Schools North East Summit 2023: 10 take-aways
The aftermath of the storm...
This year’s Schools North East Summit seemed as vital as ever. As storms whipped around St. James’ Park - causing a lengthy delay to the Secretary of State’s train outside of Central Station - we gathered once again for the annual ‘state of the nation’ event for educators in the North East.
If COVID was a devastating storm that ripped through education, then last year’s summit felt like the morning after - checking whether everyone was ok (we weren’t). This year felt like a battered profession coming to terms with the long term structural damage. It is not only the concrete in our buildings that is creaking, there remain persistent issues in the aftermath of storm COVID: attendance, recruitment, retention, cracks in the social contract with parents, behaviour, mental health issues and more. On a positive note, there was a sense that many of the leaders in the room had dusted themselves down and regained the energy to face these issues head-on. There was a tangible, collective will to find solutions to our region’s very particular issues and challenges.
The theme of ‘Great North Schools: a manifesto for change’ was more than a nod to an upcoming election, emphasised by the attendance of Gillian Keegan MP for a fireside chat with new Chair of SNE, Colin Lofthouse. We also heard from Prof. Stephen Gorard, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza and the inimitable Prof. Steve Peters.
Here are my 10 take-aways:
The North East has a spark, and schools are where the spark is ignited. Liam Roberts [CEO, The Edwin Group] captured the unwavering belief of delegates in our young people. He offered solidarity to teachers in facing systemic challenges that ‘must feel like juggling jelly with one hand behind your back’. Indeed.
The data shows that North East schools are just as good as schools in any other region of the country. Professor Stephen Gorard (Durham University) shared his longitudinal study around the explanatory variables affecting student outcomes at 16. The co-efficient attached to the contribution of schools in the region compared well with other parts of the country, even as raw results showed a relative decline. The fact that the most highly-weighted variables were SEN and ‘number of years of eligibility for Free School Meals’ was as predictable as it was depressing. Furthermore, we learned that the North East has the highest prevalence of 11-year-FSM-eligible children (around 7%, compared with 2% in the South East). The esteemed Professor called for: a re-calibration of Pupil Premium towards longer-term disadvantaged children; a reduction in the diversity of the school landscape; and better use of research to highlight ‘best bets’ in Teaching and Learning.
We need to think creatively about recruitment and retention. At the moment, teacher supply seems like filling up a leaky bucket with a dripping tap. If we are to fix recruitment, it is clear that we need to fix retention by making the profession more desirable, respected and valued. There were interesting ideas from across the various panels through the day: the idea of Australian-style sabbaticals for Senior Leaders was well-received, as were calls for mentoring and coaching, flexible working and action to stem the tide of parental abuse on Social Media.
The Social Contract with parents and children is as bad as it has ever been. A recurring theme emerged of lack of support from small groups of parents in local schools. There seems to have been an exponential increase in complaints, lack of co-operation with persistent absences, and use of Social Media to co-ordinate vexatious campaigns. We heard some truly terrible stories in the final panel of the day, with a cry for central support to tackle a problem that is taking time away from school development for leaders.
Oracy can hold the key to development across all areas of the curriculum. There was a fascinating session from Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson, in which we learned how Latin can close the disadvantage gap around Literacy in Primary Schools. “There is a level playing field here, as nobody’s parents speak Latin at home!”: the data shows that schools introducing Latin saw a narrowing in attainment differences between low and highly disadvantaged children. Her cross-sector work on Rhetoric will be published soon, coming in the wake of the Speak for Change inquiry : listening and speaking were skills highlighted as keys to fostering good citizenship into adulthood. In a later session, Gillian Keegan MP also pointed to a lack of Speech and Language support as “the nub of the problem”.
Instead of Eat out to Help Out we should have had Play Out to Get Back. These were the words of Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza. The findings from The Big Ask (at over 500,000, the biggest ever survey of its kind) had resulted in some ‘Big Answers’: a focus on Early Years; an extension to the school day via clubs and voluntary organisations; tackling persistent absence; and schools as loci of support. There were concerns put to Dame Rachel around schools becoming the answer to all social issues - the answer to which was a greater involvement from the voluntary and charity sectors, but working out of schools: “…there are two places that families trust: schools and GPs”. More on the Children’s Commissioner’s ‘Big Ambitions’ will be published in early 2024.
If there is one legacy of Gillian Keegan’s time in the department, she would like it to be more apprenticeships. As “the proud, only degree apprentice” in the House of Commons, she is a big believer in such pathways, including for teacher training. In fact, I started a tally score for her use of the word ‘apprenticeship’ during the interview, such was the message-discipline. It was interesting to hear of the Secretary of State’s educational journey and the philosophy behind her decision-making - another clear theme was around the importance of organizational culture, particularly in reference to OFSTED and its relationship with school leaders.
Emotion is a Message. Professor Steve Peters gave us a whistle-stop tour of his model of the brain in a fascinating and entertaining talk, “The Neuroscience of Resilience”. As teachers pick their way through the structural damage since the COVID storm, resilience will be key. We should recognise what high emotion might mean in our children: “there is no such thing as an angry child, but a machine in the child’s brain giving us a message”.
We are all trying our best. In perhaps the most emotional moment of the day, the esteemed professor, who has worked with many of the most successful sports people in the world, showed us a school report and asked us: would we be prouder of an A for Effort and E for Attainment, or an E for Effort and A for Attainment? As we all raised our hands for the former, he challenged us: “then why aren’t we proud of ourselves when we give everything”? Of course, if we continue to get Es for performance, we should probably admit we are in the wrong job (!), but nobody who works with children is trying to do a bad job!
We are ready to re-build. There was a real sense that educators are itching to get on with the job of re-building and tackling the structural issues left by COVID. We may need to be patient, in an election year, when it comes to bold, national decision-making. In the meantime, as one speaker noted, “our children only get one chance at an education”: through collaboration and a harnessing of creativity and partnership, we are ready to take some agency in the short term.