It is a dull refrain, but again the education news conveys a troubled picture for England’s schools. Take just three of this week’s main education stories: a record number of children not getting into their (or rather their parents’) first choice of school; research evidence that faith schools are taking a disproportionate number of middle-class pupils (read being chosen by middle-class parents); and finally reports of former education secretary Estelle Morris’ attacks on the government’s initiative overload which has failed to impact on the gap between rich and poor.
The thread which connects these stories is an education system which is not enabling consistently good provision across. As a result, there is a race to get to the good school places, in which generally the less well-off are coming last and therefore being worst educated.
The problems in the current system relate strongly to the issue which Baroness Morris referred to this week: too many central initiatives. More the just the quantity, it is the principle: if government had less control over what happened in schools would we see more good provision? Civitas director David Green believes so – on the basis of grassroots evidence: the Swedish system of school choice.
Speaking at a seminar sponsored by the Girls Day School Trust last week, Dr Green advocated a system of school choice which allows independent providers to join in state sector provision. Through a government-funded voucher, state and independent school providers would come together under the umbrella of free-at-the-point-of-access for each pupil and parent. The effect of such a scheme in Sweden, Dr Green argues, has been to democratise the education system; ending a state monopoly over schools has introduced a level of competition and innovation which has driven up standards in all schools.
The question is would this government be prepared to surrender control over the day-to-day running of schools sufficient to realise ‘school choice’? The academies programme has been a significant step towards this vision of school choice, though to-date in limited form. It is the imminent opening of a Steiner academy which will be the New Labour government’s most hands-off state-funded school.
Hereford Waldorf School is – currently – an independent school in a Herefordshire village. Steiner methodologies differ considerably from those currently practised in state schools. Outdoor activities are central to the curriculum as are crafts, there is no streaming of pupils and assessment is minimal. Writing about Hereford Waldorf, the Times Education Supplement’s (TES) David Marley characterises the Steiner approach as ‘…holistic…focusing on spiritual as well as academic development’.
Hereford Waldorf’s metamorphosis into an academy, in theory at least, will be minimally transformative – except when it comes to the budget. Once it becomes an academy, the school will get a £10 million capital budget and most of its expenses will be taken care of by the state. What is interesting and notable about this case is that Hereford Waldorf will have more pedagogical autonomy than any other academy to date. Teaching the national curriculum is now mandatory for academies; Hereford Waldorf however signed up to the scheme prior to this condition. As such, once it becomes an academy Hereford Waldorf will offer just five GCSEs or equivalent and continue to follow its own rounded curriculum. The school has however, agreed to implement national testing at 11 and 14. But as the TES’s David Marley points out, with the absence of the national curriculum this need not mean the testing issues witnessed in the mainstream schools.
It may well be the case that Hereford Waldorf’s example signals a trickling revolution in competing pedagogies – and providers – within the state-funded education system.
Comments (1)
If the Steiner system existed without the its core of anthroposophy, it could be a wonderful alternative to state education. As it is, the schools are really anthroposophy schools, and rooted in this pseudo religion, which assumes truths such as reincarnation, cosmic forces, ans clirvoyant communication with a spirit world. They sell themselves as a creative holistic alternative to mainstream, but this is deceptive as the stick rigidly to the visions of one man who lived 100 yrs ago.
Posted by Cathy Balme | July 14, 2008 4:50 PM
Posted on July 14, 2008 16:50