By David Williams
July 2, 2009
Plans for sweeping reforms for schools in England have divided education experts and professionals over whether they would lead to a less centralised system and higher standards.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls launched a white paper, entitled Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century education system, on June 30. It proposed the introduction of guaranteed services for all – including five hours of sport per week and extra tuition for struggling pupils.
Schools will also be gathered into clusters, led by head teachers judged the most effective, while a ‘licence to teach’ will be introduced in an attempt to weed out those teachers unfit to work in the classroom.
The package was tentatively welcomed by the Association of School and College Leaders.
General secretary John Dunford said the white paper ‘presents a more coherent picture than we have at the moment – there’s a direction of travel towards school leaders exercising wider leadership over the system.
‘[But] I’m still concerned that many local authorities don’t have the capacity to deliver what is expected of them.’
Dunford predicted that grouping schools together would be locally led and
that ‘all the evidence is that this is the way to raise achievement’.
However, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers accused Balls of ‘giving teachers and schools more autonomy with one hand and taking it away with the other’.
General secretary Mary Bousted said: ‘The demise of the national strategies for literacy and numeracy is long overdue. But it is a shame their demise does not mean the end of the “that’s the way to do it” approach by government’. She denounced the licence to teach as a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’.
Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education, told Public Finance: ‘The licence to practise is important, but it needs to be rigid. There has to be evidence for something they’ve got better at.’
He described similar schemes for lawyers and doctors, on which Balls plans to base the programme, as ‘awful’.
Wiliam said parent and pupil guarantees represented a shift in emphasis from target-driven outcomes to inputs.
‘The good thing about the target culture was that at least you were focusing on what the kids were learning,’ he said. ‘The entitlements are for ten hours of private tuition if you’re not making the grade – but there’s no guarantee it’s going to work.’
The government also revealed details of its ‘report card’ system, rating schools from A to F over a range of performance areas, as well as giving schools a single overall grade.
July 2, 2009
Plans for sweeping reforms for schools in England have divided education experts and professionals over whether they would lead to a less centralised system and higher standards.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls launched a white paper, entitled Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century education system, on June 30. It proposed the introduction of guaranteed services for all – including five hours of sport per week and extra tuition for struggling pupils.
Schools will also be gathered into clusters, led by head teachers judged the most effective, while a ‘licence to teach’ will be introduced in an attempt to weed out those teachers unfit to work in the classroom.
The package was tentatively welcomed by the Association of School and College Leaders.
General secretary John Dunford said the white paper ‘presents a more coherent picture than we have at the moment – there’s a direction of travel towards school leaders exercising wider leadership over the system.
‘[But] I’m still concerned that many local authorities don’t have the capacity to deliver what is expected of them.’
Dunford predicted that grouping schools together would be locally led and
that ‘all the evidence is that this is the way to raise achievement’.
However, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers accused Balls of ‘giving teachers and schools more autonomy with one hand and taking it away with the other’.
General secretary Mary Bousted said: ‘The demise of the national strategies for literacy and numeracy is long overdue. But it is a shame their demise does not mean the end of the “that’s the way to do it” approach by government’. She denounced the licence to teach as a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’.
Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education, told Public Finance: ‘The licence to practise is important, but it needs to be rigid. There has to be evidence for something they’ve got better at.’
He described similar schemes for lawyers and doctors, on which Balls plans to base the programme, as ‘awful’.
Wiliam said parent and pupil guarantees represented a shift in emphasis from target-driven outcomes to inputs.
‘The good thing about the target culture was that at least you were focusing on what the kids were learning,’ he said. ‘The entitlements are for ten hours of private tuition if you’re not making the grade – but there’s no guarantee it’s going to work.’
The government also revealed details of its ‘report card’ system, rating schools from A to F over a range of performance areas, as well as giving schools a single overall grade.
