Education chief sets out his vision

GRAHAM Badman looks surprisingly relaxed for a man going through one of the busiest months of his career.

The county's chief education officer has just received a Government inspection into his department. It was good, but there's room for improvement, he concedes.

That came in the same week he put his budget plans to the council, revealing that schools can expect a 1.3 per cent rise this year - lower than was originally expected.

And if that isn't enough to keep him busy for a while, Wednesday (February 2) sees one of the most important debates on education in Oxford, when councillors may scrap the city's middle schools and replace them with a two-tier system of secondaries and primaries.

But it's the report from Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, that the education boss has on his mind.

"My initial reaction is that the report is very fair and the criticisms are valid," he says of the 32-page document. It described the Local Education Authority as "very lean and well-run", but expressed concerns in some areas.

Mr Badman adds: "We gave Ofsted absolutely everything we had, all our service plans, the works. They have realised that we are a self-evaluating organisation which is prepared to look critically at what we do. The climate to bring about change is very favourable."

One of the main criticisms the LEA faced was the under-achievement of some schools compared with those of similar authorities. Now parents will play as important a part as teachers in the bid to raise the levels achieved by children.

"It is always going to be the case that a parent will want something for their child that we cannot give them," he says.

"What we need to do now is to be better at explaining why we have taken a certain decision and get parents involved from the start. We do not turn in the performance at GCSE level or lower down the system compared with similar authorities.

"An example of this is Plymouth which last year got a 48 per cent A to C pass rate. It has some affluent areas but some extremely poor areas yet they turned in a performance which was equal to Oxfordshire's performance as a whole.

"I have to be honest and say we don't know why other places are doing better than us. Is it the leadership or the commitment of staff? It's a question for Oxfordshire and the nation as a whole.

But how can schools even start to think about raising standards if they don't have the cash to do it?

Next week councillors will vote on education spending where schools can expect to see a 1.3 per cent increase on last year's budget. In most cases it won't be enough to buy them a new teacher.

But it's not all doom and gloom, well, according to the ever-optimistic Mr Badman anyway. He says: "The fact remains that we are going to have growth - so the vital question now is, how do we make maximum use of that growth?

"We're not going to control it on behalf of the schools but the LEA will monitor where it goes. I'll be asking schools 'how are you going to spend it and why'?

"I want them to tell me about things like their book stock. If they tell me they haven't spent money on books in five years, my first question will simply be 'why?'. Part of the stance of this LEA is being a support but challenging them at the same time and we will be taking parents with us on this crusade.

"If the expectation of a pupil is that they are going to get a D, then what more could a school do to promote that child from a D to a C? We'll have to look at every area, including what home support they are getting and what Internet support.

"Parents will see a greater emphasis upon learning and how a school works to improve aspirations.

"My suspicion is that lots of parents out there are giving help. Even in fairly deprived areas homework is continued after school in libraries and tutorial rooms because if you can't get that engagement with adults when you go home what you can begin to do is for schools to identify that need and provide support for homework after school. But parents must not abdicate their responsibilities by saying it's all down to schools.

"We don't have instant answers as to how to switch more parents on to education.

"We do not want to create barriers between a school and parents - we want to break them down."

Mr Badman continues: "One of the things I most resented as a parent was being talked to as if I knew nothing about education. There's a thin line between engaging them and talking at them and we have to make sure we don't cross that line."

Of course, children will remain the number one priority in the changing face of Oxfordshire's education system.

Mr Badman believes there is a strong case for teachers better to understand their pupils' needs and then play on strengths rather than solely to try to boost areas of weakness.

"I don't merely want youngsters who can follow guidelines set out in a report about how they should be achieving. I want them to be interested in the world around them.

"The education system should provide them with the ability to watch the Russians storm into Chechnya and for them to realise this is not simply that country's problem.

"We have to achieve a situation where there is a sense of responsibility about the latest disasters in the world.

"Education can help make a contribution to a better world - it may sound pompous, but it's not. I am conscious that we have to put more and more resources into our schools to create better staffing ratios and maximise the benefits of new technology such as digital TV.

"In Oxfordshire we are sailing along quite nicely, but I'd like us to be sailing just that bit quicker."

Story date: February 1

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