We want to be able to trust Education

In the minds of the public now, the politics of education is almost exclusively tied up with buildings. New buildings, old buildings, cancelled contracts and great expense. Education calls this 'depressing and catastrophised'.

But ESC doesn’t want to talk about that – although its four-page update statement only seems to truly come alive when it does talk about buildings, reminding us, for example, that Les Ozouets will provide ‘a centre of ambition and aspiration’.

Instead it wants to talk about progress in staffing structures, digital transformation, and designs for the new Les Varendes School.

Its update does contain some positive hints coming from the Secondary School Partnership – a focus on greater consistency across schools, aligning school days and offering a similar broad-balanced curriculum will be welcomed by those who have suffered crippling inconsistency and been put off subjects for life due to poor delivery.

But Education must realise that its parental stakeholders don’t want to celebrate ‘senior leaders visiting schools in England to learn from best practice’ – that is what they expect from our schools.

Just as we don’t personally supervise standards of doctors and nurses in the hospital, we expect our teachers and educational structures to be delivering for our young people.

In recent years deputies across the spectrum of the States have made Education a marathon debate about buildings, car parks and so on. People engage in that because it’s an issue they can relate to, in a way they can’t engage with the delivery of a physics class.

And until, or even if, the construction project is concluded, that discussion will continue.

‘Very positive progress’ – even if it is self-assessed rather than externally validated – is good to see. But it doesn’t change the narrative. It’s what islanders, parents and pupils expect, as an essential – for our schools, staff and standards to be the best they can be.