Schools of the Future Summit
11 June 2008
Tim Byles' keynote speech to the Schools of the Future Summit at the National Motorcyle Museum in Birmingham.
Introduction
This morning I would like to take you on a tour around the country as to give you a glimpse of what is starting to emerge as a transformed the educational landscape as we near the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and in particular how the BSF programme is helping to shape and improve it for today’s students, teachers and communities now – and for decades to come.
Progress to date
Building Schools for the Future is truly a programme without peer. But don’t be fooled by the BSF name – in fact, forget bricks and think ideas because BSF is about much more than just buildings. Buildings alone can never be the panacea which turns a truanting student into a regular attendee, a bored student into an engaged one, or a dissatisfied teacher into an inspired one. And that is why stitched into the BSF process from the outset is the understanding that new and refurbished buildings should be the catalyst for estate-wide transformation of education.
So as well as thinking about what schools should look like and the facilities they offer, BSF provokes schools and local authorities to answer questions about where and how students will learn in these new environments, responding to policy and pedagogical shifts.
Our aim is to revolutionise the quality of schools with cutting-edge design and energy efficient buildings. They will be safe, welcoming and inspiring building which are used not only by students and teachers, but by local residents year-round, placing schools back at the centre of their communities – and as momentum builds in this programme, we are beginning to see this vision become a reality.
There are now 13 BSF schools – a mixture of new build and refurbishment projects – open across England, and we expect around 35 more to be open by the end of the financial year.
72 local authorities are now engaged in BSF; 19 of these have signed deals with their private sector partners, worth in the region of £2.5 billion; and 11 Local Education Partnerships have been created with the capacity to not only deliver renewed secondary school facilities within their area, but primary schools, healthcare, housing and leisure facilities.
These numbers are important, but as you will all be aware from your roles in Children and Young People’s Services or leading local authorities, these are really only outputs when really it’s the outcomes that really count – and that’s what I want to share with you now.
Case study: The Michael Tippett School
It is a very dynamic and rewarding time to be involved in BSF. The green shoots of success we saw 12 months ago are now in full bloom. On our tour around England I’d like to take you first a few miles down the road to the London Borough of Lambeth and the Michael Tippett School, the first SEN school in London which was officially opened by Ed Balls in April.
[Film clip: Michael Tippet staff, pupils and students talking about their new school]
Having seen that, I’m sure you will agree that this is a very special school - and the teachers tell us that this positive reaction to the new surroundings by students and by parents, who are delighted that such care and attention has been paid to creating an environment for their children’s needs. The Michael Tippett School caters for students with profound and multiple learning difficulties, many of whom are severely challenged when it comes to communication. Whereas in mainstream schools students can, and do, tell us what they like and dislike, teachers and parents must look for more subtle cues to gauge how these students are settling into their new environment.
Within half a term staff report that behavioral incidents are down and attendance is up, and most importantly students and staff are enjoying their new facilities including the drama studio, kitchen and hydrotherapy pool you saw in the film.
While a new building – with new rooms and facilities to explore – may excite most students, the young people at the Michael Tippett School can find it more difficult to adapt to change. The input that students and staff had throughout the design and construction process helped the young people to understand the transition to a new school and a new site, and aided the process of settling in. Colour-coded doors - blue for toilets, yellow for classrooms and red for staff rooms – help students find their way around an unfamiliar two-storey building and to encourage independence and exploration of their new surroundings and help these young people to reach their full potential.
Case study: Oxclose Community School
Heading North, next stop on our whistle stop tour is Sunderland, to Oxclose Community School which reminds us that not every school will be a new school under BSF – in fact around half of schools will be refurbished to update and improve facilities for 21st century teaching and learning. Refurbishments are, to my mind, even more challenging than building new schools as we are not starting with a blank piece of paper, but with certain aspects already set in stone.
But we should never think of refurbishments as a second-class option. What they offer is a chance to transform the teaching and learning experience within a familiar locale. It offers an opportunity to present a new and more welcoming face to the public; to make spaces more flexible; and to improve and update facilities for new specialisms and teaching practices. The independent learning centre at Oxclose, the size of six classrooms, offers teachers the opportunity to use this flexible space in a variety of ways: with classes joining together for team teaching before students work in small groups or independently to complete a task. All of this is possible because of the innovative use of space.
Oxclose Community School in Sunderland is a shining example of the role that BSF ICT investment plays in transforming education. Students and staff were consulted about their vision for ICT, and department heads played a key role in ensuring the ICT solution fitted their future plans for teaching. As part of a four-strong federation of schools, with a combined sixth-form centre, Oxclose students often attend lessons at sister schools – particularly in vocational subjects. Sharing data between schools has therefore been a priority, with an MLE allowing Oxclose staff to track pupil attendance and grades across the federation.
Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF)
I’d like to pause on this journey around the country to focus on the issue of Management Information Systems – or MIS - in BSF schools - and in particular to re-state the commitment from PfS to finding and implementing a way of enabling schools, local authorities and other agencies involved in education and the well-being of young people to collect data about students in a “write once, use many times model”.
We are challenging the ICT industry, through the recently revised ICT Output Specification, to develop and provide systems which will enable diverse applications within the education and wider children’s services sectors to interact and share data efficiently, reliably and securely, regardless of the platform hosting the applications.
In the context of BSF such systems could, when appropriately configured, enable transfer of data from schools and other educational establishments, almost in real time, to local authorities and up to government departments and agencies - and of course from these diverse organisations back to the school. In addition, within individual schools, information about students using library cards or cashless catering can be immediately populated with key information they require to operate effectively, having a real impact on time and access to data.
Becta has championed the adoption of the Schools Interoperability Framework (or SIF as it is known) as a national standard for schools’ data interchange, and has led the way with a pilot in Birmingham last year. I applaud their work to date, and look forward to continuing to work with them on this issue in the future, and as the BSF programme accelerates and school leaders get to work in their new ICT-rich school environments, we have to make sure that they have all the tools at their disposal to ensure that the commitment translates into something that is meaningful that works on the ground. The main industry players in this field need to respond to the growing expectations and understanding in schools of the need for powerful information management tools that work in an environment where students are increasingly mobile and where information about online and offline learning needs to be gathered, processed and presented seamlessly.
Northgate have done this already, with the Coviscint software to collate and present information from different systems; and there is great potential offered by the conceptual work being done by Microsoft in response to demands from Academies such as New Line Learning in Maidstone and BSF LAs such as Kent, Knowsley and Sandwell, which we must ensure is realised through commercial implementation.
Case study: Bristol Brunel Academy
Returning to our tour, we travel down the M5 to Bristol – of course in our energy efficient car-share vehicle - to visit Bristol Brunel Academy. Opened by the PM in September last year – was the first BSF school to be delivered through a Local Education Partnership. Once upon a time, the predecessor school was a school of last resort for many parents, there was little sense of pride amongst students, their parents and the local community.
Investment in this wonderful new building – named this week as a 2008 RIBA Award winner - has, however, sent out the message loud and clear that we are investing in the future of these young people, that we are investing in the careers of these teachers, and we are investing in the community for all local residents. And so today, Bristol Brunel Academy comes top of the class as the school of choice for hundreds of Bristol students and parents. So much so, in fact, that next year’s intake for year 7 is massively oversubscribed.
Last week published the results of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ survey of Bristol students, carried out by NFER, which I’d encourage you to take a look at on our website. Students say they feel safer and more inspired in the new school, the numbers who say they intend to stay in education after 16 has risen from 64% to 77%,; and vandalism, bullying, graffiti and littering are all thought by the students to be much less of a problem.
While we’re still some way off being able to claim a direct link between new school surrounding and increased attainment, reports such as this are welcome step in the right direction of travel.
It’s easy to see why this building, coupled with strong leadership and energetic teaching, is already making a difference to the life chances of these young people who told us they find their new surroundings: ‘inspirational’, ‘colourful’, ‘motivational’, ‘stimulating’ and ‘comfortable’.
But you don’t have to take my word for it, let’s hear from the people whose opinions really count for something:
The future
So with this growing body of evidence, and with around 35 more BSF schools opening this financial year, the BSF programme is gathering pace.
We have just announced the third in a suite of reviews to maximise efficiencies in the BSF process. Having reviewed both the pre-procurement and procurement phases of BSF, which together will shave up to eight months off the delivery timetable and give project savings of around £250 million, we have turned our attention to the operational phase itself with a focus on how Local Education Partnerships are working.
Eleven of them are currently up and running, with a further nine anticipated within the financial year, and so it is the right time to take close look at the DNA of these partnerships and to identify best practice which can be shared with new projects coming on stream.
By the end of this month we will have announced which authorities in Waves 7 to 9 of BSF are being fast-tracked, having demonstrated to us that they are ready to hit the ground running with their BSF schemes; and consultation is ongoing about the best order for the remaining authorities in Waves 7 to 15 to join the programme, with the expectation that every local authority across England will be engaged in BSF by 2015.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for BSF, it’s a national programme, committed to the ECM agenda, personalised learning and sustainability, which responds to local needs and aspirations and take on board on local views through consultation and engagement. And we want to make it easier for local authorities to access the right support and advice at the right time, which is why I am pleased that there is now a single gateway for BSF with PfS managing the contracts on behalf of the DCSF for 4ps and CABE, and working more closely than ever before with NCSL to ensure that lessons learned and best practice are shared and listened to.
But at the end of the day it is educational transformation which runs through the BSF programme, like Blackpool through a stick of rock. And that is why I do not want our legacy, or the success of the BSF programme, to be measured in bricks and mortar. It should be measured by our success in providing inspiring learning environments for citizens of the 21st century; by our success in raising aspirations and improving the life chances of young people and communities across the country; and by giving young people the chance to learn and broaden their horizons through access to the best teaching, technology and resources we have at our disposal.
It is the involvement of teachers, governors, parents, communities and young people in the life of their local schools year that will make these new and refurbished buildings sing – and that is something that all of us here today should be striving towards.
