When someone appointed by the Government then goes on to make some ridiculous and out of touch comments – in this case about education, it is hard to know what will have an impact and persuade him or her to look down the telescope from the right end, or whether just to assume they are not ever going to do the job they have been appointed to. Yesterday in the ExCel Exhibition Centre a one day trade show for Academies took place and one of the speakers was Sir Andrew Carter. According to a biographical piece on a University website, promoting a talk he gave in January ‘Sir Andrew is a National Leader of Education. His publication, ‘Financial Management in Schools’, has been widely used by Head teachers and Governors to support them in school improvement. Most recently, Andrew chaired the Independent Review of Initial Teacher Training which published its report in January 2015.Andrew sits on a range of national strategic policy groups including the Teaching School Council and the Regional Commissioning Board for the South East England.’

At the Academies show according to this report Andrew made at least a couple of very clear and uncomplicated statements that make sense. He apparently said ‘that to adequately fund continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers, schools should add two per cent to their staff budgets.‘ This on its own and bearing in mind it comes from someone with strong connections to Government could be treated as a call to the Government to add 2% to School Budgets which would certainly be a good call for a well connected person involved in education to make. He also attempted to draw ‘parallels with the NHS, which he said had successfully decided what it could and could not “reasonably afford” to fund. Education now needs “to decide what’s in and what’s out”, he said’.

In an ideal and perhaps rose tinted world, such comments would be a chance for Schools to agree with Sir Andrew and call on him to go to the Government with a request for 2% on top of the other budgetary shortfalls and also a list of elements of education that are currently not achievable if the Government does not do as it promised and add funds into Schools in a meaningful way. However in the lecture area of Excel yesterday, the other end of the telescope was how Andrew was viewing this set of challenges.

He said ‘schools need to take a “radical approach” to deal with underfunding, and reach out to parents for payments to cope with the costs of running a school…..“If you can’t do it, send a letter to your parents tonight and ask for £1 a week,” he added…. schools should seek to address even general funding shortfalls by going directly to the taxpayer, if the government refuses to raise taxes to give schools more cash. When he was accused by an audience member of being unfair, Carter defended his proposals. “It’s always unfair. It’s unfair in lots of ways. It’s unfair if children are not getting an education in your school which you think is reasonable,” he replied. “Parents pay for schools anyway through their taxes. If every child at your school paid £1 a day you would have £60,000 more a year. That gives you two members of staff to teach. Or, you go along struggling.”’

Now there are several aspects of this which I think Sir Andrew should consider, once he has recovered from the challenge that he had of being called unfair. My children started School in the early 90’s and we were invited, encourage and even cajoled into helping raise funds for the School through the PTA and even my parents were encouraged to do so, so unless things have changed dramatically, the call for parents to fund school running costs is part of the territory that has already been in place for 5 decades. However demanding a set sum from each parent to pay for CPD or teachers will not work, and will potentially leave some parents struggling even more than they do at present and many more in conflict with the school in addition to the conflict they face with their landlord, utilitity suppliers and food retailers. This proposal will clearly cost the Schools dear in terms of their approach and may have a serious impact on school attendance. Sir Andrew assumed that Schools which are open 38 weeks of the year will be able to collect £1 a day from their parents. If this was achievable, at best this would generate £190 a year, not the £500 he claimed, based on another report. Parents are not going to pay for weekends and days of the holidays! The 1944 Education Act by R.A. Butler sought to end such arrangements, I suspect that Andrew does not want to be remembered for bringing the work of RAB Butler to an end. State schools are treated as businesses, whereas private schools are treated as charities when it comes to matters such as rates, to propose to change this might be a useful suggestion for a person like Andrew to make to the Government and Councils. Their reaction will be a great deal more robust than he experienced yesterday. His comment above suggests that Schools are capable of becoming tax collectors, I have seen cases where children have been denied trips abroad or even day trips because their parents refuse or are unable to make a contribution for the journey. If Schools cannot achieve this, they will certainly not have the leverage to force parents to pay a daily tax for something which has only distance benefit to the parents. One of Andrews comments is below and I reproduce it in the light of the millions of people being supported in this country by foodbanks, even in Surrey where Andrew works and presumably lives!

“I don’t know any area of England where there is a shop in a street that says ‘you are from a poor home, therefore these groceries will be free’,”

Perhaps it is time for Sir Andrew to spend a bit of time in some of our more challenging communities!