21 April 2006
School leaders have described revised government guidance on local authority intervention in poorly performing schools as 'extremely worrying'.
The guidance helps local authorities take decisive action to tackle and prevent school failure, issuing formal warning notices where necessary. Under the new regime, heads will have 15 days' notice to improve or be sacked.
But the Association of School and College Leaders said the guidance, published on April 12, would only serve to make head teacher recruitment more difficult.
ASCL general secretary John Dunford said: 'With local authorities constantly anticipating their own next Ofsted inspection, they want to be seen to be taking action to improve schools. This often results in unnecessary interference in schools by local authority officers, which only puts more pressure on head teachers.'
Dunford added that few local authorities employ anyone with experience of leading a secondary school. 'The proper role for local authorities in school improvement is as a supporter of local school partnerships and as a commissioning agent when outside help is needed. This government policy fails to recognise this,' he said.
Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, addressing the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers' conference on April 13, said the guidance allowed local authorities to issue warning notices to schools where there was poor management or failure to implement the School Workforce Agreement.
'This will mean that management and governance become key issues, which can trigger our rigorous new notice system,' she said.
'There will be the possibility for formal follow-up action by the authority to ensure that the problem is rapidly resolved - be it a failure to implement pay and conditions agreements, or any other example where leadership is insufficient and proving detrimental to standards.'
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