Education
Children's plan for England
On 11th December 2007 Ed Balls the Schools Secretary unveiled his ambitious 10- year plan for education in the UK. The 168-page Children’s Plan for England gives the new secretary of state the opportunity to demonstrate what his new department of Children Schools and Families does. In somewhat extravagant terms the introduction claims: “to make England the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up. Over the last 10 years we have made progress to tackle under investment and low aspirations in early years, schools, colleges and other services for children.”
You can read a summary of the plan or the entire document.
In fact the ideas are not new; the Children’s Plan is designed to develop and extend the policies implemented by the 2004 Education Act Every Child Matters which set up a national framework for children’s services. The intention was to improve inter agency co-operation and to promote joined up thinking on education, culture, health social care and justice. It followed the outcry after the death of Victoria Climbié and the subsequent publication of the report of the Laming enquiry and has forewords by Tony Blair and Paul Boateng.
Here is a synopsis of Every Child Matters and the full details can be seen here.
Introducing the Children’s Plan Ed Balls said “We want children to be seen and heard”. He intends losing the No Ball Games culture of the past with its implications for rising obesity and falling fitness levels. He wants to see children are encouraged to explore and play outside safely and spend less time cooped up inside playing computer games. In 2008 there will be a national action plan to tackle childhood obesity and a review of the risks of exposure to the internet will be conducted by Dr Tanya Byron the child psychologist; her report is due to be published in March. In addition he has asked John Bercow the Conservative MP for Buckingham (often known as “son of Tebbit”!) to review the education of children and young people with speech and communication difficulties.
He seeks to make Schools a vital resource for the whole community by 2010 by providing extended services such as parenting advice, mental health clinics and youth offending workers. £100m will be made available for 20,000 more free childcare places for two-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds. There will be two expert parenting advisors appointed in every local authority. More parental involvement with schools will be encouraged with Parents’ Councils ensuring every school offers activities from 8.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m. Clearly there is much to improve as was made clear by the damming Unicef report on children’s well being which put the UK at the bottom of 21 developed nations.
| Top |
Primary Schools
On the educational front the long expected review of the primary school system and initiatives for tackling declining standards of literacy and numeracy predominate; a move welcomed by the teaching unions. This is the first big overhaul of primary schools since 2000. Although primary school league tables showed a minor general improvement during 2007 UK secondary schools have fallen down the international league tables produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in reading and maths standards. These show that in 2006 the UK has lost its top ten position that it previously held in both subjects with S.Korea and Finland topping the ranking in reading and Taiwan and Finland in Maths.
Special Educational Needs
The Children’s Plan will put the 3 R’s firmly back in the frame with Sir Jim Rose (the former Director of Ofsted, SEN expert and educational consultant to the government since 1999) conducting a review of the primary curriculum and in particular the development of synthetic phonics. In fact in 2006 Sir Jim completed a review of early reading which was heavily in favour of the use of “high quality phonics”. It is understood he will be working closely with the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) who apparently “will take the leading role in providing the evidence required for the review”. This does rather suggest that the findings are probably already a foregone conclusion.
£18m will be spent on improving teacher training and enhancing the role of the special education needs co-ordinators (SENCO’S). On the basis that every child matters another £25m will be provided for one to one tuition for those experiencing writing difficulties. Dyslexic pupils are high on the government’s agenda, earlier in December announcing a £3m pilot scheme to improve awareness Ed Balls said: “In the past a grave lack of understanding about dyslexia left some highly intelligent young people branded as ‘backward’ simply because they had some difficulties in reading or articulating themselves through writing. We need to be better at identifying pupils with dyslexia and then supporting them.” Under this scheme Dyslexia Action will receive £250,000 over three years to expand the pilots it already runs under the Partnership for Literacy scheme to another 10 schools. While the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) will receive £150,000 over the next two years to develop its helpline which provides advice to teachers and parents. Acknowledging that dyslexia is now a recognised disability the BDA also produce a very helpful code of practice for Employers.
Against this background therefore it is somewhat surprising that the Children’s Plan should make lessons in a foreign language compulsory by the age of 7 in primary schools particularly when it is not in secondary schools. SEN teachers have long argued that when teaching language skills to children who experience difficulties it is important to establish a core language first before introducing a second.
| Top |
Teaching Standards
In October 2007 Ofsted published an important report on workforce reform Reforming and Developing the School Workforce. The report was published as a result of inspections of 51 primary schools, 3 special schools and 45 secondary schools in varying locations between September 2005 and March 2007. The government inspectors also monitored the level of support provided by 7 local authorities. The inspectors looked at the changes that occurred in the deployment of wider workforce now made up of not just qualified teaching staff but supporting adults and assessed the benefits.
It is interesting to examine the background against which this revolution in the schoolroom has been played out: The first classroom assistants were introduced by Labour in 1999 in primary schools, while performance management for teachers was imposed on a reluctant workforce for the first time in September 2000 by the then Education Secretary Estelle Morris. In October 2002 she was also responsible for publishing Time for Standards: reforming the school workforce. This sets out the Government’s plans for creating additional time for teachers and raising professional standards by expanding the role of support staff. In January 2003 the Government, employers and trades unions (with the exception of the NUT) signed up to the seven-point plan implemented over three years contained in Raising Standards and tackling workload: a national agreement. The agreement was intended to reduce the teaching workload by delegating routine and administrative tasks to less qualified staff. In December 2004 Ofsted reported on how effectively schools were implementing the first phase of the workforce agreement. They found schools had made satisfactory progress in remodelling work practices to reduce workload but failed to link this to improving standards of education. A new pay structure was introduced in January 2006 which for the first time linked pay grades to teaching and learning responsibilities. Ofsted’s latest evaluation once again appears to be inviting a little joined up thinking on working practices and the impact on standards. To quote from the final paragraph of the report’s summary:
“One of the greatest challenges facing school leaders was to provide an increasingly diverse workforce with relevant induction, training, performance management and professional development to contribute to an identifiable career structure.”
We could not agree more with Ofsted’s findings. Samantha Burmis’s in the Ashford Employment Tribunal victory against Aylesford School and Kent County Council provided dramatic evidence of training deficiencies in our secondary schools as reported in this month's HR Update. A full report on the case can be seen on the Times web site. The root of the problem seems to be the colossal demands that are now made of the new generation of “super heads” and the difficulties this has created for recruitment. It is important not to exaggerate the problem as Prof John Howson pointed out when his survey was released by the National Audit Office in January 2006. His research of 1166 schools had found that 38% could not find suitable candidates when advertising for head teachers. However increasingly we are instructed by teachers who find their hitherto successful teaching careers brought to an abrupt end by finding themselves at wrong end of competency procedures by school management. This particularly applies to older more experienced teachers whose TLR status is a burden on the school budget. Sarah Fletcher published an interesting article in The Times Educational supplement on bullying of teachers by management and created a blog which gives an idea of the extent of the problem. Last November Ed Balls did announce a scheme for incentives for smaller primary schools to appoint business managers to free head teachers to concentrate on teaching and learning. This is just tentative tinkering on the sidelines though and will not help the super heads of our oversized secondary schools. It is unlikely there will be any lasting improvement in industrial relations unless state schools follow the example of the private sector and separate the academic from financial management.
| Top |
Teacher's Pay and Industrial Action
Not unnaturally the diversification of the workforce in schools has had implications for pay. Teaching assistants have found themselves in the thick of the equal pay dispute in the public sector. Backed by trade unions many classroom assistants across the country have been taking their equal pay claims to tribunals and forcing local authorities to examine their roles. The Equality and Human Rights Commission EHRC have been attempting to broker a solution and published a 130 page report following a detailed assessment of the role of classroom assistants in Scottish Schools. A national survey revealed that they remain among the lowest paid workers in the public sector at an average wage of between £5.68 and £7.58 per hour. Wages are paid regularly over 12 months even though they are not paid for school holidays meaning some survive on an annual income of just £6810, which means they are excluded from unemployment benefits which might otherwise boost their earnings over the holiday period. In Northern Ireland the Nipsa Union which represents 3,300 teaching assistants were involved in industrial action which was only suspended when the other unions signed an agreement in December last year.
Not all teachers have responded warmly either to Ed Ball’s announcement of a 2.45% settlement for 2008 in a three year pay deal whereby teachers in England and Wales would receive 2.3% in 2009 and 2.5% in 2010. Making the announcement he said: “Today’s pay award will enable teachers and schools to plan ahead with the greater degree of security and certainty and at the same time will deliver stability for the taxpayer and wider economy”. The deal also means there will be a minimum starting salary of £25,000 for teachers in inner London and £24,000 for outer London from September. The increases were lower than the previous pay award of 2.5% but higher than many expected in the current climate of public sector pay restraint with the consumer prices index running at 2.1% inflation. The police have been particularly vociferous of course about their offer, they have even threatened strike action with the Police Federation announcing it would lobby its members for the right to do so. The Minister said he had accepted the recommendations from the independent School Teachers’ Review Body in giving a better pay settlement. Chris Keates leader for NASUWT said “Compared with other public sector workers clearly we have fared well”. However the NUT was unimpressed and threatened a “robust response” when the executive meet. “Teachers have to pay increases in the cost of housing, fuel and food. This settlement is in effect a pay cut” said Steve Sinnott the General Secretary.
| Top |
