The Independent Public School (IPS) Movement in Australia

Been reading a very impressive article by Alan Reid from the Australian Association for Research in Education.  Alan is very critical of the claims that the IPS movement will improve student outcomes in learning.

I support his view that the IPS movement has the worrying potential to get in the way of school Principals being educational leaders in their schools.  I worry about the remaining small rural schools in my vast home state of WA.  Could they function as IPS schools?  I think not, and maybe the Eduction Department has quarantined them from moving in this direction.

Owing to the pressures that Alan sees IPS schools bringing on principals to be business managers, he expresses concern for their ability to bring variety to the curriculum.  My view is to express relief that we now have the Australian National Curriculum (ANC) within which schools can innovate.  Teachers do not have time to invent a curriculum and can feel a sense of security that they have the ANC within which to work.  Non government schools can choose other than the ANC such as the international baccalaureate program but I worry if IPS schools can each choose their own curriculum.

Long before the IPS notion was around I was the principal of a K-12 government rural school.  I was so lucky to be in this K-12 situation as it gave me the opportunity to explore the real application of providing true continuity of learning for each student as they moved through the year levels of their pre-primary, primary and secondary schooling.  I confess that I could have made even more of this opportunity than I did.

This K-12 school existed in a context of a centralised Education Department and Regional District control, yet I always felt the I had a lot of freedom to be innovative within that structure.  Maybe it was the distance from the centre that gave me that sense of freedom.

The jury is well and truly out on IPS schools.  I hope with every fibre in my body that this is not another educational change that will falter.  I have seen so much valuable fiscal and human resource wasted on change that did not improve student learning : on change that exhausted and demoralised the participants.

Whatever happens I know that my principal colleagues out there will be striving to remain as educational leaders.  As the pressures grow it will be even more important to take recreational time out and to enjoy spending time with loved ones.  I say again that the ultimate nature of reality is the association that one has with one's loved ones.  I've been a bit repetitious on these points from an earlier blog but feel that this repeat is important.

GD