Social Sciences, Leadership, Scholars' Stories, Leadership in Action, University of Oxford - SDG Impact Lab
LiA - Japan - Post 2
Reflections of my second week in Japan
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Local Engagement and Communications Officer - Public Affairs Directorate (PAD), University of Oxford
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Congratulations Michał Leszek Pietrzak, Elizabeth Reid, @Holly Toombs and @Yi Lin Zhao this is a fascinating paper. On page 18 you mention that some local authorities have put together a database of ECAs, however the footnote 8 references Singapore and the link there does not match your following reference to Singapore with footnote 10. I am not sure if the appendices numbering is out or whether there are footnotes missing from the entire paper. I would love to know which LAs have done this and explore the source material. Could you also provide me with the link to the source material regarding a four day week for teachers please? Did your research cover what categories would be the most useful to include in a database and what the accountabilities of both provider and recipient ought to be? Finally, was there anyone within the DfE who was particularly supportive of your recommendations? Sorry for all the questions and many thanks in advance for your consideration, Susanna
Dear Susanna,
Thank you for reading our paper!
Apologies for the delay in response - our LiAs and academic responsibilities have been rather time intensive!
In terms of the citation issue: on page 18, citation [10] ought to be [8], whilst citation [8] ought to be [35]. Both of them are at the bottom of this reply.
The LA we found to have attempted creating a database was Oxford, as our case study, but there are others that have attempted the same thing, including my LA, Leicester (https://mychoice.leicester.gov.uk/Search?CategoryId=53&SM=ServiceSearch&SME=True). These often do not include all available ECAs, as some are school dependent and thus often not reported/registered as it is the responsibility of the provider to update the information (at least this was the case to our knowledge in Oxford).
The four day working week was proposed around the same time that we were writing the paper (https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/62491/four-day-working-week), and was referenced in an interview with a member of a LA, who admitted that if schools adopted such a system, it could have repercussions on schools' capacity to staff ECAs.
Our research did not cover what categories would be the most useful to include in a database. We believe any accurate, and up to date, database would be useful for parents/carers and young people as primary recipients, as well as researchers as a secondary data source. Ideally, it would encompass as broad of a definition as possible, and certainly all ECAs offered in schools. When it comes to accountability, this would be a matter of efficiency - a lack of resources in LAs to monitor and regularly update such a database is a good reason to expect the provider to register their ECAs, even if the creation and maintenance of such a database would have to be centralised (at least at a LA level). However, there are few incentives for providers to do this, and we would not be surprised if schools were unaware of such databases.
In terms of the DfE, we were provided with the opportunity to interview high ranking members of the previous DfE and current Ofsted (at an elected/senior leadership level); unfortunately, due to timing issues and our deadline, we were unable to include these in our primary data. Furthermore, we received correspondence from the DfE, after a request for comment, that verified a lot of our findings - we would be happy to forward that information to you.
I hope this helps! The team has reviewed our citations and will likely post an updated version of the paper on the Laidlaw Network soon.
Please do contact us if you have any further questions, either through the network or our emails.
[8] - Singapore Ministry of Education. (2020). Singaporean central database of extracurriculars offered at each school. https://www.moe.gov.sg
[35] - Oxfordshire County Council. (2023). Family information service: Listings in after-school clubs. Oxfordshire County Council. https://fisd.oxfordshire.gov.uk