Chapter 11:

Fairness for the Future

 
Standards and results must improve radically. The aim is to establish a clear framework for Wales in which everyone understands their role and can work in co-operation to contribute towards achieving the common goal.

1  The key goal for the way ahead in Wales turns on allowing all good schools - regardless of their current or future status - to flourish, not interfering with whatever is working well, while providing better support for schools that need to improve.
 
 
Community, aided and foundation schools

2  Our purpose is to establish a structure for schools which will support the overriding priority of raising standards while securing a better balance between diversity, school self-determination, fairness and co-operation. The underlying principles are these:

• schools are responsible for their own standards and for continuously and actively improving their performance;

• there is value in diversity between schools, allowing each to develop its own identity, character and expertise;

• the central part which the Churches and other foundations have long played in providing schools should be recognised, safeguarding the ethos of voluntary schools;

• schools should have the freedom to make for themselves as many decisions as practicable, including decisions on internal management, resource allocation and day to day operation;

• but that freedom must reflect:

  - accountability to parents, the local community and beyond for what they achieve;

  - the interests of other schools in the area, so that one school can not act unilaterally in a way which damages others;

• schools should be able to choose the legal status which best reflects their own circumstances and aspirations but with no unfair privileges or benefits attached to a particular status which would distort the choice;

• where major changes to a school's organisation and character are proposed, there should be mechanisms for balancing the school's wishes against the impact on others and where decisions cannot be taken by individual schools, they should be taken at the lowest practicable level;

• the role of local authorities is not to control schools, but to support them, particularly in their efforts to raise standards.

Within these principles we propose a new framework of community, aided and foundation schools. The changes needed to establish the new framework will be the minimum consistent with achieving these principles, so as to minimise disruption for schools. We will be consulting on the detailed arrangements.

3  Community schools will be equivalent to the existing county schools which account for over 1,600 out of the 1,900 primary and secondary schools in Wales. The local authority will continue to employ the staff and own the premises. There will be more parent governors on governing bodies, but otherwise county schools which become community schools will remain largely unchanged.

4  Both aided schools and foundation schools will employ their staff and own their premises, broadly as voluntary aided and GM schools do now. Aided schools will contribute at least 15 per cent towards their capital expenditure (as existing voluntary aided schools have to do) and will have a majority of foundation governors on the governing body, giving the foundation greater influence over the school in return for its financial contribution. As with voluntary controlled schools now, foundation schools will not be required to contribute anything towards capital costs, and so foundation governors will not have an absolute majority. Existing voluntary schools in the GM and LEA sectors already have foundations, separate from the governing body, which appoint foundation governors and hold the school's premises in trust. These will continue. We are considering the role of new foundations for county and ex-county GM schools which become aided or foundation schools. We are also considering the implications for controlled schools, in cases were they move to foundation status, of becoming the employers of their staff.

5  The pattern of ownership of school premises is complex. In broad terms the local authority owns the premises and assets of county schools, and that will continue for community schools. In voluntary schools, the foundation holds the main premises, but the local authority generally owns playing fields and subsidiary assets; while GM school governing bodies own all the school's assets. Achieving complete consistency of ownership for aided and foundation schools would create disproportionate disruption. So we intend to adopt as the guiding principle that schools will continue to own what they own now. We shall also ensure proper safeguards over the disposal of assets bought with public funds.

6  All schools should be able to choose which status will best suit their character and aspirations. But we do not want the mechanisms for choosing to distract attention from raising standards. We will therefore frame the legislation in terms of transferring all schools in an existing category to a new category - for example, county schools to become community schools - unless the governing body chooses otherwise. Where the governing body does wish to choose a different category and a significant proportion of parents are unhappy with that, we propose that the parents could then require the governing body to hold a ballot of all parents.

7  There are 54 maintained special schools in Wales. These play a valued part in providing for children with severe special educational needs. The proposed Green Paper on special educational needs (see Chapter 6) will seek views on the future development of these schools and their vital role in contributing to provision at regional, and sometimes national, level. The need to plan for such provision means that it is likely that all maintained special schools will become community special schools.
 
 
School governors

8  The 24,000 governors in Wales make an invaluable contribution. Governors have a special role as partners in the school service, because they link the school into its wider community. We shall strengthen that link by raising the number of parent governors.

9  The purpose of governing bodies is to help the school provide the best possible education for its pupils. To do this effectively they need to take a strategic view of their main function - which is to help raise standards. They need to act as a 'critical friend' to the headteacher and staff, challenging expectations as well as providing support.

10  Headteachers and governing bodies need to share a common vision, recognising each other's respective responsibilities and working in partnership together. All headteachers should be committed to working effectively with their governing bodies and should be members of them. Governors should be given the information they need to focus on their strategic role of raising standards. Headteachers should be given the freedom to manage and deliver agreed policies.

11  Governors already bear a heavy workload. We shall seek to minimise any further burden when introducing the new community, aided and foundation framework.

12  For governing bodies to achieve their full potential, they need support from LEAs. LEAs will be encouraged to set up governors' forums, and to make full use of the independent Governors Wales organisation to involve governors in the development of policy. LEAs will be asked to explain in their Education Strategic Plans their intentions for consulting governors and providing other support and training. The Welsh Office will issue guidance drawing on the best of existing local authority practice, and will continue to take account of governors' training needs through GEST.
 
 
The role of LEAs

13  The role of LEAs has changed fundamentally. It is now focused not on control, but on supporting largely self-determining schools. In many ways it is a more difficult and certainly a less straightforward role. But the part LEAs can play in raising standards is crucial. If we are to hold LEAs properly to account for their performance, we owe it to them to ensure that their role is coherently specified, and that they have the tools to do the job.

14  The Secretary of State agrees with the description of the main LEA functions recently outlined in Wales. They fit well with the relationship now emerging between central and local government in Wales. The key responsibilities are strategic. To secure school improvement the effective LEA in Wales will seek to:

• analyse and act on published OHMCI surveys and reports, and data on school performance and feedback from parents;

• enable schools to undertake inter-school comparisons by providing data and analysis - publicising good practice, monitoring progress, establishing local benchmarks and supporting local governors' forums to help raise standards;

• assist schools to set stretching targets for improvement linked to the principles, goals and targets in this White Paper and agree targets covering a three year period subject to annual review;

• include school targets as the core of each LEA Education Strategic Plan - itself subject to monitoring by OHMCI and the Welsh Office;

• help schools shape development plans to cover targets for improvement in teaching and learning, professional training, curriculum development and measures to improve resource management;

• give each school a basis for assessing its performance in managing ancillary maintenance and energy costs so as to maximise resources for teaching and learning;

• support the development of vocational courses; work in partnership with others to help schools to prepare pupils for the world of work; and use information about the local labour market to focus action to improve pupils' skills;

• concentrate training initiatives on overcoming identified whole school or departmental weaknesses and work with Welsh Office to shape the GEST programme;

• follow-up prescribed action plans where OHMCI finds a school to be failing or where there are significant weaknesses and intervene where there is evidence that a school has serious problems of financial control or management;

• take a lead in tackling the problems of truancy and disaffection by implementing coherent plans of action, drawing on local authority education, social service and housing programmes and the programmes of other community services; and

• work in partnership with the private sector to support new capital development.

15  Thus, the leadership function of the LEA is about winning the trust and respect of schools in order to draw together their efforts and channel them towards the most productive outcomes. It is also about championing the value of education in the community, for adults as well as children. Each local authority should have a coherent view of the educational needs of its area, targets for raising standards, and a convincing strategy for meeting them. It should ensure that schools and all the other local partners not only understand the needs, the targets and the strategy, but are enthused to play their part corporately. This requires LEAs to take a broad view, not focusing solely on those services which they control or on schools in a particular category, but using all the means at their disposal, to secure with others the best education service for the people of their area.