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Bonus episode: AEPA Round Table: Education priorities, curriculum reform and inclusion · HFL Education

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the HFL Education Business Services podcast.
• 0:06
  I'm Catherine Loake, director of business services here at HFL Education, and today we're bringing you a special bonus episode.
• 0:12
  This roundtable, produced in partnership with AEPA, reflects on a recent briefing with Sir Kevan Collins, the lead non exec director at the Department for Education, and it explores some of the key priorities facing education.
• 0:23
  Hosted by Stephen Betts, chief exec of Learn Sheffield, the discussion brings together Baroness Estelle Morris, chair of Birmingham Education Partnership and former Secretary of State for education, Carol Bennett, chief executive of HFL Education.
• 0:36
  And Stephen Hall, chief executive of Camden Learning.
• 0:39
  Together, they explore what the priorities shared by Sir Kevan could mean for a curriculum reform, SEND and inclusion, academisation and the future role of local education partnerships.
• 0:48
  We hope you enjoy the discussion.
• 0:53
  Different...voices...sharing...thinking...knowledge...and...experience.
• 1:01
  Welcome to LS Education Digital.
• 1:04
  The round table.
• 1:07
  Welcome to this round table.
• 1:09
  My name is Steven Betts and I'm the CEO here at Learn Sheffield.
• 1:13
  This round table is slightly different as it has been produced in partnership with colleagues from the AEPA, which is the Area based Education Partnership Association.
• 1:22
  We're joined today by three of those colleagues.
• 1:24
  Carol Bennett is CEO of HFL Education.
• 1:28
  Stephen Hall is CEO of Camden Learning and Baroness Morris is a former Secretary of State for education and currently the chair of Birmingham Education Partnership.
• 1:38
  We come together today to reflect on the AEPA webinar that was held last Friday with Sir Kevan Collins.
• 1:44
  Kevan, in his role as lead non-executive director at the DfE provided an overview of the immediate and longer term challenges facing the education system and the priorities that are shaping the DfE’s response to those challenges.
• 1:58
  We hope that you find the conversation that follows useful and informative.
• 2:08
  Thanks for joining us this afternoon colleagues.
• 2:10
  Shall we start with our overall impressions?
• 2:12
  Would you each like to introduce yourself and share your overall reflections on the webinar?
• 2:17
  My name is Estelle Morris and at the moment I chair the Birmingham Education Partnership.
• 2:23
  I enjoyed listening to the webinar.
• 2:25
  I thought it was good.
• 2:27
  And I think the thing that struck me most was it genuinely felt like an invitation to discuss some of the important issues.
• 2:35
  There was lots of facts.
• 2:37
  I sort of came away knowing more than I'd known before, but more than that, I felt from Kevan there was a, you know, there was an invitation almost to be part of an ongoing conversation.
• 2:47
  And I took that, that things might be changing.
• 2:50
  So I thought it was a good combination and really invaluable in taking my thinking forward.
• 2:57
  My name’s Stephen Hall.
• 2:59
  I'm the chief executive at Camden Learning.
• 3:03
  Yeah, I found the whole thing very reassuring in many ways.
• 3:06
  I think Sir Kevan was exploring a real commitment to locality, a recognition of area and area partnerships, and that locality is a driver for networks and strong practice.
• 3:22
  I like the alignment and the movement away from the focus on structures and more towards whether schools are outward facing and serving their local communities, and I found that very welcome.
• 3:35
  I mean, the focus really and the sticky area is around the challenge of implementation.
• 3:42
  And my name is Carol Bennett.
• 3:44
  I'm the CEO of HFL Education, formerly Herts for Learning, a partnership based in Hertfordshire.
• 3:50
  And like Estelle and Stephen, I found it really interesting.
• 3:54
  There was lots there in terms of continuity.
• 3:56
  The areas we talk about were the areas we've been talking about for a while.
• 3:59
  We've been talking about inclusion and attendance and disadvantage.
• 4:03
  All that are carried forward to the next agenda.
• 4:06
  But what I think I found really exciting was a really distinct change of tone to one that I've heard for a while.
• 4:13
  There was much more a tone of about collaboration and distributed leadership, and the system being led for and by the people within the system, too.
• 4:23
  And I think before, we've been a little bit more concerned about some top down models that have been in existence before, kind of where there are prefects who lead new pieces of work to the system.
• 4:35
  And this felt much more collaborative, much more engaged.
• 4:39
  And I certainly got a sense from the people on the call that this was something we could all get involved with and all make a difference together.
• 4:47
  Thank you.
• 4:51
  Kevan's comments about the curriculum emphasise the long runway through to September 28, and I wondered if maybe that suggested the possibility of a bigger evolution than we'd previously expected under the under the previous Secretary of state.
• 5:07
  Estelle, do you want to start us off on that one?
• 5:09
  Yeah, I do think it's a big issue.
• 5:12
  And I suspected that Kevan didn't know the answer to that question either, in terms of timing.
• 5:17
  And I certainly don't have a definitive argument.
• 5:20
  But, you know, one of the really big things is this announcement about vocational subjects.
• 5:27
  And I think that's a really powerful theme within the new Secretary of State's work.
• 5:33
  I would suggest, I don't know, I'm only guessing, but if you asked her what three things do you want to achieve?
• 5:39
  I bet that vocational subjects would be in the three.
• 5:45
  Implementing it, especially when we've already had some changes in vocational subjects and the fight to retain some of the BTEC is difficult.
• 5:54
  And I suspected, or I thought that that's what gave it the long runway.
• 5:58
  I don't think it's debatable as to whether we're going to have vocational GCSEs, but I do wonder how much prior planning has been done about how we implement them.
• 6:08
  And I just sense from Kevan that it was sort of that message, it's going to happen, but it's not going to be announced Monday.
• 6:15
  All the details and it's going to happen in this way.
• 6:17
  And in this time frame.
• 6:18
  There's some thinking needs to be done.
• 6:20
  And that's good and it's bad because it does create more uncertainty.
• 6:24
  That's why you ask the question.
• 6:26
  But I think for my own point of view, I think it's a really exciting development.
• 6:31
  And if things aren't set in stone, it's a really good opportunity for us to join in.
• 6:36
  It might be a question that came out of that, because it's something I've been interested in throughout the whole of the curriculum debate is what happens to BTEC’s I thought we'd saved them, if you like, because I think they're good things, and now I'm less sure.
• 6:50
  So that's fairly near the top of my questions if we get another opportunity to ask them.
• 6:56
  Thank you.
• 6:56
  Stephen.
• 6:57
  I think with all the breathlessness of education policy over the past few years, it's really refreshing to have a sort of slightly longer timeline and a bit of thinking and reflection about what will work and what won't work.
• 7:10
  And I agree with Estelle.
• 7:12
  I think it's a really exciting development to consider what will happen at vocational at 16 to 18.
• 7:19
  And certainly all the research on the past few years has just pointed to that being so, so needed.
• 7:24
  So very, very welcome.
• 7:26
  Thank you.
• 7:28
  Kevan shared messages to local partnerships, didn't he.
• 7:32
  And his slides, he had a slide at the end with five messages.
• 7:35
  What opportunities and risks do you see emerging for local partnerships and what do you think are successful local partnership might look like by 2028 if we take that runway?
• 7:47
  Steven, should we start with you?
• 7:48
  Yeah.
• 7:48
  Well, I think we need to be brave.
• 7:50
  And I think there's a lot on the table for us here.
• 7:54
  I think we need to demonstrate genuine agency and impact, drawing from and sharing that school led expertise.
• 8:02
  And you know, that that really is the sort of theme, isn't it?
• 8:05
  It's about the expertise is in there in schools.
• 8:08
  How do we then disseminate that through the system?
• 8:11
  But the model Kevan also outlined was one involving wider partners such as the LA health, businesses, police services.
• 8:21
  And there's a real need here for local partnerships to build meaningful relationships with those services in order to enact that sort of team around the child or that whole locality approach towards meeting needs.
• 8:34
  But to do that, we've got to establish really strong relationships, because to have that kind of transparency between schools about admissions, exclusions, movement of children through the system, I think we've really just got to have that strength of trust.
• 8:50
  And I think local area partnerships really offer that opportunity.
• 8:54
  But it's something that needs to be nurtured and developed over time, you know, growing that sense of sort of joint enterprise.
• 9:02
  I mean, the experts at hand alone is, is a fairly ambitious process or policy.
• 9:08
  And in order for that to really be meaningful for schools and for that vision that he outlined as school leaders just being able to call up for an educational psychologist, you know, that's going to take a whole level of not only organisational know how, but also our sense of how schools work.
• 9:27
  And as we all know, that sort of interagency work is complicated by the fact that different agencies speak in different ways and have different ways of communicating their needs.
• 9:36
  And I think area partnerships can really work as an advocate there.
• 9:40
  We can really work as an advocate for schools, put forward schools voices into that space where it's not always really well understood.
• 9:48
  I mean, there's a number of risks I saw.
• 9:51
  I mean, certainly individual schools are still seen as being very vulnerable in the system.
• 9:56
  So this is an opportunity for them to be part of something broader, to be more outward facing.
• 10:03
  And this is all happening at a real time of vulnerability for schools.
• 10:07
  You know, with pressured budgets, there's SEN challenges, that inspection regime, which I think is bringing at the moment more challenge than support.
• 10:15
  You know, all of those things were touched on, but there are all risks.
• 10:20
  And that ingrained fragmentation in the system and the perceived differences between different organisations and settings, I think all of that needs to be overcome in order for this to be to be truly successful.
• 10:32
  Thank you, Estelle.
• 10:35
  And then Carol.
• 10:37
  Yeah, I think I think that's right.
• 10:39
  It's a really, really good opportunity for us.
• 10:42
  But there are risks. And I suppose you know that phrase, be careful what you wish for comes to mind, because for years and years and years, we've wanted the government to know we're here and take note of us.
• 10:54
  And I still want that, because that's the way it should be.
• 10:58
  So I think at this point, when they've got interested us, in partnerships and realised we've got a role, I think we have the responsibility to hold on what's different and what's at the core of what we believe in.
• 11:10
  And the thing I think the challenge that I really want us to bring services together, because I think that's how we'll help children and young people and families by making sure that all services work with education and education works with them.
• 11:24
  And yet, I've always got this worry that in the past we've not done that because we thought it would take our focus away from school improvement.
• 11:32
  And yet they all contribute to the same thing.
• 11:34
  And that's quite complex to actually work out.
• 11:37
  So I think it's a wonderful opportunity.
• 11:40
  We should say yes, but we should bear in mind that we, each of us, may have a different view of what a partnership is to each other.
• 11:48
  And all of us might have a different view of what a partnership is to the government.
• 11:52
  So clarity, clarity, clarity.
• 11:54
  Otherwise, we'll all fall over our own feet.
• 11:56
  But it's a really good opportunity, and certainly one that we should cease as much as we can.
• 12:02
  Just go on the back of that.
• 12:05
  I completely agree with everything Estelle said, and I think there are two concepts that really need definition.
• 12:10
  The first is localism.
• 12:11
  How local is local?
• 12:13
  It could be district, it could be region, it could be council.
• 12:15
  And in Hertfordshire we've been on the learning edge of local government reform.
• 12:19
  So defining what local looks like is going to be interesting and defining what a partnership looks like, almost we’re our biggest enemies.
• 12:27
  It's the most exciting time to be in a local education partnership.
• 12:30
  We've all got the same vision and values, but we all operate slightly differently and you'd expect that that's the whole localism agenda.
• 12:37
  We are meant to be different because our schools, our settings and our trusts all need slightly different things from us.
• 12:43
  So that's really localism and action, but it does make us really hard to work with.
• 12:47
  And I worry that if you're trying to roll out a national coherent system, we have to be able to make sure the idiosyncratic behaviors that that make us special aren't rolled out of the way.
• 12:59
  Otherwise, there's always a danger that someone creates a partnership.
• 13:03
  And Steven and I were talking about this morning, it can be so much easier to create a partnership to become a delivery vehicle for something in isolation, which is really hard for schools if they have one partnership for SEND and one partnership for attendance, they've got too many partnerships, none of which they have a proper deep relationship with.
• 13:22
  And I think that's why it's really exciting to be in a local education partnership.
• 13:25
  We all have different partnerships, but they've been established over a long period of time and have absolutely developed deep trust in our local communities.
• 13:35
  Bringing that to the fore and being an easy group of people to work with is a challenge that I think we're all going to have to lift to, to make sure this works well for the schools in our communities.
• 13:45
  Thank you.
• 13:46
  Moving on to another area where there are a lot of questions.
• 13:49
  I thought the comments about Academisation were really interesting.
• 13:53
  Kevan set out a clear direction of travel.
• 13:55
  These slides included the phrase all schools to join or form trusts.
• 14:00
  He also then went on to make it clear that settings would not be directed to do that, and it was in their own hands.
• 14:07
  And he also expressed a personal view that the impact of MAT’s is not as established as, as some people claim.
• 14:14
  So how do you think all that will land in our partnerships?
• 14:18
  Carol.
• 14:18
  Well, I was really fortunate, Steven, because I walked out of the cupboard, we recorded the briefing in, straight into a hall full of over 100 primary heads from a range of SAT’s and MAT’s, and maintain schools, so it will land differently in different places actually.
• 14:33
  So Hertfordshire were not dissimilar to some of the partnerships in existence.
• 14:38
  Most of our primary schools are maintained, most of our secondary schools are academised, but in Hertfordshire we have a lot of single academy trusts, and for a long period of time they've been really worried about what the march towards joining a MAT looked like for them and certainly for the people I spoke to before the briefing, that was their concern and had a range of people, SAT’s worried that they would be forced into a path they didn't think it was right for their community, but also actually from small MAT’s, who told me that they had been pulled in to people at the DfE to be told that their multi-academy trust was too small, and yet they felt it was well balanced and met the needs of their community.
• 15:18
  It was financially sustainable and they were performing well and obviously we have maintained schools.
• 15:24
  Something like 88% of maintained schools in Hertfordshire are not interested at the moment of becoming an academy, unless there was some kind of catalyst for change, whether that's the departure of a head teacher or the change of governing board.
• 15:35
  So all of those had asked me to pose a question about that, because they were really worried about the main conversations not being the children in their school and then being distracted from doing the job they were meant to be doing, while they frantically found more people to join their small mat, or while the single academy trust had to find a map partner.
• 15:55
  And so I think Kevan's answer was really reassuring to that group.
• 16:00
  And there was a there was a really good, cautious point about making sure that you're connected.
• 16:04
  And I think that's always the worry for a single academy trust.
• 16:07
  How do you know that your latest practice is the best practice?
• 16:10
  But most of the single academy trusts in our area and, like yours, are connected in all kinds of ways to the local community and always recycling, practicing in between.
• 16:20
  That's the main role that our organisation plays.
• 16:24
  So I think that went really well.
• 16:25
  I think there was concern from some of the mid-sized multi-academy trust who were looking for a catalyst from the DfE for other people to rethink their position, and half of the people in the room probably heard reassurance.
• 16:39
  Focus on your children.
• 16:40
  Focus on your communities.
• 16:41
  We will not interfere from the side.
• 16:43
  If it's right for you, it's right for us.
• 16:45
  Unless there's a reason to rethink based on financial sustainability or standards.
• 16:49
  But some of the people who were trying to grow a multi-academy trust, who felt driven to do so, I think were concerned that their impetus had been lost.
• 16:59
  They thought they were told to do one thing, and now they're given no support to do that for the DfE.
• 17:04
  So it was really welcome clarity for me.
• 17:07
  And as an agnostic, I always call as an agnostic organisation, maybe where system fluent is the other positive way to look at it.
• 17:14
  And for a system fluent organisation, it's kind of no change for me.
• 17:17
  I'd rather be focusing on the children and letting individual communities decide what their governance structure needs to look like.
• 17:24
  I think that's right.
• 17:26
  I think that's it's true that certainly he spoke about the agency of the individual head teacher, but our strength as area partnerships has always been the fact that we joined together groups of school in the locality, not related to type, and that remains our strength in this system, although it's refreshing to see that sort more openness towards different types of partnerships and structures across England than there has been previously and that recognition that we've sort of long not seen.
• 17:58
  Thank you.
• 17:59
  So thanks so much to each of you finding time to join the discussion.
• 18:03
  I've got one final question, if you'll indulge me, for each of you.
• 18:09
  It feels as though the months ahead will be really consequential for the education sector.
• 18:13
  There's a lot happening there isn't that we've talked about today.
• 18:17
  And what are you most curious to see how it develops and what are you watching most closely?
• 18:22
  Stephen, shall I start with you.
• 18:22
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  I mean, overall, there's a lot of great opportunities here, aren't there?
• 18:29
  But there's also a lot in the system.
• 18:31
  There's a lot going on.
• 18:32
  And I think Carol is absolutely right to be saying, talking about, well, let's focus on the children and what's good for them.
• 18:38
  And you know, I think that's the focus for heads, isn't it?
• 18:40
  But I mean, I'm really curious personally about this experts at hand model.
• 18:46
  I think, you know, it's a really nice idea.
• 18:48
  It's a great idea having that expertise to be able to draw on at the point of need.
• 18:55
  But it seems extraordinarily ambitious in many ways.
• 18:59
  I'm not completely sure about the ability of each area or each local authority to be able to deliver in the time frame they've been given, so I remain hopeful and ambitious for it, but I'm curious about how it will manifest.
• 19:11
  Thank you. Carol.
• 19:14
  So I think it's a really exciting time, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the policy translates into everyday decision making at the DfE, because it is a significant change.
• 19:23
  We're still looking at the same issues, but the tone is really, really different.
• 19:28
  And so I'm going to be watching whether the government genuinely can make that shift between mandating and setting clear expectations, which are almost about compliance, to really enabling greatness locally.
• 19:41
  I think it's trickier for them.
• 19:42
  I think it's harder to put together as a coherent policy, but I think genuinely we've demonstrated that it will it will deliver better results for children and for citizens locally.
• 19:53
  So I will be watching to see, I guess, how that the policy translates into practice.
• 19:57
  And whether or not in a in a crazily busy political world, the need for speed overtakes the ability to do these things carefully and building trust in local areas.
• 20:08
  Thank you Estelle.
• 20:10
  Two things I think.
• 20:12
  But first, building on what Stephen and Carol said, I got the feeling both during the seminar and afterwards that for 20 years we've talked about a school led system and we've never built it.
• 20:24
  We've never had it.
• 20:25
  It's always been a top down system.
• 20:28
  I got the I just asked myself the question at the end.
• 20:31
  We might actually be getting there to school led system.
• 20:34
  If you follow what Kevan said and implement it.
• 20:38
  There was a generosity of spirit and a willingness to stand back and give forward.
• 20:43
  So that's the first thing are we really at that point, after almost a quarter of a century where we might have a genuinely school led system.
• 20:51
  And the second thing is how what we're doing in schools, in education fits in with the devolution agenda.
• 20:57
  We've already seen the shift in terms of sixth form funding.
• 21:01
  On the good side, there's a huge amount of capacity in the regions and in the, you know, the new structures that are being put in place.
• 21:10
  On the difficult side, it's yet another change.
• 21:13
  So those are the two things I think I'd be watching over the next few months.
• 21:17
  Thank you colleagues.
• 21:19
  That feels like a really good point at which to stop.
• 21:21
  Thank you very much again for your time.
• 21:23
  Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 21:29
  Thanks again to Carol, Stephen and Estelle for contributing to this session.
• 21:34
  If you would like to know more about the AEPA, you can visit aepa.org.uk online.
• 21:40
  I would also draw your attention to the next webinar in our series, which takes place on Friday the 13th of November at 9 a.m..
• 21:48
  In this session, Baroness Estelle Morris, as co-chair of the Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Outcomes, will discuss the findings and recommendations of that independent report.
• 22:01
  I would also direct you towards the AEPA conference, which this year will take place on Friday 16th April, and that will be held at Mary Ward House in London.
• 22:14
  Thanks again for your time today and we hope you've enjoyed this recording.