One of Jane Austen’s nastier creations is the ghastly Sir Walter Elliott in Persuasion. Vain, vapid, disregarding, flimsy and partial, he wafts about in a cloud of debt preferring his horrible daughter to his good one. At one point early in the book he’s told by his agent that he must retrench and move to Bath because a gentlemen may live cheaply there. Off he goes and devotes his time to his rich relations. Long story. 

Retrenchment aptly describes schools and their budgets since 2010. Beginning with austerity (formerly known as public sector cuts) funding has plummeted. Governments since 2010 have tried doggedly to avoid solving the problem. 

First, they said there wasn‘t a problem and school leaders should stop going on about it and do their jobs properly.
Second, they said that there well may be a problem, but that because the money was hiding in clumps and not fairly distributed. The National Fair Funding Formula would sort this out so everyone would be happy. Then the NFFF lost it’s Fair and set about redistributing only the money that was already in the system. 

Third, they said that there was, actually, literally loads more money in the system so, like, what is the problem, really? The UK Statistics Agency took a dim view of this. In the interest of balance, they were critical of a union counter-narrative called School Cuts which gave crude and scary headline figures slightly detached from the context. They then issued four rebukes to the DfE along the lines of ‘I am sure you share my concerns that instances such as these do not help to promote trust and confidence in official data, and indeed risk undermining them’. Do the sums properly, would you? 

Fourth, Lord Agnew put some embarrassed civil servants on the road to go over our budgets with a bottle of champagne promised to any head where they couldn’t find savings. Churchill Pol Roger at £150 or Co-op Les Pionniers at £19.99? I don’t think anybody knows.

As a top-notch strategy for a major public service, guaranteed to bring about the world-class system which politicians apparently desire this is flaky. Schools have had to devote a disproportionate amount of time – and therefore cost – to dealing with the terrible effects of the 8% drop in funding and trying to gather counter-arguments. ASCL cost it at an extra £5.7 billion to deliver basic expectations: £40.2 billion compared to the allocation of £34.5 billion. The Worth Less? campaign has mobilised the reasonable, the parents and the Tory shires. 
 
It is perhaps hopeful therefore, that the next PM will allegedly make school funding a Thing? None of them have looked closely at what heads are saying but all of them are frightened that the ballot box will be impeded by the begging bowls of headteachers. None of them will say: ‘we didn’t care so much about schools, we don’t really care now but I’ll say anything if you PLEASE elect me. And by the way? We’ve spent the money on Brexit, on nothing.’
Notwithstanding, Gove has said he will spend an extra one billion on schools. Javid promises “billions more for education”. Johnson will spend at least £5,000 on every secondary pupil (which wouldn’t help us in London). Even the hapless May is reportedly setting a £27 billion education “spending trap” for whoever follows her. What should they spend it on?
 
As part of the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), teachers in England (and elsewhere) were asked precisely this: 'thinking about education as a whole, if the budget were to be increased by 5%, how would you rate the importance of the following spending priorities?’

The answers are clear.

1. Recruit more support staff to reduce teachers’ administrative loads
2. Recruit more teachers to reduce class sizes

Teachers in England want these more than they want a pay rise. Politicians, it seems, will say anything to get a clap. I’m not hopeful but always ready to unlock the coffers and await the coinage.

I’m surrounded by adolescents all of whose brains are being rewired as they go about.  It means that they take risks, push boundaries and – some of them – like the PM contenders, will say anything to get out of trouble. I was showing a Dignitary around this week when we chanced upon an altercation in which intemperate language was used by a youth. I was the net winner in this tussle, one phone the richer as I whisked off to a calmer spot.  The youth had to be confined to (our in-house) barracks and as part of the punishment, apologise honestly to me. This he did. It might not stick, but it was properly done.

Adults can do it too. A parent was agitated and spoke with asperity. Time elapsed and an apology appeared: time to think, heat of the moment, sorry.  Can we pick up where we were before I lost it?

A group of 18-year-olds, in sight of the final A levels, gather to chat on the yard.  Eight years of their education has been sacrificed to shallow, doctrinaire, fearful and punitive spending cuts. Above them a small child pelts along the empty bridge at full throttle, full of energy and on a mission. Perhaps he’ll be luckier.

Sir Walter was a foolish spendthrift and the capable Anne was rescued from his stupidity by the Austen’s best hero, Captain Wentworth. He’s described as having ‘spirit and brilliance but no fine friends to recommend him’ much like the state schools of the nation. We don’t need a hero to rescue us, but we need honesty, openness, truth, trust, justice, wisdom, service and an apology. How dare they use the children as a bargaining token in their vain and vapid competition?    
 
CR
19.6.19

Gove’s Ebacc was too small. It didn’t include an arts or practical subject. I assume this was so it wouldn’t look like the National Curriculum, which enshrined an entitlement to the broad and balanced curriculum including the arts. So, this happened. The requirements of the NC were lifted, pressures to increase results every year increased, schools focused time and money on English and maths, undervalued arts withered and died.  No one banned arts, but everything else was compulsory. Labour and Coalition trussed up schools in the lunatic knitting of cash flow and the performance tables.    

Arts decline easily. Despite our pre-eminence as a creative nation, we leave culture to the same divisive market forces as everything else. We don’t prioritise access to the arts in school because Secretaries of State say things like ‘I want England to be top five PISA for English and maths by 2020’.  They don’t realise that if state schools have to increase time and funding for maths and English then other things go and the arts deficit isn’t made up by children going to the opera with their parents. 

As I remarked to the tea towels, politicians misunderstand the purpose of education and are diverted by falsehoods. Here are 7 that were comprehensively debunked by the OECD earlier this month.

1. Disadvantaged pupils always do badly in school: no, successful systems mitigate social inequalities.
   
2. Immigrants lower results: no, not anywhere. 
3. It’s all about money: no, there is no correlation.
4. Smaller class sizes raise standards: no, teacher quality and workload reduction raise standards.
5. Comprehensive systems are fair but you need academic selection for higher results: no, there is no tracking, streaming or grade repetition in top performing systems.
6. The digital world needs new subjects and a wider curriculum: no, in top systems the curriculum is rigorous, with subjects taught well and in great depth.
7. Success is about being born talented: no, all children can achieve at very high levels. Top systems  "level up" so that all students meet standards formerly expected only from elite students.

 
So if the current SoS wants to be top 5 she’s going to have to look coolly at some vote-losing issues:

1. Stop describing poor families as a drain on the system
2. Stop talking rubbish about immigration
3. Stop fiddling with school funding
4. Sort out teacher recruitment and workload
5. Value comprehensive schools
6. Stop adding things to the curriculum
7. Believe that all children can learn

A more equal society raises standards and a less equal one depresses them. Schools should enable children to build a better future and wedge the doors open to their cultural birthright, starting with the arts. Systematically open up the palaces of privilege and high culture. Dial down the exclusive rhetoric on STEM and the economic functionality of education, talk up the balance of things that help children fly.  Architects need artistry, maths and music go hand in hand, science needs philosophy, drama explains everything and what is life without poetry?

At Tallis every week is culture week but children still need persuading that this is theirs too. So this week we've hosted a world famous violinist, 100 year 8s have made a film, year 9 premiered a National Theatre competition performance, sixth form artists are in Berlin, we hosted hundreds of little dancers from primary schools yesterday and trained colleagues from a nearby PRU. We value equality and justice and culture opens doors.  Education to understand the world and change it for the better.

CR

26.2.15