading figures to provide policy advice and skills solutions around engineering and manufacturing.
• Digital skills. The Learning and Work Institute published its commissioned report into digital skills training where poor skills supply is holding back many companies yet equally where traditional recruitment practices mean diverse talent is often missed, calling as a result for stronger local career paths to be developed.
• Youth Guarantee. The Learning and Work Institute announced it was undertaking research work on the importance of the Youth Guarantee and how this might work best for young people, with consultation and insights due to follow in the coming months.

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

• 2.3%. The UK CPI inflation figure for October, up from 1.7% previously largely due to increased energy costs according to the latest figures from the ONS.
• 24%. The number of people in the UK judged to be living in poverty, the highest figure this century according to the Social Metrics Commission.
• 45%. The number of people who don’t have access to a loo while at work, according to a report from the TUC to mark World Toilet Day.
• 13.2%. The number of young people aged 16-24 classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) in the UK for July-September 2024, up on last year according to the latest figures from the ONS.
• 43%. The number of staff surveyed who believe that vexatious complaints from parents/guardians have increased since last year, according to Education Support’s latest Teacher Wellbeing Index.
• 34%. The percentage of eligible pupils who score full marks in this year’s multiplication tables check, up from 29% last year according to latest government figures.
• 6.1%. The overall absence rate for pupils in state schools in England for w/commencing 4 November, according to latest government figures.
• 346,279. The number of suspensions from schools last term, up by nearly 100,000 on the previous autumn term according to latest government figures.
• 4,168. The number of permanent exclusions from schools last term, up by 1,100 on the previous autumn term according to latest government figures.
• £14 a month. The cost to families of unwanted subscriptions, according to government figures as it launched plans to clamp down on ‘subscription traps.’

Everything else you need to know ...

What to look out for next week

• MPs debate a petition on ‘allowing students to be taken out of school for two weeks a year without penalty’ (Monday 25 November)
• CBI 2024 Annual Conference (Monday 25 November)
• Federation of Awarding Bodies Conference (Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 November)
• Westminster Hall debate on ‘Online safety for children and young people’ (Tuesday 26 November)

Other stories