Building Schools For the Future: Public Accounts Committee Report

This came out a while ago and I only just got around to reading it. Anyone wants to read the whole document can access it here. It is only a dozen or so pages.

The Committee outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the programme so far (as they see it). Reading the transcripts of the interviews with the head civil servant and the head of PfS (Partnership for Schools), (David Bell and Tim Byles respectively) it is clear that political allegiances affected attitudes. The labour members seem less critical than their Conservative counterparts.

The bits that held my attention on the train down to London are as follows:

1. The plans for delivery were unrealistic. Even after a review and a rescheduling the Committee still thinks PfS have got an almost impossible target to complete by 2023. As they say 'poor planning has heightened expectations and created disappointment' p8.
2. School leaders haven't had the support they need, they 'manage the transition and early operational stages without central support and often feel left to manage alone' p9.
3. The LEP is the preferred procurement vehicle for each local authority going through BSF and it is a very new thing. It is important to know if it is value for money. The committee has this to say; 'Although on paper LEPs look like they might provide cost benefits it is too early to tell whether they will, and their value for money is unproven.' p10. And, 'only 14% of local authority BSF managers ... believed that their LEP would produce cost savings and only a quarter said that overall it was a good approach' p11. Tim Byles told the committee that 'if you talk to people once they become engaged in the project and in this way of delivery they tend to change their view very considerably'. I hope he doesn't mean that those who are against the LEP approach just don't understand it, but it would be easy to interpret his comments in this way.
4. The Committee are generally positive about the contribution of PfS. They do say that PfS 'has focused insufficiently on achieving the intended benefits of operational LEPs and the intended educational outcomes in schools' p13. There are some eye-watering figures for funds expended on consultants, for example PfS paid KPMG £ 1.3 million over three years for the services of just one person (p20).

The report underlines some of the issues identified by earlier analyses of the BSF programme. Lack of support for school staff engaged in thinking through how to turn millions of investment in buildings and ICT into significant educational change, is my top concern. In my view, investment in people is the most effective way of transforming our schools. Judging by the actions of government this isn't a very widely shared point of view.

School of the Future (SOF) Philadelphia

Back in 2005 (or perhaps 2004) I was in the audience at a very excited and self-congratulatory presentation about this planned new school that Microsoft was supporting. Lots of money and clever people were involved in the design and the impression I got was that we in the UK should be able to learn enormously from this visionary project.

The school opened in 2005 and after 3 years Microsoft got together a panel to look at how successful the endeavour has been. The answer is sadly - not very. The panel discussion is reported in eSchool News (well worth a look), here. You'll have to subscribe to read it all. It seems harsh that the writers of the eSchool News Report have entitled it School of the Future: Lessons in failure. The school is only three years old and obviously developing. The fact that Microsoft have been so open about the weaknesses of the project is to their great credit. That said, the issues the panel outline are very familiar to anyone involved in supporting schools make the most of their technology.

1. People - '"We naively thought, I guess, that by providing a beautiful building and great resources, these things would automatically yield change. They didn't," said Jan Biros, associate vice president for instructional technology support and campus outreach at Drexel University and a former member of the SOF Curriculum Planning Committee.'
2. Process - the school planners worked 'to design the underlying principles and goals for the school' using a Microsoft framework but '"Working within this framework often felt more like an academic exercise than a productive process," said Biros'
3. People Development - 'The training that Microsoft gave teachers prior to the school's opening also was extremely limited, panelists said. Educators' participation in the project was confirmed only weeks before the school opened, and as a result, many educators could not adequately work the technology needed to enhance classroom learning.'
4. Support - there 'was no dedicated technical support', all learning content was supposed to be supplied via wireless 'Yet educators frequently encountered problems accessing the internet, because the school's wireless connection often would not work.'

Thanks to Barry Phillips for pointing out the comments at the foot of the article where a couple of students have sprung to their school's defence. These couldn't be taken to articulate the views of the student body, but they do make for an interesting alternative point of view.

My experience makes me think that BSF planning seems much better than the process described here. There is an attention to detail regarding what actual stuff students and teachers will be using and how they will use it that the SOF preparations didn't achieve (if the panel report is accurate). I am not so sure that the professional development preparations are so much superior or that the ongoing sustainment costs are any better thought through. Happy to be corrected by those more closely involved.

NAO Report on BSF

You sit around waiting for analysis of BSF for months on end, and then all of a sudden three reports come along in quick succession.

This one is from the National Audit Office and can be downloaded from here. The NAO is concerned with value for money and effective use of money. This is not a report about the learning and teaching in BSF schools. Nevertheless it is worth a look if you have an interest in BSF, at least read the executive summary (only 10 sides).

The opening sections explain the byzantine funding arrangements. They are baffling.

The report contains a number of very instructive graphics, diagrams explaining the funding arrangements, number of new schools built against the targets and so on, and I've tried to copy some into here but without success. If you want the pleasure of these you'll have to look at the original report.

The substance of the report is about value for money and here the NAO are equivocal. They explain that 'projects have been slow to provide data, and PfS has not yet collected enough on their whole life costs to enable us to come to a firm judgement on the projects’ overall value for money. There is also limited data on schools procured through other routes to provide ready benchmarks of all aspects of their costs.' (p24) The report does find that Academies were significantly more expensive to build than BSF schools, BSF £1,850 per square metre average costs compared to £2,240 per square metre for Academies before the programme was integrated into BSF.
'There is no statistical difference between the average price of BSF schools and PFI schools built before BSF was launched. The prices of schools procured through other routes are not collected centrally.' (p24)

The report also finds some benefits from the use of the LEP as well as some shortcomings. The report echoes the findings of PWC when it says 'BSF requires significant time commitment from school leaders, who told us that it creates considerable pressure on their ability to carry out their other duties. Some Local Authorities provide their schools with additional resources to plan and procure BSF, including to cover teaching while leaders (Governors, Heads, Deputies, and other senior staff) commit time to BSF.' But 'School leaders in our focus groups told us they often felt left to manage alone.' (p27) This is unacceptable. I also wondered about the observation, 'The best design of each individual school developed by bidders during the procurement process does not always win, because: the Local Authority scores bids on a variety of factors of which design counts for only 18 per cent...' I understand that LAs can't make a choice solely on design quality, companies selected must have the capacity and the experience necessary to be successful. Yet 18% seems very low.

It is very interesting that the views of LAs and private sector partners differ significantly when asked about if the LEP is a good approach to renewing school estate and equipping it to be capable of improving educational outcomes. It is hard to say exactly as the figures are not given but around 65% of the private sector partners thought that the LEP was either 'effective' or 'highly effective and worthwhile'. Only about 28% of LAs were of the same opinion. Quite why these opinions differed so widely I couldn't explain. The report does not even note this variation. I would be very keen to hear from anyone involved who thought they could explain this.

There is positive judgement about PfS in the report. But the NAO does note that PfS performance targets are all about timeliness and not quality and an implication that this isn't helpful to the main task at hand.

The report includes detailed case studies from Manchester, Bristol, Kent, Lewisham, Solihull, Lancashire and Ealing. There is a great deal of informative material in these and I'd cover this if I had the time. Again I recommend the report to you, but don't go there looking for answers to questions of educational quality.

Building Schools for the Future and Futurelab

Futurelab have just released a document called 'Transforming Schools for the Future?'. Download it from here. Four contributors have written short essays designed to stimulate thinking around the BSF process. Tim Rudd (Senior Researcher at Futurelab) argues that BSF will be more effective at changing learning for the better if young people are given a genuine voice in designing these new schools. His argument is very compelling. Tim recognises that personalisation if it has any meaning must imply student choices and empowerment. So, he argues, BSF should embrace learner empowerment. I find this an attractive proposition. I am a great believer in the idea that the means make the ends. The argument would be stronger if it was not based solely on logic. Unfortunately he doesn't refer the reader to any examples of this working in practice.
Nick Page is next and makes some similarly straightforward proposals to improve BSF. He wants greater preparatory work with schools. He wants more testing and experimenting before schools begin. I particularly appreciate his reference to City Learnining Centres (p 11) as good places to do the experimenting. He says 'Every project should have a link university who can help provide the research methodologies and support'. I'm sure most observers would say these are very sensible ideas. His focus on the human process of thinking through the whole thing makes a lot of sense. It made me think about the PWC report I wrote about a few weeks ago - visible here. Lack of funding to schools to help them prepare is highlighted in the report.
Rosemary Luckin, (Professor of Learner Centered Design, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education) has, in my opinion, some of the most interesting reflections.
'Teachers have a vitally important role in the realisation of the transformative power of technology, but this role is continually evolving and teachers need support to operate effectively in a ‘perpetual beta’ world.' (p 14) This made me stop and think for a minute. What makes google docs so powerful is their ability to add functionality, or alter the interface on the fly. They can watch the effects and decide whether or not to keep the change or try something else. Teachers should be able to use technology to support a similar process with learners.
She says on page 15 that BSF needs to 'explore how the school can be designed in a manner that enables it to continue to evolve'. A fabulous point I think. Learning is at the centre of this dynamic, and without the ability to change, what point would there be in educationalists and learners finding out what is effective and suboptimal in their buildings?
Bob Harrison of Toshiba Information Systems is the last contributor. I was struck by this question.
'How do we create a climate for the education workforce to innovate and be creative within a system which is “internally consistent and self sustaining”?' (p 20) This is at the heart of much of the weaknesses in BSF at present. I remember PM Tony Blair asserting that standards not structures matter and being sceptical. Very often the former are shaped by the latter. Our present school system creates institutions that are extremely risk averse and defensive. If BSF can be a tool for decoupling some of the engines that create this climate in schools then I'll be delighted.

PWC Report on BSF

This has appeared having a publication date of December 2008. The full report can be downloaded from here. This is the teachernet website run by the DCSF. It has the following upbeat summary of the report.
'The report shows that BSF is making good progress, that there is increasing belief in all stakeholders that it will deliver strong benefits for teaching and learning, and particularly from schools as they actually go through the programme. There is strong evidence of satisfaction with their new buildings from the staff and pupils of the first four new BSF schools opened.'

Strange then that the actual report should say:
'.. staff ... were generally less knowledgeable than other stakeholders of the aims and objectives of BSF for their school, or the potential for the programme to have longer-term educational impacts.' and, 'Schools should review their communication strategies in order to ensure that the processes used to inform teaching staff are effective'.

I suppose if staff had known almost nothing at the last review then it would be fair to say they have an increasing belief in the strong benefits. Or perhaps the DCSF doesn't include staff as a stakeholder group?

I found these headline findings very interesting.

• 'BSF managers and directors in four of the 11 LAs interviewed stated that they did not provide funding to schools to enable them to implement BSF.' Although the remaining 7 did provide funds. I would have thought all schools would need financial support to undertake all the very necessary preparatory work for BSF. The report says 'Most [heads] said there was a shortfall, sometimes a large one, between LA funding received and the actual costs they had incurred' and so it goes on to recommend better funding. I've seen a very great deal of capital investment in schools be less effective because of a failure to invest in human resources. ICT put in to schools where staff receive insufficient training and support is just one example. So this is a particular disappointment.
• The effectiveness of the LEP (Local Educational Partnership) as a tool for delivery of BSF is examined. I find it very concerning that this was reported, 'Given that ICT provision and maintenance is one of a number of key responsibilities of the LEP, it is surprising that only one-fifth of headteachers (20%) agreed or strongly agreed that the use of a LEP for ICT provision and maintenance and other related services would be a good thing, and that negative responses were higher than for other questions ... (at 21%).' BSF has been a trojan horse for the imposition of managed ICT services in schools. This is an experiment. The evidence for the effectiveness of managed services in schools is limited at best. (See for example the Becta research I posted about here.)
• The views on the LEP itself were also worrying. 'Just under one fifth of headteachers overall (19%) thought that educational interests would be adequately represented in the LEP, with a higher number of positive responses from Wave 1-3 schools than from Wave 4-6 schools (32% and 13% respectively).' So even in the wave 1-3 schools two-thirds of the heads interviewed were not able to be confident that educational interests would be paramount to the LEP. If I was running Partnership for Schools (PfS - the quango steering BSF) I'd be very worried by these numbers!
• Further 'A small number of interviewees expressed concern that the contracting company might be too dominant within the LEP (reflecting the fact that the LEP model is 80% private, 10% BSFI and 10% LA controlled).'

So overall not the terrific success the teachernet website claims.