Category: Press Releases

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 24 May 2011.

The Department for Education today announced plans for significant reductions in the bureaucracy that controls how schools manage teacher performance and deal with poorly performing teachers.

The current system for teachers’ performance management is set out in the Education (School Teacher Performance Management) (England) Regulations 2006. These regulations are complex, detailed and prescriptive, telling schools what to do at every turn. The overall system fails to respect the professionalism of headteachers and teachers and makes it harder for schools to manage vital processes, such as how staff are trained and rewarded.

The existing School Staffing Regulations (2009) require governing bodies to have “capability procedures”. Schools are expected to follow a complex “model capability procedure” for dealing with poorly performing teachers.

But the performance management arrangements and capability procedures were developed separately and this has created further complexity, overlap and duplication.

Ministers, therefore, have today published plans to cut this bureaucracy. The proposed changes will make it easier for schools to manage teachers and deal effectively with the small number of poorly performing teachers. They will:

• introduce simpler performance management regulations, which set a few basic requirements, remove many restrictions (including the so-called “three hour observation rule”), and leave other decisions to schools
• introduce an optional new model policy for schools that deals with both performance and capability/disciplinary issues
• allow poorly performing teachers to be removed in about a term, a process that now often takes a year or more
• clarify that staff illness need not bring disciplinary processes to a halt
• scrap about 60 pages of unnecessary guidance.

These proposals are now subject to a 12 week statutory consultation. It is expected that the new arrangements for dealing with underperforming teachers will come into effect from September 2011. Revised regulations for performance management will be published in September 2011 and take effect in 2012.

Recent research for the Sutton Trust shows that heads and teachers support the aims of these proposals. More than half (57%) of those surveyed in November 2010 agreed or strongly agreed that there was not enough freedom for schools to dismiss poorly performing teachers. Less than a quarter (21%) disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Michael Gove MP said:

We have a great generation of headteachers and teachers. We want to help them to do their jobs even better. We want to make it easier for schools to provide teachers with the training and professional development they need to fulfil their potential and to help their pupils to do the same.

Heads and teachers also want a simpler and faster system to deal with teachers who are struggling. For far too long schools have been trapped in complex red tape. We must deal with this problem in order to protect the interests of children who suffer when struggling teachers are neither helped nor removed. Schools must be given the responsibility to deal with this fairly and quickly.

Brian Lightman, General Secretary, Association of School and College Leaders said:

ASCL welcomes this consultation which has the potential to reduce bureaucracy and streamline processes whilst retaining and strengthening important principles of fairness and transparency The vast majority of school staff are extremely hard working and set themselves high professional standards. Appraisal enables staff and school leaders to identify training needs and implement appropriate programmes of continued professional development.

In the relatively small number of cases where performance is unsatisfactory in spite of the formal and informal support that has been provided, it is essential for the benefit of the students that capability procedures can be implemented swiftly without the current constraints over timescales.

Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the NAHT, said:

These proposals will be generally welcomed by school leaders. Headteachers need the ability to move on the relatively few weak teachers present in our schools, and want to be able to do this fairly and without delay, to the benefit of pupils and, ultimately, staff. Both bureaucracy and delays are unfair to all involved.

Managing performance is an essential part of development for school staff. It ensures identification of training needs to allow staff to grow and also, where areas need attention, enables appropriate support to be provided. If, despite that support, the level of performance is still not satisfactory, then it is essential that this is dealt with quickly and fairly.

Darran Lee, Executive Principal to the Learning Federation and headteacher at Medlock Valley and Mills Hill Schools said:

These new proposals provide greater flexibility for school leaders to develop approaches that meet the needs of their school and secure the very best teaching for our children.

The merging of performance management and capability policies into one will ensure a continuum of support and challenge, removing duplication and overlap in procedures. This will enable leaders to take action more quickly when teaching is below expectations.

Ivan Ould, Chair of the National Employers’ Organisation for School Teachers, said:

We welcome the Secretary of State’s proposal to simplify the performance management arrangements for teachers. In particular we welcome the introduction of a clearer relationship between performance management and capability procedures in order to address cases, where teachers are falling below the standards which are expected of them as part of the employment contract, in a more appropriate and timely manner.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 23 May 2011.

Despite having undertaken training to achieve equivalent teacher training qualifications, qualified teachers from America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand still have to undertake further training and assessment before they are deemed ready to teach in schools in this country.

Michael Gove has today announced that the government intends to make changes so that teachers trained in these countries will be able to teach in our schools automatically. We will consult on how best to achieve this change later in the year. Speaking in Parliament today he said:

One of the aims of my department is to make sure that the most talented people possible are teaching our children and it is already the case that teachers from the European Economic Area can teach in our schools.

Today I want to extend that freedom to teachers from the Commonwealth countries such as Canada and New Zealand and Australia and I hope that other Commonwealth countries like South Africa, Jamaica and Singapore can join in due course.

Research looking at international teaching qualifications shows America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have teacher training systems that are equivalent to those in the UK. Ministers therefore will be amending the relevant regulations to recognise the qualifications held in these countries. This will allow well-trained teachers from these countries to work in schools as if they held qualified teacher status.

The school or local authority sponsoring the teacher will have to continue to check the suitability of the teacher including their qualifications and any necessary background checks. In addition they will still have to meet existing immigration criteria set out by the UK Border Agency (UKBA).

The proposed changes are subject to a statutory consultation and could come into effect from early 2012. Ministers have also commissioned further research to see if the same changes could be applied to teachers from any other countries in future.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 19 May 2011.

Tim Byles, CEO of Partnerships for Schools, is to leave his post after nearly 5 years.

The Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, would like to thank Tim Byles for his work, especially his contribution to the government’s successful reforms on academies and free schools.

Michael Gove said:

I would like to thank Tim Byles for the commitment to public service he has shown over the last 5 years. I would like to wish him the very best in everything he does after his departure from Partnerships for Schools.

Ruth Thompson, former Director General of Higher Education at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, has been appointed as interim Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 16 May 2011.

A speech by John Hayes.

Good afternoon everyone.

I want to start by thanking Alan Tuckett both for his kind words of introduction and for the many other things he has done since he arrived at NIACE in 1988.

As I’m sure you all know, Adult Learners Week 2011 will be Alan’s last as Chief Executive.

And I think that today, as we celebrate the 20th Adult Learners Week in NIACE’s 90th anniversary year, it’s a good time for me to acknowledge publicly the scale of Alan’s contribution to adult learning.

His example continues to inspire and challenge all of us who believe, like Henry Ford, that “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty”. And long may it continue to do so.

I know that Alan recalls clearly, as will some of you, just how bleak the prospects for adult learning looked back in 1991, when the first Adult Learners Week was held.

Funding changes were in the offing and it seemed unlikely that they would be for the better.

When policy-makers spoke about it at all, the term of art for informal learning was often “flower-arranging classes”.

And even where qualifications-bearing courses were concerned, people sought to distinguish between those which were economically useful and those which were economically useless.

Altogether, further education lagged far behind a higher education sector gearing up for its huge post-1992 expansion.

Contrast that picture with the position today.

Of course, not everything is perfect, but twenty years on, our movement is in a position of genuine strength.

For example, the changes that I have been able to announce in the last year alone give a proven, professional further education sector an unprecedented level of control over its own affairs and the incentive to engage more closely than ever before with local people, employers and community groups.

Moreover, the social, economic and cultural importance of adult learning and the part that those who provide it play in ensuring our national wellbeing have been lauded by virtually everyone in Government, from the Prime Minister down.

Of course, some people will sniff that Governments show what they really care about with money rather than words. But even if so, they cannot have failed to notice that in the tightest Budget of modern times, funding for informal learning has been protected by George Osborne and funding for Apprenticeships substantially increased.

But perhaps best of all, the insidious old idea that further education can be regarded as a less good version of higher education has been consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

As you will already be aware, it is the turn of the UK to host the prestigious international WorldSkills competition this year. I feel honoured and proud to be the Skills Minister overseeing this event for the UK and very much hope that you will join me in participating in the event in October. The WorldSkills London 2011 event will help us enormously in our shared task of raising the prestige of vocational skills and sharing expertise with 52 visiting countries.

In the run up to WorldSkills London 2011, a year-long programme of competitions and events has been organised to encourage people across the UK and internationally to ‘have a go’ at a skill that shapes our world- there are some “have a go” opportunities here today. This has already created a remarkable level of energy with a many schools, colleges and employers engaged across the UK as we enter the five month countdown to the event. And I know that NIACE is playing its part in promoting the value of adult and community learning through a range of activities connected to WorldSkills London 2011.

NIACE’s work and the annual showcase of Adult Learners Week have helped to teach Britain that no learning is wasted and that no form of knowledge or skill can be considered a luxury.

They have shown that the most important question is not whether one sort of learning is intrinsically more valuable than another, but whether the learning that a person is offered takes them closer to who they want to become, whether that person is more self-aware, more dexterous, more rounded, or simply better-paid.

Just as ambitions vary from one learner to another, so, too, do the ways in which they learn best, because learning is for everyone.

Winston Churchill once said “I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught”.

In that, his view was not unlike that of many of the people coming out of our schools system today, especially those who find themselves labelled as “NEETs”.

We must give them the opportunity to find out that there is more than one way to make learning their route towards a happier, more secure future.

For example, everyone knows that formal learning enables people to develop skills and achieve qualifications that get them employment. But, as hundreds of thousands of youngsters are finding out for themselves, that doesn’t necessarily mean sitting in a classroom. It could just as easily mean learning on the job by doing an Apprenticeship.

And other kinds of learning are important too. The kind of learning that happens through community volunteering, personal projects, reading groups, the University of the Third Age, or informal adult learning.

Learning like this inspires people today as it did in the heyday of bodies like the Workers’ Educational Association, when NIACE was first founded.

It has taken those who used to talk disparagingly about flower-arranging a surprisingly long time to realise that learning for its own sake develops the personal skills and self-esteem that can help people onto first step on the ladder towards structured learning and sustainable employment.

And learning that starts informally often leads to other things – friends, a new leisure interest, getting involved in community action, a hobby that becomes a successful small business or a volunteering experience that turns into a job opportunity. Learning opens doors – into people’s inner selves as well as to the outside world.

While I’m on that subject, some of you will know that we are reviewing our approach to informal adult learning to ensure that we are making the most of its potential.

This summer, we will launch a formal consultation on proposals emerging from the review process. And I’d like to ask all of you to encourage all your networks and contacts to contribute. The outcomes of the review will be published in late autumn 2011, to enable implementation to begin in August 2012.

The things I have been talking about so far are only the backdrop to why I am here today.

I’m absolutely delighted to have been invited to give awards to people engaged in two fields that I’m particularly passionate about: craft skills and community activism.

Let me say a little more about each:

I am especially excited to be awarding the Learning through Craft Award. The celebration of craft skills is of great social and cultural importance and we don’t yet do it enough in this country.

The more we recognise the skills of master-craftsmen and -women, the more people will admire their achievements, look up to them and in due course emulate them.

That’s why my Department is working with a wide range of bodies, including NIACE, to develop an exciting action plan that will help to reinvigorate demand for craft skills and raise their prestige.

Lydia Wall, the recipient of the Learning through Craft Award, is certainly someone to admire. She has shown enormous tenacity to overcome barriers, including homelessness that would have daunted most of us to start her own millinery business.

Another group of people that I personally admire greatly are the Community Learning Champions. They promote and support learning wherever they go – among friends, relatives, neighbours or the people they meet at the school gates and in local shops.

To be absolutely frank, I didn’t know much about them until I went to their conference a few months ago. They are a grassroots movement whose effect for the better on people’s lives is out of all proportion to their visibility, and their achievements certainly deserve to be much more widely known.

At their conference, I heard inspirational stories from learning champions and saw for myself just how they’re turning round their own lives and the lives of people around them.

Now you can hear their stories too.

In a moment we’ll look at a short film about this year’s Community Learning Champions award-winners. They have had a major impact by reaching out to disadvantaged communities in Norwich, using their own experience to inspire and support others.

For many of these champions, the remarkable achievement is that they have gone on to actually take part in informal learning, often for the first time since leaving school.

Theirs, and all the awards presented today, show what can be achieved with determination and the right kind of help and support at the right time. They reflect the fact that learning, in all its guises, enables people to achieve their dreams, change their own lives and support others to make the most of themselves.

So I hope you’ll join me now in applauding all our award-winners.

Thank you.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 13 May 2011.

Michael Gove today welcomed the contribution that independent schools can play in supporting or sponsoring academies. Speaking at the Wellington Academy, he also said that academies offer high quality training and professional development for their teachers.

658 schools are now academies. A third of all secondary schools are either already an academy, or on the way to becoming one. More than 40,000 teachers now work in academies.

Speaking about the role of independent schools he said:

Independence has made Britain’s private schools the best in the world. Greater independence will ensure more of Britain’s state schools become world class as well. That’s why it makes sense for private and public to work together.

Commenting on the benefits to teachers he will say:

There are still those who continue to criticise our policy of letting schools choose to become academies. They claim that academy status is a threat to staff pay and conditions. This is nonsense.

Academies, more than others, know how important it is to attract and keep good teachers. That is why they place a high premium on providing excellent development opportunities for staff.

It is time that the opponents of academies recognised that the landscape has changed. Every month more and more great professionals are teaching in academies, and despite scare stories, those teachers are getting a great deal.

Some of the benefits to teachers include:

• Average pay for full-time classroom teachers in academies is higher than that for maintained schools. £35,700 compared to £34,700. Teachers in academies also tend to be younger.
• Teachers in academies have more freedom over how they teach – as academies have freedom over the curriculum.
• Academies place a high premium on good training and development for their staff. Including:
  • training days at Oxbridge and other top universities
  • giving them access to MAs both in the UK and at Harvard
  • opportunities to work with successful businesses
  • learning from classroom observation, often in specially fitted classrooms designed to help observation
  • bonus awards, private medical cover, interest free loans for season tickets and bicycle purchase
  • working with teachers in other schools to share skills

He will say that unions in particular should welcome these opportunities. For years they have demanded better opportunities for staff development, and better pay. Academies are providing just that.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 13 May 2011.

Sir,

It is true that we are only selecting the very best applications from groups who want to run new, taxpayer-funded free schools (‘Most applicants to run free schools are turned down’, 11 May 2011).

The fact that we have had such a strong response to free schools and academies shows a clear demand for more good local schools, where heads have control – not bureaucrats or ministers. Figures released this week show that more than 1,000 schools have applied to become academies, and nearly a fifth of all secondary schools now enjoy academy freedoms.

Children from the poorest backgrounds have been let down the most by inequalities in our schools system. So I am delighted that excellent new free schools will be set up in disadvantaged areas like inner-city Bradford and Edmonton, London.

Our reforms are about creating a generation of brilliant schools, free from meddling and prescription, that provide more children with the type of education previously reserved for the rich.

Lord Hill of Oareford

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 12 May 2011.

The government today announced plans to ensure that more young people leave school or college with a good grasp of English and maths.

It means that those who have failed to get a C or better in GCSE English or maths will study the subjects until they get good qualifications.

The move will address concerns that standards of literacy and numeracy among young people are not good enough.

This year’s annual skills survey from the CBI found that more than two-fifths of firms are not satisfied with the basic literacy of school and college leavers. More than a third are unhappy with levels of numeracy. In 2010 only 55% of young people managed a C or better in GCSE English and maths.

The recommendation was among those proposed by Professor Alison Wolf when she published her review of vocational education in March.

All her recommendations were today accepted by Education Secretary Michael Gove as the government published its response to the review. Professor Wolf has agreed to take a formal role within the government to help implement them.

In her report Professor Wolf proposed a package of radical reforms designed to overhaul the current flawed system. She said that:

• thousands of 14- to 16-year-olds are on vocational courses which the league table system encourages but which do not help children progress
• more than 300,000 16- to 19-year-olds are on courses which do not lead to higher education or good jobs
• high-quality apprenticeships are rare and an increasing proportion are not offered to those aged 16 to 18
• the current funding system should be revamped because it offers perverse incentives that work against young people’s best interests
• too many young people leave school or college without good English and maths

Education Secretary Michael Gove said today that the Government will:

• ensure all young people study maths and English to age 18 until they get a good qualification in those subjects. Ideally this will be a C or better at GCSE but high-quality alternatives will be identified following a consultation this summer
• reform league tables and funding rules to remove the perverse incentives that have devalued vocational education. This will mean more young people take the high-quality qualifications that lead to university and good jobs
• consult with employers, schools, colleges, universities and Ofqual this summer to define the criteria that the best vocational qualifications must meet
• introduce a new measure to assess the performance of both higher- and lower-attaining pupils. This will ensure schools and college do not focus only on students on the C/D grade borderline
• consider paying businesses which take young people on to high-quality apprenticeships. Apprenticeships will also be simplified and made easier to offer
• support 14- to 16-year-olds enrolling in colleges so they can benefit from the excellent vocational training available there
• offer training to maths teachers so they continue improving and learning once qualified. This will be in place by this autumn.

When Prof Wolf published her review, the government immediately accepted 4 recommendations:

• to allow qualified further education lecturers to teach in school classrooms on the same basis as qualified school teachers. This requires a change in the law
• to clarify the rules on allowing industry professionals to teach in schools. This will be ready for the coming academic year
• to allow any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding body to be taken by 14- to 19-year-olds
• to allow established high-quality vocational qualifications that have not been accredited to be offered in schools and colleges in September 2011.

Michael Gove said:

The weaknesses in our current system were laid bare by Professor Wolf’s incisive and far-reaching review. The changes we will implement as a result of her report will take time but will transform the lives of young people. I am pleased Professor Wolf has agreed to work with us to implement them.

For too long the vocational education system has been devalued by attempts to pretend that all qualifications are intrinsically the same. Young people have taken courses that have led nowhere.

Good qualifications in English and maths are what employers demand before all others. Young people must be able to demonstrate their understanding of these subjects.

We will reform league tables, the funding system and regulation so children are given honest information and take the right courses. We will make sure that employers are more involved in the system. We will encourage them to offer more high-quality apprenticeships.

Our reforms will ensure that vocational education is again given the high status it deserves.

Professor Alison Wolf said:

For 20 years we have toyed around with vocational education but succeeded only in creating a bureaucratic and expensive system that limits the life chances of too many young people.

There are many excellent vocational qualifications, teachers and institutions – they are the examples that should be the norm. They prove that vocational education is a great choice for many young people.

I am delighted that the government has agreed to implement the changes I have proposed. They must be made if vocational education is to be a great choice for all young people, as it is in so many other countries, and I look forward to working with the government in taking them forward.

Skills Minister John Hayes said:

Vocational education matters because it enriches lives, inspires ambition and builds economic prosperity. But, as Alison Wolf has detailed, many qualifications offered to young people fail to provide progression to higher learning or employment.

Today we have outlined how we will take forward key recommendations in her report; spreading opportunity by encouraging and supporting all that is excellent in vocational education, including apprenticeships, helping us produce a new generation of craftsmen and women capable of building Britain’s future.