Conservative BSF Policy

November 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

It won’t have escaped people’s attention that the FT ran a piece on Conservative BSF policy this morning. Needless to say, the Tories are keen to point out where they think the programme has lost its way, and to float their ideas for improvement. Read beyond the obvious electioneering though and you find some useful signposts.

Significantly, the need to renew schools isn’t  at the heart of the debate. What the Tories do question is the need for signature buildings with very high price tags. The alternative idea they’re floating is more re-use and refurbishment of existing property.

It’s hardly surprising. We’ve been predicting for a while that if funding is tight, we’ll see less glamorous architecture and more functional buildings. Paradoxically, less new build and more refurbishment would be good for a company that supplies educational ICT and learning spaces. If you can’t have a landmark new building, why not focus on what goes inside it? There are plenty of examples of schools making incremental improvements, and investing significantly to achieve them. (And, on a very utilitarian note, this kind of business is easier and cheaper to bid for.)

The FT piece also quotes Francis Maude, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister as saying, “What makes a school effective is teaching…” That’s unarguable: places of learning need great teachers; and those great teachers want resources and materials to work with. A simple bit of analysis we’re working on suggests that schools with good Ofsted reports are also schools that prioritise their investments in equipment and resources. Good schools make good customers.

There’s no doubt that that a Conservative government would look closely at the BSF scheme. For instance, they’ve already signalled that their preference is for new schools to take the form of independent academies, outside of local government control. Equally though, there’s no doubt that education would be a powerhouse department in a Tory administration - Michael Gove’s performance at the recent Party Conference made that clear.

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TTS shortlisted in National Business Awards

October 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

RM Group company, TTS, is a shortlisted finalist in the 2009 National Business Awards.

TTS features in the  Growth Strategy of the Year category, which is awarded to a company that has achieved outstanding levels of sales, profit and market share improvement. We reported at half-year that TTS order intake was up by 40%.

The Awards Ceremomny takes place on 10 November 2009, and there’s more about the awards here.

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Innovation and improvement in the US

September 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A week or so ago, EdNET 2009 took place in Chicago. EdNET styles itself as an ‘educational networking conference’, and is a meeting place for schools administrators, policy makers and the education industry. RM was there – in fact, we sponsored the opening session of the event.

Very interesting was a keynote address given by James Shelton. Shelton is the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Innovation and Improvement at US Department of Education. With a strong track record working in education businesses, he’s not a typical education policy maker. Our, more or less verbatim, notes of some of the key messages make for an interesting read:

Entrepreneurs are here to take risks and solve problems. The Department of Education wants to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit as we need help solving the biggest issue in the US today – under performance in schools.

Money is not the solution … achieving more with less is the solution.

We need tools to help getting more out of every person in the education system – students, teachers, parents. We need new levels of productivity. We need to embrace online learning. We should be putting more emphasis on online schooling, as we have significant evidence that online schooling works.

Don’t give us tools and systems to do the same things in a different way; give us tools and systems to fundamentally do things differently.

Education and learning technologies is spoken about at the highest level within our current administration. It will improve our children and it will help sustain our economy by focusing on innovation. You are an important industry.

It’s significant that Obama is focusing on innovation in education, and that learning technologies are seen as an important contributor.

There’s anecdotal evidence that it’s not just federal policy makers who are enthusiastic. In San Diego, interactive white boards are big news.

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US Funding

September 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Our US team has started posting details of US education funding on their Web site.

Obviously, the material is intended for customers. It shows them what lines of funding and grants are available, and there’s a neat charting linking the funding with RM products. It’s also potentially interesting for RM watchers, because it begins to flesh out the scope and scale of the US opportunity.

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More on Conservative education policy

September 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

In August we posted a piece about Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s speech at DEMOS, where he talked about public service reform. Education was one of Osborne’s key examples, and a piece in today’s Daily Telegraph further reinforces education as a major plank in future Tory policy.

Investors often ask what the Tories are thinking - this piece is a thoughtful and reasonably objective summary (albeit one written by a serving Conservative MP though). Plus, because it’s in the Daily Telegraph, there’s the usual picture of smiling schoolgirls celebrating their exam results.

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A forensic approach to QUANGOs

August 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Back in July, David Cameron said he would adopt a “forensic” approach to education quangos (see the speech here). This week, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is suggesting something a little more muscular. Their report highlights the money that could be liberated for front-line spending if quangos were vigorously pruned.

There’s a lot to be said for focusing funding and decision making where it can be most effective, and that’s usually at the front line. That said, in their recent report on BSF, the National Audit Office (see our blog entry) made a strong case for the benefits of specialist support for complex activities. There’s little doubt that governments will continue to make use of officials – be they in Departments or in Non-Departmental Public Bodies – to implement complex policies.

Of real interest to RM though is this comment from the CPS’ comments on Becta (the educational ICT quango):

IT has become a mainstay of schools. Teachers should be trusted to develop their own plans as to how best to use technology in the classroom. If there is demand for a body of this kind to exist, it should make use of its intellectual property and expertise and operate as a private business; or as a charity.

More evidence that technology has a firm place in the classroom, and an endorsement of the role the private sector has to play

→ Leave a CommentCategories: News · UK policy

George Osborne on progressive conservatism

August 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

George Osborne got plenty of publicity on his Today appearance and DEMOS speech yesterday. He focused on public service reform, with lots of references to education. The speech included this clear exposition of the structural reforms a Tory administration would set out to achieve.

That is why, as Michael Gove has set out, the next Conservative Government intends to act, and legislate early.

We will identify the weakest schools in the state system and liberate them from local bureaucratic control – handing them over to those organisations with a proven track record of educational success.

We will identify the strongest schools in the state system – and offer them the chance to leave local bureaucratic control, take control of every penny the bureaucracy currently spends on their behalf, and enjoy all the freedoms of academy status, if in return they also take an underperforming school under their wing, and use their new freedoms to help raise standards in that under-performing school.

And, most radically of all, we will allow new providers to set up state schools where there is demonstrable demand from parents.

We will, as they have in Sweden, give parents the ability to take the money the education bureaucracy currently spends on their behalf and allow them to take that money to the new school they want.

This is progressive education reform in action.

What this means for the educational supply industry isn’t clear. It does suggest that there’ll be a lot of activity in and around education though, and that should mean opportunities for organisations with something to contribute to teaching and learning.

There a full text of the DEMOS speech here.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: News · UK policy

IntegrisG2 – SaaS reaches critical mass in schools

August 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Last week, the number of schools using IntegrisG2, RM’s school management system, passed the 1,000 mark. More than enough to prove that Web-hosted school management software is a real alternative to the traditional local network approach, and more than enough to demonstrate that we’ve got the tools and processes to help schools migrate from other systems.

IntegrisG2 is now in use in 31 local authorities, and there are more customers to come – a significant number of orders are waiting for schools and local authorities to plan their implementation. The large majority of these schools have the software hosted at RM’s own datacentre, but there are also implementations that use independent, local authority hosting facilities.

It’s a flexible approach and it makes a lot of sense. Most IntegrisG2 users are primary schools, and hosted software removes the need for them to manage a local database. The schools get a reliable service with a straightforward but powerful Web-based application, RM looks after data security and integrity. When changes are required to the software – for instance, to reflect changes in government legislation - they can be handled centrally and with no hassle to the customer. It’ s an application that’s served really well by the SaaS approach.

More about RM’s school management solutions here.

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Gates calls for better school performance data

August 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Interesting to see Bill Gates entering the debate about how to improve educational effectiveness. In summary his view seems to be that we’re not asking enough questions about performance in schools, and that the questions we do ask are the wrong ones.

You’d expect Gates to support online learning and the use of educational technology – and his speech shows that he does. What’s really interesting though are the references to data-driven improvement. He says, “The way I see forward is to use measurement to drive quality.” And there’s a strong suggestion that the US is behind the curve.

Data and education is an area where the UK excels, and RM is deeply involved through its Data and Assessment Services division. Gates’ interest is another example of the US picking up on the educational innovation seen in the UK over the past decade.

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Inclusive Technology shortlisted for Manchester Evening News business awards

July 31, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Inclusive Technology, the special education needs specialist which RM owns 25% of, is shortlisted in the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year Awards. Inclusive is a contender in the under £10m turnover category.

See the Manchester Evening News Web site for more details.

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