Everyone grumbles about red-tape, not excepting the five or even ten percent of us who are responsible, often unwillingly, for generating it. Nobody, however, actually does anything significant to reduce its entangling weight. 1066 and all that satirised traditional English historical education and may well have played a part in its subsequent transformation (for better and for worse, of course). The only comparable humorous onslaught on bureaucracy and red tape that comes immediately to mind is Parkinson's Law which was so funny as to be completely dismissed as the serious study that it actually is.
In the decade that has elapsed between my previous and present stints as a Parent Governor, the load of Red Tape afflicting schools has certainly grown no less and, in a small school at least, now occupies between 25 and 30% of professional time, in my estimation. As a Governor, I am supposed to bear a share of the responsibilty of running the school, yet I appear to have no power to change this, to me deplorable, situation. This provisionally-drafted essay is my first feeble attempt at constructively destructive protest.
Every school is showered from County level with POLICIES. Most of the content of these is mind-encoiling junk, yet how to robustly demonstrate this?
To start with, I recommend the following two procedures:
If this produces absurdity - that is, no-one could possibly maintain or support the resulting statements - then the original document has NO REAL CONTENT. The statements made in it go without saying. No reasonable person could quarrel with them or desire their absence or opposite.
Try substituting a quite different area of activity for that the document is supposed to be about. If the result -substituting, for instance, Footballl in Venezuela in place ofConservation in the Peak District - makes no difference to the sense of the piece, then again the original document HAS NO REAL CONTENT.It is entirely abstract and divorced from the concrete matter in hand.
Very few official documents can stand up to the onslaught of these two tests without losing a very high proportion of their word count. To reduce the words thrown at us by eliminating those with no meaning is a noble task for the bureauphobe, and in particular for the School Governor, trying to assist the staff at his/her school.
Here is an example of the application of Test 1 (Negation) to the first page of the Derbyshire CC Educational Trips Policy. The original document includes the wording in green which has been negated in red. Try reading in each colour.Derbyshire County Council
The school's governing body attaches does not attach great importance to the Health, Safety and Welfare of its employees at work and of other persons who may be affected by such employees' acts or omissions at work and during all out of classroom activities. It readily accepts is reluctant to accept its responsibilities, during all activities, to do all that is reasonably practicable to prevent injuries and accidents, and to ensure effective management of the health and safety of the school's pupils, staff and others and to make sure that the premises, equipment, vehicles and general working arrangements are safe and without risk to health, and that appropriate facilities, welfare arrangements and training are provided when necessary. The school regards does not regard the promotion of health and safety measures as an important objective for all employees. The school's governing body also attaches particular little importance to providing information about the steps that should be taken by employees to maintain a safe and healthy working environment, during all out of classroom learning, and in ensuring that the School Management is aware of their responsibilities Throughout the National Curriculum great little emphasis is placed upon the importance of first hand experience. Learning outside the classroom provides a powerful route scarcely contributes to the "Every Child Matters" outcomes, in particular enjoying and achieving, staying safe and being healthy. Much Little learning outside the classroom will take place as part of programmes that support personalised learning and complement the strategy for young people set out in "Youth Matters". The school's governing body will afford neglect the opportunity for educational visits, both day and residential, and will enable obstruct the freedom of teachers, support staff and children to work in an environment outside their normal classroom, which will allow obstruct the freedom of the children to develop social skills and interact without many of the normal constraints. This document will will not become part of the school's overall health and safety policy document which contains general arrangements for health and safety for all of the school's activities and should need not be referred to if necessary.
NAME:To follow....(this has already cost me most of a day's work)...the Venezuelan Test on more of this so-called policy statement. Below is a nearly finished version. I have been less drastic and merely replaced visits by IT (Information Technology) ((I KNOW it may now be known as ITC, whatever that stands for); CVT (co-ordinator, Visits/Trips) becomes CIT (co-ordinator Information Technology).
Note how few times the subject of this bar chart, in green or
red is mentioned at all.
Was this bar chart invented for this particular policy, I wonder, or is it a "template" for them all? A TEMPLATE FOR LIFE they may think ....more like a TEMPLATE FOR PURGATORY I think.
What do you think? Is the case made? There are another eight pages to wade through, and they are only a preamble to, to quote,
Derbyshire County Council's (DCC), Policy & Guidance for Health and Safety for Pupils and Young People on Educational Visits Guidance and the DfES Health & Safety of Pupils on Educational Visits and its three supplements.
with which we are several times informed, the Co-ordinator must (or is it should? discuss) be conversant.