‘Education and Accountability – going to school in Hastings in 2014’

 On June 19th 2014 around 60 people from the local community, including representatives from schools and various groups with an interest in education gathered to hear from several speakers on the impact of the changes within the education system on a local level, in particular the academies.

To start the afternoon there was a welcome from Juliet Millican from the university’s Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) and some scene setting from Steve Manwaring of Hastings Voluntary Action. Following on from this was Carole Dixon, the Chief Executive of Education Futures Trust Identifying current concerns for the education of the town, the main one being the higher than average level of disadvantage among the local population and the impact this has in educational terms, which has connections with the recently published government white paper.

Next up was Martin Kaliszewski who looked how the picture in Hastings at both primary and secondary level compares with the rest of the County and the National Picture, alongside what the impact of new measures being planned for 2016 may be(Martin Kaliszewski presentation)

The Heads of three of the local academies were next to offer their contribution to the event from the perspective of the schools themselves, with Theresa Phillips from Hastings Academy showing us how the picture is improving for their pupils since the academy took over (Theresa’s Presentation) and Mark Phillips talked us through his experience at William Parker since it became an academy. Following on from this Francis Robinson talked from a primary perspective, with a PowerPoint showing her pupils enjoying many educational experiences playing in the background, of the many positive things happening within her school, but accepted that there are still challenges to be overcome.

This followed with some questions from the floor such as

What about the possibility of co working with the voluntary sector?
This was heartily welcomed by the heads who thought this would be of mutual benefit.

What differentiates academies?
Relation with sponsors, not money but help with strategic and organisational development, Specialist support from subject experts can more readily be delivered

What is relationship with Local authority for supporting the most vulnerable?
The response was that co-work is going on in a context of inadequate overall resourcing

The next part of the afternoon involved a presentation from Yvonne Hillier and Mandy Curtis about research they were involved with which aimed, amongst other things, to ‘Identify the barriers to learning and the levers to secure success’ and used parents as researchers in this process.(Mandy and Yvonne’s Presentation).

Check out Dave Wolff’s (Director of CUPP) blog post from the event below (This may require signing up to the CUPP blog pages).

The final part of the afternoon saw the delegates split into smaller groups to explore the question ‘So What do we Know and What do we Need to Know? ’, the groups discussions were then fed back to the rest of the room, with the feedback from representatives of the Hastings Youth Council being a particular highlight.

Following the event Hastings Community Network published a position statement which details the main points raised by the event and future actions planned by HCN, the paper can be viewed here. The position paper was circulated to the Local Strategic Partnership and has contributed to Hastings Borough Council’s ‘Overview and Scrutiny review of the council’s role in raising educational achievement in Hastings and educational outcomes for the town’s children and young people in an academised context’, the final report can be read here. Since the forum there have also been increased links between the schools and local community groups, with at least two representatives for community groups attending each of the head teachers breakfast forums, which meets 6 time a year.

Please let us know about any partnerships or connections that were sparked as a consequence of attending this event, if attending the event impacted your organisations approach or focus or if it resulted in anything else you feel was significant.