This page updates the material in chapter 1 of Trowler. P. (1998) Education Policy: a policy sociology approach. Gildredge Press, Eastbourne.
| Policy Update (Schools) | This page updates the material in chapter 1 of Trowler. P. (1998) Education Policy: a policy sociology approach. Gildredge Press, Eastbourne. |
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Key Policy Events |
Selected key content |
Commentary |
1979 Education Act |
Repealed the obligation on LEAs to make plans for comprehensivisation of secondary schools. |
The Conservative’s opposition to the comprehensive principle is demonstrated by this very rapid legislation, repealing the Labour government’s 1976 Act. |
1980 Education Act |
* Assisted places scheme put in place. * Parents given right to choose the school they wanted (though LEAs could refuse on grounds of inefficient use of resources.) * Parents given rights to be represented on school governing bodies. * School governors required to provide information to parents on a variety of matters (exam results, criteria for admission, curriculum etc.) * Restricted certain powers of LEAs and gave Education Secretary more powers in certain areas of policy. |
This Act sets the foundations for Conservative legislation on education in the years to come. Assisted places allowed ‘bright’ pupils from the maintained education sector to transfer to private schools with their all or part of their fees paid by government. In the eyes of critics this scheme demonstrated the government’s view that maintained schools were not good enough to cater for bright pupils and its lack of determination to improve them. The rights and powers given to parents and to governors mark the initiation of a series of policy measures designed on the one hand to introduce market rigours to the education service by empowering parents as consumers and, on the other, empowering schools (rather than LEAs) to take action to compete in a market environment. Essentially this Act and later ones was predicated on the idea of shifting the balance of power in the education system towards parents and individual schools and away from LEAs and shifting the nature of the system away from a ‘command’ (planned, directed) towards a ‘market’ one. |
1981 Education Act |
* Gave LEAs responsibilities to define the needs of special needs children and determine appropriate provision. * Affirmed the idea of ‘mainstreaming’ special needs children (ie teaching them in ordinary schools where possible.) * Gave parents of special needs children the right to be consulted on and to appeal against decisions concerning their child. |
Largely implemented the recommendations of the 1978 Warnock report, particularly the idea of mainstreaming and ‘statementing’ special needs children. A statement is a report drawn up by a multi-disciplinary team concerning the nature of a child’s special needs and how best to address them. |
1982 Announcement of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) by Margaret Thatcher. |
Pilot schemes set up in 1983 by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC.) TVEI would run for over 10 years. Its aims were: * to focus on and improve technical and vocational education for 14-18 year olds in schools and colleges. * to include planned work experience * full-time programmes to be delivered which combine general and technical and vocational education. TVEI was split up into a number of local projects rather than a centrally directed scheme. The projects to be carefully monitored to establish good practice for the whole ability range |
Initial doubts and uncertainties among LEAs, schools and colleges began to disappear as it became clear that locally it was possible to develop and control TVEI projects and that they brought useful sums of money. Local TVEI co-ordinators and their steering groups remained in control. By the mid 1980s TVEI involved most LEAs and provided "unprecedentedly large amounts of money for those involved" (Dale, 1985, p. 44.) When it wound down in the early 1990s it was widely considered to have been a success and early fears that it would excessively vocationalise the curriculum proved unfounded. Around 1.3m 14-18 year olds participated in TVEI in 1993-4, roughly 78% of the total population of that age. Dale (1985) notes the unusual features of TVEI: 1. its genesis was unusual: there was no consultation, no legislation and no committee of enquiry: Mrs Thatcher surprised everyone when she announced it. It was introduced into education from outside 2. it was bigger and more extensive than most other education initiatives 3. it represented an obvious break with what had gone before and was introduced at tremendous speed with very ambitious goals 4. project management, finances and other aspects of TVEI were outside the normal patterns: for example the steering groups were outside the normal LEA management structures. |
1985 White Paper Better Schools |
States that the government would not assume greater powers over the school curriculum. |
Written while one of the leaders of the neo-liberal faction of the New Right (see p. 00), Keith Joseph, was education secretary, this was later to become something of an embarrassment as the government was only 3 years later to set up the national curriculum and a range of other legislation gave strong powers to the Secretary of State for Education. This illustrates the way policy does not necessarily advance incrementally but is subject to negotiation, compromise and hence change. |
1986 Education Act (there were two, but only one is of interest here.) |
* Set out a formula by which the composition of the governing body of every maintained (LEA) school is calculated: determining how many parents, voluntary body and LEA representatives should be included. * Increased parent representation on governing bodies. * Required more information to be given by governors to parents, for example detailed annual reports. |
Built on the foundations laid by the 1980 Act to give parents more control over schools and to ensure that parents as consumers of education should have adequate information on which to base their decisions. Prepared the ground for later legislation by firming up the structure and role of school governing bodies. |
1988 Higginson Report |
A committee set up by the government under Dr Gordon Higginson to look at education in the 16-18 age range. The committee considered that the education provided by the current ‘A’ level system was too narrow: students specialised too early and it should be broadened to become more like the French Baccalaureate. Specifically a 5 subject structure was proposed. |
This subject has been one which has stimulated political controversy and continues to do so. On the one hand the argument runs that the ‘A’ level system is too narrow and specialised for the needs of a modern economy. On the other the ‘A’ level is regarded as the ‘gold standard’ which underpins the quality of education above and below it. The Higginson proposals were rejected. Mrs Thatcher favoured the ‘A’ level ‘gold standard. However the idea proved popular in some education circles and it was given fresh impetus by the publication in 1990 of Young, Spours and Miliband’s paper A British Baccalaureate. This is said to have influenced Labour Party thinking on the issue (David Miliband is now - 1997 - chief policy adviser to Tony Blair.) |
1988 Education Act |
* Gave the Education Secretary powers to prescribe a national curriculum for pupils to the age of 16 in maintained schools. * Set up the National Curriculum Council (for England) to oversee the content and assessment of the national curriculum. * Gave greater freedom for parents to select the maintained school of their choice. * Ensured that maintained schools should not artificially limit the number of pupils by setting the normal school roll as that of 1979 (when rolls were at their highest.) * LEAs required to delegate ‘hiring and firing’ of school staff to schools’ governing bodies. * Set up mechanisms for schools to opt out of LEA control to become grant maintained (GM) schools if the majority of parents who vote in a secret ballot desire this. * Set up the mechanisms for the establishment of City Technology Colleges (CTCs.) * staff appraisal schemes made a legal requirement. |
The most important Education Act concerning schools since 1944. This further extended the idea of ‘parental choice’ of schools both by reducing the powers of the LEAs to restrict where children go (they could now go to any maintained school that had room for them provided it catered for their age and aptitude.) Again, this built on earlier Acts. Now, however, the idea of extending the options available to parents was given greater force by the plans to permit grant maintained (GM) schools which were more or less self-governing (ie free of LEA control) and the city technology colleges, which were designed to have more of an emphasis on technology, languages and business and commerce than other types of schools. By 1995 there were around 1,000 GM schools. They must implement the national curriculum and are subject to OFSTED inspection (see below.) Even maintained schools which did not want or achieve GM status would now have greater powers to control their own affairs under this act, a position usually referred to as LMS: local management of schools. Schools, or at least their governing bodies, now had more power to control their own financial affairs and to hire and fire staff. Conversely the role and powers of the LEAs, already weakened by earlier legislation, were further reduced. This reflected a fundamental animosity towards LEAs on the part of central government. They were seen as self-interested overblown, inefficient and expensive bureaucracies. Moreover, during a period in which the Conservative Government had a large majority in parliament and, in the main, the support of the House of Lords, local government in general was the only stronghold of opposition. Much of local government, and therefore LEAs, was in Labour hands at the time. It is worth noting the way in which this Act contains strong elements of dirigisme: directing education from the centre (eg through the national curriculum) and market liberalism (eg through setting up different ‘flavours’ of schools.) In this it was reflecting the tension between neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism in New Right thinking. Chapter 3 addresses this issue in more detail as well as giving background information on the policy processes underpinning the development of the national curriculum and GM schools policy. |
1992 The ‘three wise men’ report published: Curriculum Organization and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools (see page 00.) |
The authors were tasked to ‘review available evidence about the delivery of education in primary schools’ and to ‘make recommendations about curriculum organization, teaching methods and classroom practice appropriate for the successful implementation of the National Curriculum, particularly at Key Stage 2.’ |
Widely interpreted as an attack on ‘progressivist’ methods of teaching in primary schools and a call for a return to whole-class didactic teaching of subjects, not topics, the reception of this lent weight to the traditionalist educational viewpoint and the New Right attack on ‘progressivism’ in schools. |
1992 Education (Schools) Act |
* Set up new school inspection arrangements by establishing the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), a department independent of the DFEE and, in England, under the direction of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools (currently Chris Woodhead.) * OFSTED charged with identifying, training and registering teams of school inspectors, under a registered inspector (‘regie’) who will go into schools (once every four years in theory) for around a week and write a publicly available report. |
This Act demonstrates the neo-liberal strand of Conservative thinking (see p. 00.) Instead of the official body of Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) who previously inspected schools and wrote private reports, school inspection is effectively privatised. Inspection teams, once trained and registered, now bid for a contract to inspect schools, thus imposing some market discipline in terms of cost, efficiency and effectiveness (in theory.) The teams must include at least one lay inspector (not involved professionally with education) thus opening up what was previously seen as a professional ‘closed shop’ (the Conservative government felt that the HMI had been in the pockets of the teaching profession: an example of ‘producer capture’ in which those who provide a service control and run it in their own interests, not those of the consumer.) Reports are publicly available in libraries, on the world wide web and elsewhere, thus empowering the parent as consumer with the data they need to make informed choices. (See the end of this chapter for the OFSTED website address.) |
1993 Dearing Report |
This government-appointed review into the national curriculum recommended that: * the curriculum should be slimmed down * the time given to testing should be reduced * around 20% of teaching time should be freed up for use at the discretion of schools. * for key stage 4 (ie 14-16 years) the school’s discretion should be extended even further, with art, geography, history and music made optional. * introduction of curriculum choice at key stage 3 * National Curriculum Council (NCC) and Schools Examination and Assessment Council (SEAC) should become one body: the Schools Assessment Authority (SCAA.) |
The government accepted Dearing’s recommendations. Subsequent changes to the national curriculum cost £744 million. It had by this time become clear that the national curriculum had grown into an unwieldy structure which was almost impossible to implement and which was proving in some cases detrimental to good teaching and learning because teachers’ time was increasingly being spent on paperwork and testing rather than teaching. The Dearing report gave the government an opportunity to try to improve the curriculum and its associated tests without losing too much face. |
1993 Education Act. |
* Set up the Funding Agency for Schools (FAS) which would finance GM schools. * FAS also directed to eventually take over some of the powers of LEAs to plan provision in their areas. * Simplified ‘opting out’ procedures for schools to become GM. * Introduced methods to deal with ‘failing schools’ when these were so identified by OFSTED inspectors. * National Curriculum Council and School Examinations and Assessment Council replaced by a single School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. |
This ‘tidied up’ a number of features put in place by earlier policies and took even further the erosion of powers of the LEAs, which by now were becoming worried about their future role in education (Morris et al, 1993.) |
1994 Education Act. |
* Established the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) for England and Wales. * The TTA funds teacher training in England and to promote teaching as a career. * Schools are to be centrally involved in delivering courses for initial and in-service education and training of teachers and managers. This may be on their own or in partnership with others, including with higher education institutions. |
Widely seen in the University sector as a threat to their control over the provision of teacher training, this policy was designed to make teacher education more ‘practical’ and less ‘theoretical’. Partly this was based on the government distrust of teacher educators in higher education and was partly based on a desire to tackle the supposed problems within schools (such as those addressed by the ‘three wise men’ report) at their roots. |
1996 Nursery Education and Grant Maintained Schools Act |
* Extended nursery vouchers to the whole nation from April 1997 * Enabled Grant Maintained Schools to borrow from commercial markets for capital projects. |
The nursery vouchers aspect of this would be the first of the Conservative education policies to be axed by the incoming Labour government in 1997. Plans were also quickly developed by Labour to change the nature and funding of GM schools, set out in the White Paper Excellence in Schools (see chapter 5.) The provisions of the 1996 Act, then, were extremely short-lived. |
1996 changes to School inspections announced and the new Framework and Handbook for school inspection in England published |
* School inspections were to become more manageable and less bureaucratic * sharper focus on standards and teaching * for inspectors there is less form filling; fewer but more explicit criteria on which to assess performance * better format for small primary and nursery schools * judgements to be expressed more clearly and in a more focused way. |
This was designed to rectify some of the unintended consequences of the new system of inspection which had become apparent. These are vividly illustrated in a quote from a researcher studying the effects of inspection in one school: "I am moved by the pain of it all, by the stress, by the plummeting of self esteem, by seeing how their cherished values in terms of pedagogy are being marginalized, by the fear of failure, and by the tensions created. I am particularly moved by the way in which these people who have committed themselves to their pupils and their work, and gained over the years some measure of confidence about what they do and can contribute to society, find themselves as no more than units to be examined and observed, scrutinized and assessed. This particular week was the lowest time for them as they entered into the fringes of the central spotlight of power - the OFSTED inspection." (Woods, 1996. P. 102) |
1997 Education Act |
* Allowed Grant Maintained Schools to expand * Enabled schools to be more selective without having to gain central approval to do so * Permitted exclusions of pupils for up to 45 days * Children to be tested upon entry to primary school * OFSTED given powers to inspect LEAs * Assisted places scheme extended to prep schools (40 institutions.) * New Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) set up to combine NCVQ (see page 00) and SCAA (see page 00) |
The last piece of Conservative government education legislation before the general election of May 1997. Labour would initially leave the OFSTED powers in place, believing that LEAs had to prove they added value to educational provision and that the principle of ‘zero tolerance of failure’ should apply to them too. The QCA came into existence and the testing of children on admission also came into effect as did the provisions on the exclusion of pupils. Other measures were quickly changed by Labour however (see chapter 5.) |
The new Labour government publishes Excellence in Schools White Paper |
This White Paper announced the following: * setting up of a Standards Task Ford * instituting a Standards and Efficiency unit at the DfEE * setting a target for 2002 of 80% of all 11 year olds to reach the required standard of literacy and 75% to reach the required standard of numeracy * requirement on all schools to establish challenging targets for themselves in their development plans, and LEAs to do likewise * introduction of General Teaching Council to represent the education profession * creation of posts for advanced skills teachers * funding for more and better in-service training for teachers who have shown special abilities and can act as models of excellence * policies for valuing teachers and celebrating good practice and excellence * developing a new curriculum for initial teacher training * making qualifications for head teachers mandatory * establishment of education action zones which give additional support for struggling schools, usually in inner city areas * a policy to establish a 'national grid for learning': an internet system for schools * phasing out of GM schools and introduction of a new system in which schools fall into one of three categories: aided; community; or foundation schools * allocation of more seats to parents on governing bodies * allowing parents to decide the future of grammar schools |
Excellence in Schools was based on six key principles: 1. Education is at the heart of government. 2. Education should be for tte benefit of the many, not the few. 3. Standards, not structures and institutions, need to change. 4. Intervention in what is wrong, not what is working well. 5. Zero tolerance of failure. 6. Commitment to work in partnership with all interested parties. These marked a clear change from what had gone before, at least in terms of rhetoric. The incoming Labour government declared that its three priorities for government would be 'education, education, education' and this refrain was repeated in the months after the election (Blair, 1997). The first Labour budget, in July 1997, allocated a total of £2.3 billion of extra resources for schools in the UK; £1.3 billion on capital spending and £1 billion on revenue. In education policy, as in other areas, Labour insisted it would be 'firm but fair', providing resources where needed but requiring results in the form of improved standards. Meanwhile the Labour government's Welfare to Work programme meant that 18-24 year olds would have only one of the following options: take up a job; do a 6-month placement with the Environment Task Force or an organization in the voluntary sector or become a full-time student. Refusal to take one of these options would mean loss of benefit. This policy on unemployment and benefits promised to have important knock-on consequences for post-compulsory education with a potential flood of new (and under-qualified) students moving into colleges and universities. |
November 1997 Connecting the Learning Society: national grid for learning published |
Sets out plans for information and communication technology (ICT) revolution in schools: * All schools and colleges to be connected to the internet by 1998. Full implementation of plan set out in this paper by 2002. *Technology to be used for management information and teacher preparation as well as learning. * Students to be able to find and download information to help them in their studies. * Government to encourage development of appropriate software as well as funding hardware links * Teacher education to be acknowledged as an important task. |
Here the new Labour government set out its plans to modernize the education system, bringing to it the benefits of ICT that had already been realized by commerce and industry. Although the White Paper recognizes the formidable task of bringing teachers up to date with this technology, the more subtle implementation and teaching and learning issues are not addressed here. In some cases the use of ICT is not an appropriate tool for teaching and learning and has unwanted effects if used wrongly (e.g. loss of face to face interaction) Many teachers are not only unskilled in the use of ICT, they are quite strongly opposed to its use in the educative process. Pupils and students have a tendency to subvert the intended uses of technology and to use it for games, illicit communication and other purposes not intended, or approved of, by teachers and policy-makers |
School Standards and Framework Act (1998) |
Class sizes to be 30
maximum for infants
(See the Times Educational Supplement March 13 1998 for more details) |
Gibson and Asthana (1998) in their critique of this White Paper note that it appears to mark a 'rediscovery' of the importance of social background and structured patterns of social advantage/disadvantage in affecting the performance of schools. However they note that the concept of Education Action Zones is 'extremely limited, both in scope and ambition' (p 205). The focus of the programme is too narrow and the resources directed to it inadequate to address the scale of disadvantage that needs to be addressed. However the main difficulty which these and other critics identify with this thrust of policy is the fact that it is expects individual schools to address patterns of social disadvantage when the evidence is that schooling predominantly operates to reflect, even reinforce, patterns of advantage and disadvantage. |
National Literacy Strategy published, March 1998 |
Sets out the programme of
teaching literacy in primary schools for the next five years |
This development can be
interpreted as another attack on teachers' claims to professional status or an enhancement
of it. |
June 1998 Education 25 Action Zones announced for England: first 12 to be operational at the beginning of the new academic year. 140,000 pupils will eventually be educated in an action zone and action zones are targeted at some of the most deprived areas. |
£1 million per year being spent Each zone to have around 20 schools, primary and secondary A number of 'stakeholders' involved in the running of each zone: LEAs, business etc Zones expected to develop and implement innovative educational ideas which will spread through the system. These to include, for example, specialist teachers; new curriculum ideas; better use of ICT; improved pupil records; extended school days and improved management. |
The big carrot is the funding which the action zones will attract. Certainly the zones represent a real attempt to tackle social disadvantage and to create equality of opportunity. In total around £56 million will be spent on around 140,000 of the children who most need it. However concerns about the zones include the following points: * they represent the privatisation of education by the back door. * business will have too great a hand over children's education * there is a contradiction between devolution of power to schools and control of schools within action zones * the financial contribution from business has been too limited. |
July 1998: Announcement of the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review outcomes |
£19 billion extra for education in total £3 billion in 1999 £6 billion in 2000 £10 billion in 2001 |
The extra resources for education were welcomed by those in the education system and saw a shift towards increasing the share of the GDP devoted to education after some years of decline. |
Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 |
Though primarily to do with higher education, there are some provisions which relate to compulsory education. See page 00 for a summary and commentary. |
|
March 23 1999: Government announces a three-year £350 million allocation for inner city schools |
This involved: * extra tuition to be available for the most able children - initially, 100,000 pupils in 450 schools in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Rotherham * the appointment of 800 'learning mentors' to work in the 450 target schools. These designed to help under-achievers make the most of educational opportunities - especially children from minority, ethnic and disadvantaged backgrounds. * more "learning units" for disruptive youngsters, to serve each of the 450 target schools |
Welcome focusing on needs of inner-city schools but assumption that schools can tackle the problems of society. Also rather strange that so much of this money is focused on higher achievers |
March 1999 Government announces outcome of Qualifying for Success consultation. "The government believes that the traditional post-16 curriculum in England is too narrow and inflexible in the modern world" (letter from DfEE to educational institutions, 19 March, 1999) |
This involves: * new AS qualification (Advanced Subsidiary) to be equivalent to the first half of a full A level * a new broader A level syllabus * new 'synoptic' assessment at A level * limits on amount of assessment by coursework * new higher level tests to be more accessible than current S levels * revisions to GNVQ * separate certification of 'key skills' in GNVQ * new key skills qualification |
The aim here is to broaden the 'too-narrow' education beyond 16 and to bring the UK into line with other countries.Wider skills acquisition is an important aim too. |
March 1999: Green Paper: Teachers - meeting the challenge of change published |
* all teachers will be appraised by senior staff. * pay scales and teachers' career development determined by outcomes. * teachers must prepare a portfolio providing information about their performance, analysis of pupils' results and evidence of commitment to their own professional development. * opportunities available for higher pay than at present. * Heads to be appraised also by governing body. * £1 billion announced to pay for the start of the new system. |
Elements of managerialist ideology clearly apparent in these proposals. Portfolio preparation is fraught with already-documented problems. Clearly there is going to be a certain amount of creativity in relation how these policies are actually implemented at the ground level if this green paper becomes law in this form |
May 1999. Government announces proposals for 'Curriculum 2000', a slimmed-down version of the national curriculum. |
Follows from the Qualify for Success consultation, discussed above. Curriculum 2000 to be implemented in September 2000 when finally agreed. Implements the broader A level structure set out above. |
Widely criticised as too complex, with insufficient time for implementation. However there was wide support for the measures which were in line with those proposed by Higginson (1988) but rejected by the Thatcher administration. |
Excellence in Cities initiative announced March 1999 |
Targeted at key stages 3, 4 and 5. Planned to: * develop and expand the number of Beacon and Specialist schools * extend opportunities for gifted and talented children * launch a new network of learning centres * encourage setting by schools (i.e. a form of internal selectivism) * give a new emphasis to literacy and numeracy teaching * introduce a scheme of low cost home computer lease for pupils and adults who face particular disadvantages * strengthen school leadership * turn around the weakest schools * modernise Local Education Authorities * tackle disruption in schools more effectively by ensuring every school has access to a Learning Support Unit * provide a 'learning mentor' for every young person who needs one, as a single point of contact to tackle barriers to pupils' learning * introduce new, smaller Education Action Zones to focus on low performance in small clusters of schools * provide subsidised loans to teachers for the purchase of computers September 1999: Phase One covers secondary schools in 25 local education authorities. September 2000: a further 22 areas join up, along with primary pilots in Phase One areas. September 2001: a further 10 areas joined. Programme covered more than 1,000 schools- about a third of all secondary-age pupils in the country |
Initiative broadly welcomed, with head teachers in particular responding enthusiastically to extra resources. The first annual report in 2001 on the scheme identifies considerable success. This is available from: http://www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/excellence/ Details of Beacon schools are available at: |
November 2000: National College for School Leadership announced |
Immediately took charge of leadership training for schools which had since the mid-1990s been dispersed in regions around the country. |
Broadly welcomed by the profession, though the underlying philosophy of management education underpinning the college appears to continue to be a rather dated competence-based one. The college website is at: http://www.ncslonline.gov.uk |
| September 2001 Schools - Achieving Success White Paper published | The government plans to…. amend legislation to enable many more students to take Key Stage 3, GCSE and advanced qualifications earlier in their school lives to allow them to broaden or deepen their studies, spend more time on vocational options, undertake voluntary activity or move on to advanced level study early. amend existing legislation to promote greater rigour in tackling poor behaviour, in parallel with policies to encourage children, their parents and their schools to contribute to improved behaviour while learning. introduce legislation that allows schools greater freedom to establish governance arrangements that suit them. where legislative constraints prevent schools from sharing resources and expertise, loosen them so that schools can more easily work together, for example sharing an excellent team of subject teachers. legislate to allow for all-age City Academies and for schools on the City Academy model in disadvantaged rural as well as urban areas. take powers to allow successful schools greater freedoms to innovate, for example greater flexibility within clearly defined limits on pay and conditions and the curriculum, if this would support them to raise standards. introduce a right of appeal to the Adjudicator where a successful school’s proposals for expansion are rejected by the School Organisation Committee. legislate to enable excellent schools to support and partner weak or failing schools in new ways. legislate to require LEAs to advertise widely when a new school is required, and for decisions on these competitions to be taken by the Secretary of State. provide a reserve power for the Secretary of State to require an LEA to involve an external partner in turning round a failing school. in cases of school weakness or failure, allow for a governing body to be replaced by an Interim Executive Board as part of a turn around solution. legislate to make sure that there is sufficient curricular flexibility at Key Stage 4 to implement our proposals for 14—19 education. remove any legislative barriers to collaboration between schools and between schools and FE Colleges so that, for example, there may be greater sharing of teaching staff. take legislative powers to remove any structural barriers to the creation of the 14—19 phase, including in its organisation, funding and inspection. make sure that students have access to high quality advice and guidance at key points of choice in order that they are better placed to take charge of their own decisions. legislate to secure this if necessary. legislate to assist new teachers, working in shortage subjects in both schools and Further Education, who enter and remain in employment in the state sector, to pay off their student loans over a set period of time. take powers to enable certain groups of teachers, for example trainees and teachers qualified abroad, to be registered with the General Teaching Council as well as strengthening the GTC’s powers more generally. take powers to require school place allocation to be co-ordinated by LEAs and all areas to have Admissions Forums. also clarify and simplify key aspects of admissions law and guidance. legislate to refine powers that tackle failure and under-performance in LEAs. legislate to define separate budgets for schools and LEA central functions, and for a Schools Forum to exercise functions in relation to the schools budget. take a reserve power to allow the Secretary of State, in exceptional circumstances, to direct a local authority to set a budget for expenditure on schools at a level determined by the Secretary of State, having regard to all the relevant circumstances. simplify and consolidate the Secretary of State’s grant-making powers. legislate to free school governors to run a wide range of family and community facilities and services, including childcare. amend legislation for Early Years Partnerships to reflect their responsibilities for childcare. take powers to make the status of nursery schools more like that of other schools, for example as regards their governance and funding and to consolidate the Foundation Stage. legislate to replace the current baseline assessment arrangements with a single national end of Foundation Stage Profile based on the Early Learning Goals. enable co-operative approaches with other schools and institutions in Further and Higher Education by removing the assumption that schools provide education only through employing teachers. increase flexibility for permitting innovative approaches by providing for the main staffing provisions to be in secondary legislation and guidance. Deregulate to allow more responsibility for staffing decisions in schools to shift from the governing body to the head, in line with the proposals of the Way Forward Group on governance. take forward the Way Forward Group proposal that the head should take decisions to dismiss staff, with an appeal to a committee of governors. take power to set by order any standards to be attained by teachers at certain stages of their careers, subject to consultation but not to the pay machinery. This would take threshold, AST and Fast Track teacher standards out of the STRB machinery. take power to put into force, again subject to consultation, any administrative arrangements or procedures necessary to give effect to provisions relating to statutory pay and conditions. clarify the existing ‘fast-track’ procedure of consulting the Chair of the STRB to bring into force minor or consequential pay and conditions provisions, without formal reference to the STRB. update the 1986 Act provision empowering the Secretary of State to make teacher appraisal regulations so that there is an explicit power for schools to use appraisal data in pay decisions, as well as technical updating. make sure that headteachers can assess teachers’ performance for pay purposes within the overall budgetary framework set by the governing body. correct the removal of point 0 from the teachers’ pay spine in 1999. |
These proposals are presented
under the following broad headings:
|
since Jan 2001