School Effectiveness

Speech by Peter Black delivered to Plenary on Tue 24th Jun 2008

Peter Black: I propose amendment 3 in the name of Kirsty Williams. Add as a new point at the end of the motion:

calls on the Welsh Assembly Government to ensure that the delivery of the school effectiveness framework supports and encourages schools to improve their attainment levels.

In proposing the amendment and speaking on the issue generally, it is important to note that, in introducing this debate, the Minister referred to the wider context of school effectiveness, and particularly to the impact of child poverty and deprivation on the performance of schools. It is worth noting and emphasising that this programme cannot be taken in isolation; it must be taken in the context of the wider agenda of tackling child poverty and deprivation and the impact that those factors can have on a school's and a child's performance. The framework itself refers to this. It states:

'Education outcomes do not just depend on schools. They are influenced by a range of factors including poverty, family circumstances, housing and health'.

It goes on to say that:

'Poverty currently affects one in four children and young people in Wales. Research has long shown that social disadvantage is the single biggest obstacle to achievement in education'.

We need to be aware of that context, and we need to be aware of the fact that the issue of making schools more effective in dealing with children's education is not a matter that rests only in the Minister's hands, but that other Ministers must play their part and that the UK Government, with regard to its agenda to deal with child poverty, must start to meet its targets and achieve what it has set out to do.

Having said that, that is not enough to let the Minister off the hook, because there are schools in deprived areas that achieve more than their peers and who buck the trend. The reason why they buck that trend has been identified in many reports over the years and certainly in reports of the Welsh Assembly Government as well as in other academic reports. The reason is the impact of leadership within those schools. A school that has an effective leader, delivering a focused agenda and taking forward the school's improvement and effectiveness, can overcome even those sorts of trends and put itself on the map, so to speak. Again, the framework refers to this. It states that:

'Leadership needs to be emotionally intelligent, purposeful, enabling, influencing, motivating and focused on building the skills, knowledge and personal attributes of all those involved within the structure'.

I would hope that, in dealing with this particular framework, the Minister does not lose sight of the impact that individual headteachers can have on this agenda or of the need for training and support for those headteachers in taking forward their leadership skills as well as helping them to learn from good practice in other schools. All of us will have seen cases where a new headteacher has taken over and made a marked difference to the performance of a school and to the confidence of parents and the community in how the school is delivering on its agenda and on results for its children, and how it is adding value for its pupils. We should not ignore that.

On taking forward this agenda, the Minister should not overlook the local factors that are part of this. I was a bit concerned, listening to the Minister's speech and reading through her previous statements, that this agenda looks like a top-down initiative.

The Assembly Government is putting in place a bureaucratic structure that may or may not prove to be effective, but which seems to be overlooking the roles that schools and local education authorities can play in delivering this agenda. We have to work in partnership with those bodies, allowing them to take the lead, where appropriate, and to put forward their own ideas as part of this initiative. In my view, the Assembly Government's role should be one of support and assistance.

We should also not take this out of the context of the other issues that impact on school effectiveness and which are often referred to in Estyn reports. I am thinking, in particular, of the condition of school buildings around Wales. That is often identified by Estyn inspectors as having a direct impact on schools' ability to deliver the curriculum and the improvements that are needed. I hope that the Minister will not put to one side the need to increase investment in the education system to improve school buildings in order to assist teachers and headteachers to deliver the curriculum.