WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER 1998

MR PHIL BESWICK, MS JULIE GLASSON, MS ANNE HAYES and MR GEOFFREY THOMPSON

  260. From what you are saying, you would agree with the majority of secondary schools that we have heard of who do not take children at an earlier stage. Would you agree that they have the right policy?
  (Ms Hayes) Yes.
  (Ms Glasson) Yes.
  (Mr Thompson) Yes.

  261. If you are not going to accelerate these highly able children, you have the problem in mixed ability teaching, and we have had evidence that these highly able children can become highly frustrated children. Do you in your large primary schools, therefore, sort each age group by ability? Are you in favour of that as a principle?
  (Ms Hayes) We certainly would do that but not for all subjects. It would not be the same child that belonged to the high ability group for absolutely everything so there are certain subjects which are taught in ability groups and the national literacy strategy does provide for ability group teaching on a daily basis. But the literacy groups are not the same groups as the maths groups and so on, so there would be times when the children would be working with a high ability group and also times when they are working with a mixed ability group. It would not necessarily mean that the very high ability child would be bored or frustrated in a mixed ability group. Very often going through the thought process of explaining what you think about something to somebody else is great for clarifying your own thoughts and moving you forward. So there are some subjects you would have ability groups for, and some where it would not be appropriate.

  262. Which are the ones where you think it is particularly appropriate to have ability groups?
  (Ms Hayes) Mathematics.

  263. Is that the main one?
  (Ms Hayes) Yes, I would say so.
  (Ms Glasson) Mostly maths but English often, too. You are talking about a classroom setting. The teachers are going to sort their children according to ability within a classroom and teach that group accordingly. Let's talk about these highly gifted children: they are children and they might be highly gifted in one area or many. You have heard about Gardiner's intelligences in one of your previous meetings but there are still needs they have that can be met and addressed within the classroom setting they are in. Mixing with all children and having able children with less able can be very advantageous in explaining what your thinking processes are and how you got there. You do a conglomerate really of organisation within your school and classroom.

  264. Does that not slightly depend on the quality of the teaching? If the teachers themselves are very able they may be able to move at different speeds for members of the class but, depending on the attentiveness of some of the other pupils and some of the behaviourial problems, they simply may not have the capacity to have these different groups moving at different speeds.
  (Ms Glasson) You are absolutely right. There are so many aspects to the teaching profession and the pedagogy of what it entails; you are talking of all skills here and it is a teacher's ability to take children forward alongside all the other plates they are balancing in terms of behaviour and parents and school expectation and OFSTED expectation and literacy strategy and numeracy strategy. There are so many plates for the classroom teacher but a good classroom teacher has them spinning.

  265. Do you have any streaming viability, Mr Thompson?
  (Mr Thompson) We set in maths, French and Latin, because all my boys study Latin, but they are together as a class group for the other disciplines and that, I feel, is important. I do have from the age of 11 a very high flying group which are my scholarship set and they have all their academic subjects together as a group.

  266. How would you cope with a situation where you did not have such high quality teachers?
  (Mr Beswick) I would develop them professionally.

  267. I would like to move us on to the question of what highly able children can gain from the schools in which they are working in partnership in co-operation with other schools. I would like brief snapshots of whether you have been involved in that yourselves. Perhaps, as a supplementary to it, I could ask what experience you have in terms of working in partnership with specialist schools. As you know, the Government is intending that specialist schools should work in partnership not just with other secondary schools but also with primary and in view of what you have all said about not wishing to accelerate in that respect, this question may, therefore, be particularly relevant. When we debated this in the Schools Standards and Framework Bill in Standing Committee, we had a lively discussion about the difference between aptitude and ability which may or may not inform your views about the extent to which you could co-operate with or have experience of the desirability of co-operating with specialist schools.
  (Ms Hayes) We have very close links with all the subject departments at all our secondary schools. In the town that my school is situated in, we have liaison groups for each national curriculum subject. Key stage 1, 2, 3 and 4 teachers meet together twice a term to talk through curriculum issues and issues just like this where the co-ordinator might go along to a co-ordinator's meeting and say, "We have a child here who needs this, can you help? Can you help with resources and give us some ideas about what we might do next? This is a child who might be coming to you next year, what advice can you give us? In that sense we use specialists available to us from the schools we feed and our colleagues in the area. One of our secondary schools has a bid in at the moment to become a specialist language school and the bid is, therefore, from a family of schools and mine is one of them. The idea would be that there would be video conferencing facilities and we would be able to share in the expertise of the language department of the secondary school in that way. There is a great willingness for primary schools to work in partnership with the schools that have the specialist knowledge that we would perhaps like to draw on, as and when, particularly for these very able children.
  (Ms Glasson) Our experience is very similar to that in that we have a cluster network of schools that meet together and support one another and within that is a secondary feeder school so the links are there and established for mutual support.

  268. The situation you describe is very much a case-by-case basis. Is that also the circumstance with you: that you would actually look at co-operation not just in conceptual terms but in terms of a case-by-case basis for individual pupils?
  (Ms Glasson) Yes. The support is there when it is needed and you call on that when it is required.
  (Mr Beswick) I would give a similar answer: both case-by-case, both curriculum co-ordinators going to secondary curriculum co-ordinators, gleaning information and working the other way, of course, because a number of secondary schools are looking at primary practice—particularly in year 7—and there is a lot of transfer there and healthy discussion about pedagogy. Also, children are working with children in other schools and we found that very powerful. The children, because it is a different audience, get very much involved with research projects with other schools; it makes it relevant; they are writing for a purpose to a different audience, using the net or faxing or whatever and it gives a relevance which for more able children is very important, because sometimes they think that certain things that go on in school are not for them. They do not see the relevance of doing it and that can cause difficulties in their learning.

  269. Specifically, the project you were involved with which involved five schools in the Stockport area was all primary schools, was it?
  (Mr Beswick) There were three involved in that project.

  270. I thought we had five schools in that project?
  (Mr Beswick) No, three. They were primary schools but we did work with a secondary school as well.

  271. So it was part of the remit of that project to look at co-operation with secondary schools?
  (Mr Beswick) Yes.
  (Mr Thompson) Obviously we co-operate very closely with our senior school so there is a degree of liaison there, particularly if we have somebody who has very significant special needs. We also have links sometimes with the universities. I remember one of my boys who was very keen on sub-atomic particle physics was invited to spend a day at Cambridge and do a little bit of research there. That kind of link is important.

  272. Finally, there is a lot of discussion about co-operation between the maintained and the independent sector and the Government is encouraging this at a number of different levels. You are here today from differing backgrounds but what experience, in respect of highly able children, have you had of co-operation in the two sectors and, whether you have or you have not, what scope would you see there being for future co-operation in your own particular localities?
  (Ms Hayes) We have a partner school, the boys' independent school in the same village, and, in terms of highly able children I do not believe this school has a higher proportion than we have in my state school. In that sense, therefore, there has not been a great amount of interchange. We have learnt some things from them; they have offered us facilities; they have learned from us in terms of national curriculum assessments and so forth, so we have been able to offer from both sides.
  (Ms Glasson) We do not have a working relationship as such because the nature of the city is such that the schools are spread out but the independent sector may well take our highly achieving children and take them into their own system so they pass the entrance exams.

  273. But at the moment there has not been much co-operation?
  (Ms Glasson) Not as a linking, no.

  274. Mr Beswick, the greater Manchester area has more than its fair share of independent schools. What is your experience in Stockport in co-operating with them?
  (Mr Beswick) There is co-operation between independent and the state sector but it is not formalised. They are invited and included in local sporting activities and so on so there is a potential for partnership there, but it has not been formalised and was certainly not part of the project that we embarked upon.

  275. In terms of the children we are talking about, the highly able ones, would you characterise that as having the potential for growth in your particular area and do you think it is an important priority in terms of what you are trying to do with those children?
  (Mr Beswick) I would imagine there is potential. The most important growth for those children is teacher expertise, both in understanding their abilities and providing for them within their own classrooms on a day-to-day basis. If that was right across all schools then that would be a major development.

  276. Mr Thompson, you operate in the independent sector so you are looking at it from the other side of the coin. What is your experience?
  (Mr Thompson) At the moment we already carry out a degree of co-operation. In conjunction with one of the other London schools we have a Saturday morning club and children from the local maintained schools will come into either of the schools with our staff using our specialist facilities and that has had a very positive effect—both on our own staff and certainly on the children coming in. I am certain that there is more scope—possibly from a teaching perspective. I am sure we can learn a great deal from each other, were we able to find the time.

  277. Specifically on that, how long has this particular Saturday morning club been going?
  (Mr Thompson) Two years now. It is not just a morning—it can be a whole day as well.

  278. So it is relatively recent but seems to be working very well?
  (Mr Thompson) Yes.
  (Ms Hayes) I would just make the point that the excellent provision we have in terms of the cluster groups and the liaison groups is really provision for these children on the cheap because all of this happens in teachers' own time, after a long day's teaching, teachers cover their own travelling expenses, they go to somebody else's school, they get together and take it in turns to host these meetings and minute them and circulate these minutes and there is no funding for this from anybody. Schools support this and individual teachers support this.

  279. Do you think it would be a priority for Government to do that, or for LEAs to do that?
  (Ms Hayes) For LEAs to fund education more generously would be very beneficial.