With so much to look forward to in June (National School Environments Week 18-25 June and the BCSE Industry Awards 24 June), we thought we’d make sure that you haven’t missed any of the important developments we picked up in May.
Becta have been the first high profile casualty in the education sector
It all seems so long ago now, but a month ago, we weren’t entirely sure what the political landscape around education was going to look like.
The only thing we knew for certain was that change was in the offing whatever happened and a new government would move us well beyond the status quo.
All governments inevitably end up having to defend the less attractive consequences of their policies, and new governments have plenty of low-hanging fruit to choose from when they’re looking for high-impact improvements.
As we awaited the electorate’s verdict, our eyes were upon one of the biggest obstacles that ambitious schools face – the system of procurement. We thought that the outgoing government had allowed a rigid conformity to grow up and that the system was driving out sharp new ideas. It will be interesting to see how far the concerns that we raised in this pre-election post will be addressed by the new government.
And what happened within days of the election result being known? Aside from the eye-catching Free Schools policy, a few interesting assessments had been going around about the demise of BECTA – one of the early casualties. On the wider question of funding, this quote leaped out as us:
“Anna Fazackerley – the head of education at the think tank Policy Exchange – who says that, “one part of the schools budget that is ripe for cutting is capital”. We also heard a day later from a Building Magazine article that there was a strong possibility that all BSF programmes that hadn’t reached preferred bidder stage may be frozen, pending a review in the upcoming budget
The Institute for Fiscal Studies took the view that ..
“Either they have to scale back plans for free schools or reduce building schools for the future by a substantial degree,”
We gave a more detailed early response to the first ten days of the new government in our inaugural weekly podcast. We have been asked a lot about Michael Gove’s ‘supply side revolution’ and we’re looking forward to seeing how far the ‘Free Schools’ policy will go. We’re expecting continuing investment in the workforce and in teacher professionalism. The new government are inevitably picking up on questions of waste and decentralisation – two long-signalled themes from the Conservatives.
And while all of this is going on, it is important to carry on promoting good practice in all aspects of school design, and our second weekly podcast featured an interview with world renowned ergonomics guru Dr Dieter Breithecker about his expert views on school furniture and the key messages he has for schools and professionals working in the UK. We met Dieter in preparation for the first of two of our Masterclasses on furniture. As Dieter says when we choose any furniture for children, ‘we should not buy the mistakes of history’ – we should have the same view of the education landscape as we progress through the summer term.
Related posts:
