Breaking down the school silos
OVER the last few days the discussion forum on our relaunched guernseypress.com website has received hundreds of comments from islanders over the Education Department's plans to federate the five secondary schools. Most are either critical, hostile or suspicious and it is clear that many harbour doubts about the department's motives for moving towards a collaborative approach and certainly about its effectiveness.
This newspaper, too, has been drawn into it for having this week welcomed the approach, having received more detail from the minister on what actually is envisaged.
Yet the principles are clear. By stopping thinking in terms of schools and concentrating on island-wide year group needs, it becomes possible to allocate teaching and other resources to those who need them most.
Centres of excellence can be called on to share that ability elsewhere and better leadership driving more positive outcomes becomes the norm. Breaking down the school silos means poor performance is more exposed and can be rectified or those responsible dealt with.
In part, this is why some teachers and others have reservations. With the focus on collaborative excellence and performance, outstanding teachers from other schools can be used to monitor how effective colleagues are elsewhere.
The blitz on recruitment led by the head teachers, stepping outside SAP, demonstrates a desire to adopt the Mulkerrin mantra that the swiftest schools get the best teachers and bringing in a cohort of 40 is a clear attempt at doing better than previously.
So too is the commitment to moving towards local management of schools. No longer answerable to 'The Office', heads and their staff will be judged and guided by those who ultimately pay for their labours – parents, employers and the wider community.
Done properly, that should lead to true accountability and that will be uncomfortable for some.
While there are public reservations about federation, it has a lot to commend it as an overarching strategy. Since it means change, some will fear and resist it.
Properly executed, however, it can bring about the change that is so clearly needed for education in Guernsey
