Nick Clegg’s conference announcement of £50m to fund summer schools for the disadvantaged caught the headlines (even in the Daily Mail!), and received some support in editorials and from some Lib Dem bloggers. However, though it might be a crowd pleaser and a nice idea, in truth it’s little more than a sticking plaster for deeper problems.

Summer schools risk diverting money away from a scheme – the Pupil Premium – which is designed to bring a sustained focus of resources to bear on young people in need who can be identified and catered for within the existing framework, and instead puts it into a brief flash of educational support that may well not, as it is voluntary, even attract those who need it most.  The content of the two weeks is also an issue: students moving from primary school to secondary school have finished and been assessed on the work of Key Stage 2 (primary school) and have yet to start the work of Key Stage 3, so what would be taught?  Recapping primary school is unlikely to appeal, and given the students in question, starting Key Stage 3 work early may be beyond their abilities at that point.

Summer schools, by themselves, are unlikely to tackle more than a tiny fraction of the multi-variant and multi-modal causes of the summer’s riots and looting. The media coverage for the announcement included lots of references to it being our response to the riots – I hope this is slightly over-enthusiastic spinning by a newly reinforced comms team rather than representing our actual considered response to the riots and looting.

There is an issue at transition from primary school to secondary school for some young people – either their attainment drops in Years 7 and 8 from what would have been expected given their SATs results – the ‘dip’ – usually attributed to a problem with loss of knowledge over the summer of transition. Or, their SATs results are inaccurate and / or primary schools are failing to prepare their students properly for secondary school.

Back to where we are now, however. If they are going to happen, they need to be properly organised and the educational activities tuned to each student’s needs. As this comment on the Guardian website by a consultant brought in by Labour to deliver a similar project back in the 90s observes, we need to avoid falling into Labour’s bad habits in government of announcing a policy to make a headline but then fail to follow through on the delivery.