Oxford University rejects Theresa May's proposal to run schools

[noblegiraffe]

The contentious Green Paper which proposes increasing the number of selective schools also had a number of other proposals. This included the proposal that top universities who want to increase their tuition fees would not be allowed to do so unless they set up a free school.

Oxford university has pointed out that they have no experience in running schools and that it was insulting to teachers and headteachers to suggest that universities would be more successful at this than they are.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37440546

I've just been looking in more detail at the Green Paper proposal for universities. It says in its 'Evidence' section "Some universities already run excellent schools"
It then lists the KCL Maths school, which is a highly selective sixth form focusing on maths.
That's it for the evidence.
Then the Proposals for Reform section is straight after. It starts
"Despite some excellent examples of universities sponsoring schools, this level of direct involvement is far from the rule"

What excellent examples? It only gave one example and that was of a sixth form!
Given that the document says that universities should focus on raising attainment in schools and that prior attainment was the biggest factor holding back disadvantaged pupils, then why the bloody hell is their only evidence to support the proposal a highly selective sixth form where prior attainment clearly isn't a problem?
I have absolutely no problem with universities being expected to work with sixth forms, or even opening specialist sixth forms like the maths school, but to extrapolate from this and say that they should be running secondaries in order to raise the attainment of disadvantaged children is bonkers.

noble I think your response to the consultation is going to need to be delivered in a van!

I am a bit worried about how long it is going to take to write!

Obviously when it came out I was totally focused on the grammar proposals but the more I look at the other proposals the more it becomes clear that the whole thing is poorly written, poorly evidenced and clearly a rush job. It's a shambles and if it goes through, has the potential to completely mess up education for decades.

Sharp elbowed parents in Oxford send their kids to a Comp - which has a fabulous rate of sending students to Oxbridge.

But actually a lot of colleges in Oxford are doing more to try to work with the schools in the city (and area) which are in areas of high deprivation - where going to any University is not really an aspiration at present. It also works hard to encourage students from all kinds of schools around the country to apply.
But on the whole they are not experts in the school level of education. They are working with them though to try to "raise aspirations", which is the opposite of Grammar schools and shutting Sure Start provision.

It is clearly entirely crackers for them to extrapolate from one maths sixth form to unis running schools for disadvantaged kids, even if that sixth form do weight entry towards children who wouldn't be given the same opportunities in their local schools.

It's just another way of getting schools for cheap, rather than taking responsibility for the government to provide education.

The King's College Maths School has an outreach department for GCSE students in a large number of partner schools. The admissions test for its sixth form is based on KS3 material up to level 8 although the school also require A/A* for Maths and Physics/additional science GCSEs. Their admissions policy states, "We are a highly selective institution but one that seeks to engage students who have an interest and aptitude in mathematics but who are not otherwise likely to have access to excellent mathematics teaching in this phase of their education." This article in the Spectator suggests that at least some students have disadvantaged home lives:
www.spectator.co.uk/2015/09/what-ive-learned-helping-to-found-a-specialist-free-school/

Oxford University should be experts in the field of education:
www.education.ox.ac.uk/
If Cambridge University are sponsoring their own primary school then why not Oxford?

The Russell Group are considering the PM's proposal:
russellgroup.ac.uk/news/on-the-pms-education-proposals/

I'm not sure anyone here is saying that universities shouldn't be involved with schools - on the contrary, there seem loads of ways it could be a good thing.

But the reasoning in the Green Paper seems to be that universities running secondary moderns that used to be comprehensives will somehow mitigate the disadvantages inherent in being secondary moderns. It would be easy enough to trial this proposition by testing it out in Kent and Lincs. Why not do that before launching it on the rest of the country?

:( Social disadvantage happens to small children. There are huge gaps in life chances which depend on social background, and are already measurable and predictable by age 5 yrs. The gaps only get bigger & bigger after that. Sixth Form Age is TOO LATE.

Should universities get involved in preschool education, therefore, WHY NOT?

Because universities are about university education, not education in general. Expertise in running schools exists in the school sector, only education has been so mucked about over the last umpteen years that no one remembers how it's supposed to go.

The Russell Group are considering the PM's proposal

Of course they are, they want to increase their tuition fees!
So I read their response to see further examples of excellent schools sponsored by universities.
The first offered is: "Queen Mary university of London co-sponsors the Drapers’ Academy in the London Borough of Havering and supports the Academy’s specialism in mathematics and science through close contact with academic departments and help with curriculum development."

Point 1: the academy doesn't have a specialism in maths and science, specialisms were scrapped years ago. Point 2: The school does have a high number of disadvantaged students, however only 42% of them achieved 5 A*-C inc M&E, which isn't much higher than the national average of 37%. Not a great advert for closing the gap.

Then we have the St Paul's Way trust school which was discussed above. An excellent school, but probably not getting many of its 11-16 cohort to uni.

Then a couple of maths sixth forms (excellent idea but not really addressing the Green Paper requirements)

A UTC - no results yet, but UTCs are closing left right and centre across the country so not likely to be a good model to follow

A primary (the Cambridge one), only just opened.

Birmingham University doing a residential and e-mentoring. This isn't running a school.

That's it. Their examples aren't much more use than the one in the Green Paper at recommending that this untested proposal be rolled out across the country to improve attainment for disadvantaged kids.

Because universities are about university education, not education in general

Cambridge University and Oxford University train teachers:
www.educ.cam.ac.uk/courses/undergrad/
www.educ.cam.ac.uk/courses/pgce/

www.education.ox.ac.uk/courses/child-development-and-education/
www.education.ox.ac.uk/

University of Birmingham Secondary School
www.universityschool.bham.ac.uk/

Oxford and Cambridge also teach politics. Does that mean they should run the government?

As I've already linked - Cambridge University are sponsoring their own primary school which will be a training school.

Training teachers is not the same as running schools.

Why does the Russell Group response to universities setting up schools not include the Birmingham university school?

I've looked into it, it's not a sponsored academy, it's a teacher training school.

I imagine that the university focus will be training teachers.

Govt has a plan for most or all future teachers to be trained in schools, no University attendance or involvement (friend is a senior lecturer on a PGCE course). So... what was that about universities already training the teachers?

Well if all Teachers are trained I. Schools there will be much less research (in this country) into what works in education and how people learn. So much less pesky disagreement the next time the Education secretary wants to change they way teachers teach to fit in with their own unproven ideas.

My question is: can Oxford be stopped from awarding degrees by the government?

Yes one of the proposals in the Higher Education and Research Bill is that the (new) Office for Students will have the power to remove degree awarding powers.

This green paper however doesn't suggest that will be the consequence of universities (and higher education colleges too btw) not setting up new schools - the proposed consequence is that they cannot raise fees.

Correction - cannot charge fees above the base fee which is around £6125.

"The Russell Group are considering the PM's proposal." Of course they are, they want to increase their tuition fees!

Exactly.

And bear in mind that fees have now been frozen for 4 years, and so have decreased in real terms. Universities need to increase the fees with inflation so that they can pay their workers salaries which increase with inflation.

I don't think RG universities want to run schools but they are being blackmailed into doing so.

Well if all Teachers are trained I. Schools there will be much less research (in this country) into what works in education and how people learn.

Not necessarily, though in practice this would probably happen. Universities are both for educating students and for doing research. The research is not funded just by undergraduate fees, but by research grants (and social science, which includes education, is quite well funded in the UK). So in principle it would be possible to maintain the research in education without universities training teachers. In practice the amount of research into education theory would decrease if we substantially reduce our university education departments.

I take issue with the comment above about UCL supported Academy. Worth looking at recent results, leavers destinations and Ofsted. The relationship between the uni and the school is providing some amazing opportunities for the students from Y7 up.

I am not associated with the school although do have some connections to UCL, live locally and have followed the Academy quite closely since it opened.