Teaching and Leadership
The Coalition Government says that it wants to learn from best practice internationally.
Key proposals
- No funding to train as teachers for graduates who have a degree qualification of less than a 2.2.
- Expand Teach First.
- Enable career changers to become teachers.
- Place more responsibility on school pastoral systems to offer additional support in terms of pupils’ physical and mental wellbeing.
- Focus on existing pay flexibilities and reference to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) for additional flexibilities.
- Revisit the regulations on performance management and remove the current duplication between performance management and capability.
NASUWT initial comments
Coming as this announcement does on the back of the Secretary of State for Education’s announcement that teachers in free schools and academies do not require Qualified Teacher Status, the NASUWT has deep concerns about the proposals for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and entry to the profession. The Union’s concern is to ensure that the status of teachers in England is maintained.
Whilst there is merit in ensuring that training is practice-based, it is essential that there is a theoretical grounding to practice, secured by the involvement of higher education (HE) institutions. The NASUWT is also concerned about the capacity of schools and teachers to manage the increased demands that the proposals will create.
The NASUWT is deeply concerned that schools will be asked to plug the gap in supporting children and young people following the significant reduction in funding for local authority children’s services.
The NASUWT remains deeply concerned about the Coalition Government’s intentions with regard to the national pay and conditions framework and the statutory arrangements for performance management. The reference to a link between performance management and capability is totally flawed. There is no duplication as performance management is not a capability procedure. The Coalition Government’s clear intention is to remove the distinction between the two, effectively meaning that all teachers would always be on a capability procedure. The Coalition Government has made clear its intention to give more power to individual headteachers to vary terms and conditions, to increase the monitoring of teachers and to fast-track to the sack those deemed to be ‘underperforming’.
Behaviour
The Coalition Government says that it wishes to give more support for teachers and headteachers in tackling pupil behaviour and to protect them from false allegations.
Key proposals
- Extending the powers to search pupils, issue same-day detentions and use reasonable force.
- Strengthen headteachers’ authority beyond the school gates.
- Empower headteachers to take a stand against bullying.
- Change the current system of Independent Appeals Panels.
- Make schools responsible for excluded pupils.
- Increase privatisation of alternative provision.
- Focus Ofsted more strongly on pupil behaviour.
- Grant teachers anonymity when accused by pupils.
NASUWT initial comments
The NASUWT welcomes a continuing focus on tackling pupil indiscipline and the continuation of the current provisions available to schools.
The Union also welcomes the commitment to anonymity for teachers, which has been a long-standing campaign of the NASUWT.
However, there are some deeply worrying aspects to these proposals.
The new approach to exclusions, which will be trialled, will in effect mean that a pupil permanently excluded will remain the responsibility of the school in terms of educational progress, care and funding of the alternative placement. This will increase pressure on schools not to permanently exclude pupils.
The opening of alternative provision to a market of new private providers has the potential to increase costs, undermine the ability of schools to access local authority support and provisions and put at risk the skills and expertise of teachers and other staff who work in pupil referral units (PRUs).
Whilst same-day detentions and clarity around the use of reasonable force are superficially attractive, in reality they have the potential to bring schools and teachers into serious conflict with parents and the law.
Curriculum, Qualifications and Assessment
The Government claims that its reforms will give more freedom and authority to schools but they will also simultaneously set clear expectations for what children must know.
Key proposals
- Cut down the size of the current national curriculum while retaining a core of knowledge that pupils must learn.
- Impose a system of systematic synthetic phonics as the method of teaching reading, including a phonic decoding reading test at age six.
- Retain assessment of pupils at key stages of their school career.
- Introduce an English Baccalaureate, which will establish a limited range of subjects for all to the age of 16.
- Change exams so that they reflect those the Coalition Government claims are the best in the world.
NASUWT initial comments
There is a worrying contradiction in the Coalition Government’s rhetoric between its claims that it will free schools and teachers from control but on the other hand will also introduce a prescriptive curriculum and narrowly focused high-stakes accountability.
The narrow curriculum will focus on English, maths, science, a modern or ancient foreign language and a humanity (history or geography). This has massive implications for staffing and curriculum balance and choice, with some subjects being relegated as less important or possibly not taught at all. This cannot be divorced from the fact that the Coalition Government has already stopped the funding to HE providers for ITT in humanities, the arts and social sciences.
This narrow focus also increases the divide between academic and vocational courses. It has significant implications for the disaffection and disengagement of young people.
The New School System
The Coalition Government claims that greater school autonomy will lead to increased standards. It, therefore, proposes to make it easier for schools to become academies with the aim of making the school system increasingly comprised of autonomous institutions.
The Coalition Government expects academies to become the norm.
Key proposals
- More freedom and autonomy for all schools.
- Force more ‘underachieving’ schools to become academies.
- Encourage collaboration through more academy chains, trusts and federations.
- Further encourage free schools.
- Relegate the role of local authorities to that of championing parents.
NASUWT initial comments
There is no evidence that structural change raises standards of education. Equally, there is no evidence that the model of autonomy being proposed, which removes national frameworks and local democratic accountability, improves school performance. Evidence suggests the opposite is the case.
Evidence shows that in academies the pay and conditions of the majority of teachers worsens with academy status.
Accountability
The Coalition Government says that high-stakes accountability is critical to driving educational improvement and is seeking to bring an end to primary schools over-rehearsing tests and secondary schools changing the curriculum to meet the demands of performance tables, rather than the needs of learners.
Key proposals
- More information on an individual school’s performance and expenditure will be published.
- Reform performance tables.
- Hold schools accountable for pupils’ progress when they leave school.
- Reform Ofsted so that inspectors spend more time in the classroom.
- Raise the floor targets for secondary to 35% GCSE A*-Cs and lower the primary floor target to 50% for pupils achieving English and maths at level 4 and above.
- Make it easier for schools to adopt models of governance that work for them.
NASUWT initial comments
The NASUWT is deeply concerned about these proposals. The information on schools’ performance will include details of teachers’ sickness absence, qualifications and pay.
The performance tables are being reformed to reflect only the English Baccalaureate subjects, which will mean a downgrading of other subjects in terms of status and curriculum time.
The reform of Ofsted will put even more pressure on classroom teachers, as will the new floor standards in secondary schools.
School improvement
The Coalition Government will put in place structures and processes to challenge and support schools and will intervene where schools are seriously failing.
Key proposals
- Moving away from School Improvement Partners (SIPs) to extending the scheme of National Leaders in Education (NLEs).
- Benchmarking regional data as a measure of performance and expectation.
- Provide ‘good practice hubs’ for schools to share practice.
- £110 million to support schools below the ‘floor standards’.
NASUWT initial comments
Removing the role of SIPs is linked to downgrading the role of local authorities in school improvement.
The proposals for school improvement cannot be divorced from the proposals on Ofsted and other accountability measures.
Schools will not be supported financially to improve but some schools will be rewarded financially if they ‘support’ underperforming schools.
Schools will now have responsibility for their own improvement and that of others which could place immense pressure on teachers.
School Funding
There will be a radical reform of school funding. Funding will be based on equity between schools and the Coalition Government claims that it will target more resources on deprived pupils. The Coalition Government claims that school budgets were protected in the October 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review and that there was real growth.
Key Proposals
- Target resources through the pupil premium on the most deprived pupils.
- Increase transparency by moving, after 2012, to a single national funding formula.
- Change funding in the post-16 sector so that schools and colleges are funded at the same levels.
- Allocate less funds for capital investment.
NASUWT initial comments
The analysis of the CSR conducted by the NASUWT, the media and a range of education and financial organisations has exposed the fact that school budgets are not only not protected, they are being severely reduced.
Analysis also shows that far from being additional to school budgets, as claimed by the Coalition Government, the pupil premium is a recycling of existing grants and sits within the school budget. The headline figure of £2.5 billion will only be achieved after four years. The initial allocation is unknown.
There is less funding overall and this, combined with the levelling down of funding for post-16 for schools, will put the continuation of school sixth forms and teachers’ jobs at serious risk.
There is no plan or funding for addressing the poor and dilapidated state of some school buildings. This will mean a return to the ‘patch and mend’ system that characterised the approach to school buildings under the last Conservative Government.
The next steps
Teachers are reminded that these are proposals.
The implementation these will require major legislative change, which will take a considerable period of time.
There must be no changes made at school level on the basis of the White Paper, to any aspect of pay, conditions of service, performance management, curriculum or any other statutory provision.
The NASUWT will issue more details on the proposals in the White Paper and provide information for members to enable you to lobby your MP on these issues.
The NASUWT will also engage in wide consultation with members to seek views directly on the Coalition Government’s proposals.
The Union will also continue to seek to engage with the Coalition Government to seek changes to its direction of travel, which will have major adverse consequences for the school workforce and children and young people.
How it can work - leaflet Txt
