Tory council has missed a golden opportunity over new schools
3rd July 2007
Both Dr Alan Whitehead, MP for Southampton Test, and John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen, have expressed regret that the Conservative City Council has decided to snub local employers and ignore the vast majority of students, parents and teachers who wrote to the Council in support of the Southampton Education Trust (SET) bid, and award the contract for two new schools to Oasis Educational Trust.
The most important factor for parents and children raised in the consultation process was the ability of the new schools to raise standards. In this area, the Council’s own report shows that the SET is better equipped to do this than Oasis. SET was given a score of 6.5 by the Council on its ability to improve standards; Oasis was given only a 5 (Appendix 1 p20 of the Cabinet report).
But while the new schools will still be in line for increased government funding, they will not have the same extensive links with local community and businesses that would have been the case if the Trust bids were selected.
The Southampton Education Trust proposed to lock in local businesses, including Vospers, ABP, both universities, the PCT and Carnival Cruises, to provide strategic direction, leadership and vocational opportunities at the new school. In contrast the Oasis bid had no detailed proposals for how it would capitalise on the wealth of business and voluntary group experience available in Southampton.
As part of the publicly funded consultation on who should run the new schools, parents were asked which bid they favoured. In the east of the city 40% of respondents favoured the SET compared to only 25% for Oasis. In the west 58% of all respondents favoured the SET compared with only 17% for Oasis.
Respondents also overwhelmingly favoured the new schools being secular rather than religious. In fact having a ‘religious character’ was ranked the least important element of any new school.
In a joint statement both MPs said:
“It’s a shame that the Tory Council has decided to ignore the public consultation and the advice of its own officers, whilst also snubbing the city’s major employers who had committed themselves to help raise school standards in the city in a way which we had never seen before.
“The Council’s own consultation process shows that parents support the Trust, and that the Trust was the best choice to raise standards. Decisions on the future of our schools should be made based on the strengths of the specific local bids.
“Now we will have to work even harder to improve standards at the new schools. Although local school standards have improved since 1997, we have not made as much progress as schools in other major cities. Many schools in areas which have similar pupil intakes, or more challenging intakes, have improved more quickly. The Council must do more to improve the education standards in all our schools, and must not be allowed to get away with ‘passing the buck’ off to Oasis.
“We hope the Trust will continue the good work it has begun by now working in partnership with the other city schools. If Oasis is finally awarded the new schools, we will of course do all we can to work with them.”
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More information
- A comparison of education results and funding from 1997 vs. 2007 is available at www.alan-whitehead.org.uk/education/stats.html
- A year on year comparison of Southampton’s education performance compared to other education authorities in England is available here on the DFES website
- The year on year comparison shows a widening gap between the results for England as a whole and the results in Southampton. In the whole of England between 2003-7, GCSE scores have gone up by 16.6%, while in Southampton scores have only gone up by 14.8%.
- The Conservative’s ideological commitment to Academies was stated while the Learning Futures consultation process was still going on. In Jeremy Moulton’s May 11th blog entry he states that he is in principle in favour of Academies because they get preferential funding from central government. This assertion was later debunked by the Council’s scrutiny panel as being entirely wrong.