Stockholm Syndrome: A psychological response wherein a captive begins to identify closely with his or her captors, as well as with their agenda and demands.
Lately, I’ve been asking myself whether a kind of educational Stockholm Syndrome could explain some of the sector’s response to the new-ish government’s emerging plans to reduce competition and increase collaboration.
Has the profession, which is collegiate by instinct, been taken psychological hostage by the Conservatives and their lust for the market?
I mean, the answer is obviously no, but it is worth exploring why many have responded in the way they have.
Setting to one side the large number of heads and sector leaders who are not in the slightest bit concerned by the policy direction of travel, let’s look at the decent number of often high-profile ones who are outwardly oppositional.
There are of course some for whom the changes announced in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – to freedoms enjoyed by academies over admissions, staff professional qualifications, curriculum and pay and conditions – are a step too far in any context. They are they are believers in school autonomy in tooth and claw. Autonomy for autonomy’s sake.
This is a group that Bridget Phillipson et al. will probably never carry with them. They will roll out the barbed wire across the school gates and, like a hick with a compound in the American midwest, defend their independence to the death. (I jest!)
The next group is those who simply don’t want yet more change. They might not use those freedoms that are being cut back by Labour’s legislation much, but it doesn’t mean they’re not suspicious of what they see as unnecessary reform without a clear endpoint. They are tired of structural reform and don’t want any more.
Finally, there is a group for whom academy freedoms are not a point of principle, but who have used the reforms to school governance (from Blair through to Gove) to drive substantive improvements for many millions of young people.
These are the beginnings of an alternative vision for the school system
They are – over-generalisation coming – those who have created the often world-class educational institutions that are multi-academy trusts (MATs). They are most likely to have innovated in pay and conditions, and they are most likely to point out practical problems to the proposed changes.
This is the group who are also worried about the legislation because they don’t yet feel they have been sold a positive alternative vision from Labour.
This is not without irony. The way I understand the emergent Labour reform story is that it will build on the foundational principles that made MATs most successful (e.g. peer-to-peer collaboration, sharing best practice between similar schools) and export it to the rest of the sector.
There are a number of policies, some rather more developed than others, that demonstrate Labour’s determination to drive collaboration into the system.
First, the government is determined to use legislation to ensure all schools work together on place planning.
Second, and in spite of the furore, the point of re-instilling national pay and conditions is to set a floor standard, not a ceiling, so that all schools will be able to learn from one another and innovate in the way that academies can and have.
Third, regional improvement (RISE) teams are an emergent and misunderstood policy with distinct echoes of the London Challenge. If they work, this will place intervention in the hands of peers of professionals.
And finally, I would be surprised not to see some element of school-to-school collaboration baked into the Ofsted report card when it finally comes to light.
In addition, the government is clearly also determined to soften the harder edges of the accountability regime that it thinks has forced schools to make immoral decisions – such as off-rolling and other kinds of gaming – to gain a competitive edge.
These, then, are the beginnings of an alternative vision for the school system. They are also something of a full stop on New Public Management, which has provided the philosophical underpinning of the past 25 years of education reform in this country.
That worldview still drives Wes Streeting in the Department of Health, where he is introducing league tables and beefing up inspection. Presumably, it is not something most in education would rather have.
But there is a challenge for the government in bringing about this radical change in direction. It was hinted at by both Phillipson and her permanent secretary this week at the education select committee.
While we undoubtedly need more collaboration, and it does unquestionably improve best practice, we also need there to be an element of jeopardy built into the system. We need education to be a high-stakes environment because for most children the stakes could not be higher. Schooling is an one-time opportunity.
The question is not really either/or: rather, how do we have a system that is both high-stakes and collaborative? This is the policy challenge that Bridget Phillipson has set herself. Many of her reforms – when understood in the round – go a long way to answering that question.
But we also await a number of big policy moves in the next few months. Only after those will we know if the Phillipson project will really be a the transformative vision the sector needs.
And the sector’s evolving response will tell us how far it has been de-programmed from its trauma response.
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