Tag: Department for Education

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 December 2010.

Given recent questions about how the pupil premium will work it is significant and welcome news that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) believe the premium is simple and transparent, and will benefit schools. The premium will start at £430 a year for every free school meals pupil, rising over the next four years. £2.5 billion will go to those students who need the most support.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said:

We welcome the IFS comments on our pupil premium. As they have recognised, the pupil premium is ‘simple and transparent’ and will mean that many schools will see real-term increases in their funding, with the most deprived schools benefiting the most.

Through the premium we will provide £430 extra funding for every child on free school meals next year and this figure will continue to increase over the next four years. The money will go straight to schools and they will be free to decide how best to use it to help the poorest pupils increase their attainment.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 December 2010.

Responding to reports about the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis of the EMA, the Department for Education said:

Around 90 per cent of pupils receiving the EMA would still go to college or sixth form even if it didn’t exist, according to research from both the IFS and NFER.

We have consistently made it clear we will still provide support for the 10 per cent of young people who really need help to stay in post-16 education, through substantially increasing the size of the discretionary learner support fund.

In these tough economic times, we simply do not have the luxury of being able spend hundreds of millions on a programme that doesn’t see results in return for the majority of the money spent.

We must bring down the huge national debt, otherwise the economy cannot recover. If we don’t, it will be young people who pay the price when firms can’t begin recruiting new workers.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 14 December 2010.

The Social Work Reform Board (SWRB) today set out to social workers what working conditions they should expect from their employers, as it published proposals to put social workers on a greater professional footing and reform their education.

The standards of supervision and support social workers should expect from their employers include:

• making sure the right number of social workers with the right level of skills and experience are available to meet the level of demand
• managing workloads and caseloads so that social workers are not overworked
• giving social workers the practical resources they need to do their jobs
• creating development opportunities for social workers to give them greater experience and skills

The board is also setting out for the first time a single, national set of professional standards outlining what social workers are expected to do at every point in their career and what level of service the public can expect from them. This brings the profession in line with other public sector professionals like doctors, nurses and teachers.

Social work education should also be reformed to improve the quality of social work degrees, with more rigorous selection criteria. The Board recommends that the design of social work courses should involve people who have experienced social services, so that the training properly reflects the real-life reality of the job.

Moira Gibb, CBE, Chair of the Social Work Reform Board and Chief Executive of the London Borough of Camden, said:

A year ago the Social Work Task Force recommended comprehensive reform of the social work system so that in the future, social workers are more consistently able to practise confidently and safely. Since then, the Social Work Reform Board has been working to make the task force’s recommendations a reality.

This report, the first from the Social Work Reform Board, marks a staging post in the journey of social work reform and a foundation for helping us, together, to deliver a better future for social work. The proposals published today should help every individual social worker, every employer of social workers and everyone who educates or trains social workers to do their work better in the interests of those who need and use social work.

The government supports the work of the Social Work Reform Board and is urging the sector to become involved in the next steps towards implementing these important and necessary changes.

Tim Loughton, Children’s Minister, said:

I welcome the Social Work Reform Board’s proposals, which are an important step for social workers to gain the status and respect they so rightly deserve. We are committed to making a real difference to frontline social work and to implementing the Social Work Reform Board’s recommendations. That is why in the new year we will be announcing significant funding to implement the reforms and Professor Munro’s recommendations to improve child protection.

Social workers perform an invaluable job that all too often gets overlooked and taken for granted. They need all the professional support and advice possible so that they feel confident they are making the right decisions.

I thank Moira Gibb and the Reform Board for all the work they have done over the last year. This strongly supports the changes that Professor Munro is advising and will ensure social workers can progress in their careers and feel proud of the vital job they do every day.

Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister, said:

The Social Work Task Force brought forward a number of ideas to improve the social work profession, and this Government has made clear that reform of social work is a priority.

The work of the sector-led Social Work Reform Board, and development of the College of Social Work, will ensure that the task force’s recommendations to improve the profession will become a reality.

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said:

I welcome the first anniversary report of the Social Work Reform Board’s progress in implementing the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force. This is an important step towards achieving the necessary fundamental and long-term reform of the social work system. I encourage the social work profession to respond positively to the proposals set out in the report.

The reforms will affect the profession, service users and carers as well as organisations that educate and employ social workers. The Social Work Reform Board is seeking views on its proposals until 31 March 2011.

The statement made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 13 December 2010.

Today I am announcing local authority allocations for their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and capital for 2011-12 and for the Early Intervention Grant in 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Schools

I can confirm that, as proposed in our consultation, we will continue with the current distribution method for funding local authorities.

As signalled in the consultation, we are simplifying the funding system by mainstreaming relevant grants into the DSG on the same per-pupil distribution as this year. 2011-12 Guaranteed Units of Funding (GUFs) are therefore the sum of 2010-11 GUFs and the per-pupil grant allocations. This means that at local authority, level allocations for school funding are flat cash per pupil for 2011-12.

To protect those local authorities that have falling pupil numbers, I have put in place arrangements so that no authority will lose more than 2 per cent of its budget in cash terms compared with 2010-11.

Following this announcement, local authorities will now be able to work with their schools forums to produce 2011-12 budgets for their maintained schools. This will include resources from grants mainstreamed into DSG. Local authorities will be required to take account of the previous level of these grants in constructing their settlement for schools. This is to prevent turbulence for those schools who have previously received funding through grants that we are mainstreaming. Although the overall schools budget before the addition of the pupil premium will stay at the same level per pupil, the actual level of budget for each individual school will vary. It will depend on local decisions about how best to meet needs. This does mean that some individual schools may see cash cuts in their budgets; either because they have fewer pupils or because changes are made within local authorities to the distribution of funding. I have, therefore, decided to apply a national protection arrangement for schools – the minimum funding guarantee – and have set it so that no school will see a reduction compared with its 2010-11 budget (excluding sixth form funding) of more than 1.5 per cent per pupil before the pupil premium is applied. The guarantee applies to a school’s overall 2010-11 budget including grants that have been mainstreamed into DSG.

Capital

The capital settlement for my department was extremely tight, with a 60 per cent reduction in 2014-15 compared to the historic high of 2010-11. I know that there are schools in need of refurbishment which have missed out from previous Government capital programmes, and who feel they have therefore been treated unfairly. I will continue to invest in the school estate. Indeed we are investing £15.8 billion of capital over the Spending Review period, and the average annual capital budget over the period will be higher than the average annual capital budget in the 1997-98 to 2004-05 period. However, over the next few years our priority is to reduce this country’s budget deficit. This is essential, as the amount we are currently spending on debt interest payments could be used to rebuild or refurbish ten schools every day. However, I realise that in the short term it will be difficult for schools to adjust to reduced capital funding.

The recommendations from the Sebastian James review of DfE’s capital programmes will inform the allocation of capital from 2012-13. But schools and local authorities need information now on capital for 2011-12 so that they can begin to plan. I am today announcing the allocation of £2137m1 of capital funding for schools in 2011-12.

There are two particular pressures we face which have informed how I have allocated this funding. First, I have inherited substantial forward commitments for the Building Schools for the Future, Academy and myplace projects which I did not stop in July. Energetic efforts are being made by local authorities, contractors and others to reduce the cost of these projects, but I expect the cost of these commitments to remain significant over the Spending Review period. If the Building Schools for the Future programme had not been stopped there would have been no additional funding for schools outside that programme or for urgently needed primary school places.

Second, there are significant pressures for additional school places, particularly at primary age, in many areas of the country because of rising birth rates and changed migration patterns. In 2011-12, £800m will be available to local authorities to address the need to provide additional school places. I have doubled the amount to be spent on what is called basic need from the levels spent by the previous Government. I recognise that this issue needs to be addressed and I am supporting local areas to do so.

Even where funding is tight, it is essential that buildings and equipment are properly maintained, to ensure that health and safety standards are met, and to prevent a backlog of decay building up which is very expensive to address. Therefore, in 2011-12, £1337m will be available for capital maintenance for schools2, with over 1bn being allocated for local areas to prioritise according to maintenance need. The voluntary-aided sector will receive its fair share of this as I have decided to retain the Locally Coordinated VA Programme for a further year.

In addition, £195m will be allocated directly to schools3 for their own use. This is a much lower rate than previously. The Audit Commission criticised the allocation of large amounts of funding to schools that was not targeted to building need. Therefore, in view of the need to prioritise, I have balanced the bulk of maintenance funding to local authorities, to support local prioritisation and larger projects, with coordinated and efficient procurement.

Details of the allocations of basic need and maintenance funding to each authority, and indicative amounts of the capital allocations for their schools, are being sent to local authorities today and published on the website. I shall also make copies available in the parliamentary libraries.

I know that for longer term planning, local authorities would welcome further security on their capital funding from 2012-13. As I have said, the capital review will inform funding from 2012-13. However, whilst the methodology of allocation and management of the capital funding may change, I can confirm that the headline annual amounts of funding for basic need and for maintenance will for 2012-13 until 2014-15 be in line with the amounts I have announced today for 2011-12.

Local Authority Early Intervention Grant

In challenging times the Government is freeing local authorities to focus on essential frontline services, and to invest in early intervention and prevention to produce long-term savings and better results for children, young people and families. A key element of this approach is the creation of a new Early Intervention Grant for local authorities in England, worth £2212m in 2011-12 and £2297m in 2012-13. It replaces a number of former funding streams, which are listed in a note on my department’s website. In a tight funding settlement, some reduction in central government support was inevitable. In 2011-12, the amount to be allocated through EIG is 10.9 per cent lower than the aggregated 2010-11 funding through the predecessor grants. The new grant will however provide a substantial funding stream, with new flexibility to enable local authorities to act more strategically and target investment early, where it will have the greatest impact.

Universal, as well as specialist, services have an important role to play in identifying and supporting families who need extra help before problems escalate, and helping them get more intensive support if needed. Our schools, health services, police and other services should all be concerned to spot and support the most vulnerable families early. There are great examples of effective partnerships which already do this across the country.

I want to draw attention to two important aspects of the new grant. The first is the Government’s commitment to trusting professionals and creating local flexibility. Greater freedom at local level, to pool and align funding, will help local authorities and their partners achieve better results. That is why we have scrapped top-down performance management, and why we are reducing radically the number of ring-fenced grants. The Spending Review signalled a power shift between central and local government – ensuring local communities have a greater say in the issues that affect them. The EIG is not ring-fenced, giving local authorities the flexibility to respond to local needs and drive reform, while supporting a focus on early intervention across the age range.

The second key point is the Government’s commitment to investment and reform in early intervention at a time of financial constraint. Against the background of greater flexibility to decide priorities locally, there are key areas of early intervention where the Government is ensuring that the overall grant provides support:

a. Sure Start children’s centres. There is enough money in the EIG to maintain the existing network of Sure Start Children’s Centres, accessible to all but identifying and supporting families in greatest need. Local authorities continue to have duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to consult before opening, closing or significantly changing children’s centres and to secure sufficient provision to meet local need and Together for Children will be ready to assist LAs in making plans to keep centres open. Important new investment through Department of Health budgets to provide 4200 extra health visitors, working alongside outreach and family support workers, will enable stronger links with local health services.

b. Two-year-olds. Evidence shows that early education is particularly beneficial for the most disadvantaged, for whom gaps in attainment start to appear as early as 22 months. We want to make sure that the poorest two-year-olds are given the best start, and subject to Parliamentary approval, have committed to extending free early education with an entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds from 2013, funded by an additional £300 million a year by 2014-15. £64m and £223m will be available through the EIG over the next two years so that authorities can build capacity and quality. Local authorities must still have regard to their statutory duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to provide information, training and advice to all providers of early education; quality matters and a highly skilled workforce is critical if we are to have a positive impact on social mobility.

c. Short breaks for disabled children. Providing respite to the most vulnerable families improves their outcomes and reduces the cost of care. That is why we have included within the EIG £198m/£202m, at the same time as investing directly in the voluntary and community organisations that support this work.

The Early Intervention Grant is of course not limited to these areas. The grant underpins creative local approaches to local priorities, across the whole field of services for children, young people and families. Most Department for Education funding for services for young people will flow through EIG. As we maintain the commitment to raise the participation age to 18 by 2015, the grant will help local authorities to support vulnerable young people to engage in education and training, intervening early with those who are at risk of disengagement. This could include preventing young people from taking part in risky behaviour, like crime, substance misuse or teenage pregnancy, supporting young people at risk of mental health problems, and helping young people who have a learning difficulty or disability to participate and achieve. The grant will support transitional arrangements to ensure that young people have access to impartial careers guidance in advance of the all-age careers service being fully operational. EIG also provides an opportunity for local areas to pursue greater coherence of local services for families with complex needs who face the poorest outcomes and pose the greatest cost to local services. Local authorities will want to consider using EIG funds to support local action in support of the national campaign to improve outcomes for families with multiple and complex problems and reduce costs to welfare and public services.

We look forward to Graham Allen’s report on early intervention, which will identify best practice and suggest ways to make it more widespread, including through new funding mechanisms. We recognise that making the transition from the old grant regime, and investing in early intervention at a time when budgets are under pressure, will be demanding. We want to work in partnership with local government to make the case for investment in these vital areas of early intervention. To that end, we will continue to work with the sector, including organisations like C4EO, to develop and disseminate the evidence base. We will promote transparency by working with the sector to measure the key outcomes and incentivise reform and effectiveness through payment of local authorities and providers by results, working with a number of authorities to develop a fair and effective methodology.

I am writing to local authority chief executives, directors of children’s services, headteachers and chairs of governing bodies with details of this announcement. Copies of these letters with details of individual school and local authority allocations have been placed in libraries of both houses.

Other area-based and specific grants

This Government’s decision to prioritise and protect frontline spending on schools and to target local authority spending on vulnerable and deprived children, young people and families has meant that we have had to make some hard choices. As part of the local government announcement, we have confirmed that we are ending a number of education-related area-based and specific grants. The ending of these grants does not mean that we do not see a future role for local authorities in relation to schools. The White Paper, ‘The Importance of Teaching’ – which I recently published – makes clear that local authorities continue to have an important strategic role to play. Local authorities will need to prioritise services and look at opportunities for delivering services more cost effectively including through working in conjunction with other local authorities.

In other areas, although the current grants are ending, we do expect to continue to provide funding. The White Paper made clear that we are committed to improving music education. Darren Henley is currently conducting a review of music and we will make announcements about future music funding in the light of recommendations which arise from the review.

We want all families to be able to choose the right school for their child. We are therefore reviewing home-to-school transport so that we can better meet the needs of not only disadvantaged families, but all families, ensuring transport is properly targeted to those that need it most. In relation to the grant, which supports extended rights for free home-to-school travel, we will be announcing transition funding in the new year to enable local authorities to continue to deliver their duty in this area for the rest of this academic year, pending the outcome of the review.

Early Intervention Grant

Schools capital allocation

Schools funding settlement 2011-12 and pupil premium

This includes all taxpayer-funded schools, including in the VA sector, academies, city technology colleges and non-maintained special schools. The figure for local authority and voluntary-aided schools is £2039m.

This includes all taxpayer funded schools, including in the VA sector, academies, city technology colleges and non-maintained special schools. The figure for local authority schools is £858m and for voluntary-aided schools, £196m. Local authority maintenance allocations also include funding for maintenance of Sure Start children’s centers.

This includes all taxpayer-funded schools, including in the VA sector and academies. The figure for local authority and voluntary-aided schools is £185m.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 11 December 2010.

Local authorities and the voluntary and community sector provide a range of short breaks services for families – including overnight stays, day trips with groups of children, fun activities in the community and one-to-one support. Providing short breaks gives families much-needed help and respite support so they are not forced to rely on often costly emergency intervention when the pressure gets too much.

A new evaluation of the short breaks programme, published on Friday, shows the positive impact that short breaks can have on families with disabled children – with 88% of families surveyed currently using some form of short breaks service. But there is more work to be done to better target services and make sure all families have access to a wide range of support.

To help improve the way short breaks are provided, the Government is also announcing today £40 million of capital investment in 2011-12. This will help support innovative local services like the Hull bicycle project, which provides adapted bicycles so disabled children can have fun cycling in the park with their friends.

The extra cash comes ahead of a complete overhaul of the special educational needs (SEN) system over the next few years. The Government has received nearly 2000 responses to the SEN Green Paper call for views – nearly half of the responses (40 per cent) coming from parents of children with SEN and disabilities.

The key areas of concern from parents, teachers, local authorities, SEN coordinators and others are published today and show that

• the SEN system is overly complex, bureaucratic and adversarial
• parents want to get better information on the services available and the choice of schools
• better training is needed for school staff to recognise SEN and work better with children and their parents
• education, health and social care services need to work better together to identify and deliver on children’s needs.

Ministers are keen to ensure the green paper takes account of everyone’s concerns, delivers real changes to the SEN system, and has lasting benefits for children with SEN and disabilities and their families. The call for views gathered will inform the work on the green paper, which will be published in February 2011.

The funding for short breaks has been protected in the Comprehensive Spending Review and will be included in the new Early Intervention Grant for local authorities. The funding includes additional money recycled from savings to the Child Trust Fund.

In addition, the Government has recognised the important work of the Family Fund Trust in supporting low-income families with disabled children, and today confirmed at least £27 million of funding for every year of the spending review for grants to families to help them meet the additional costs of caring.

Christine Lenehan, Director of the Council for Disabled Children, said:

We are delighted that the Government has recognised the essential value of short breaks to the lives of families of disabled children. This announcement, combined with the introduction of the short breaks duty, sends a really powerful signal to local authorities about the importance of continuing and developing the level and quality of provision.

Notes to editors

1. A key element of the short breaks programme has been to engage parents in the decision-making process about the kind of short breaks available. Together for Disabled Children, which is contracted to support local authorities in delivering short breaks between 2008 and 2011, reports that where there is good quality parental engagement, more children receive short breaks.
2. The short breaks programme began in 2008 as part of the Government’s Aiming High for Disabled Children programme. It aimed to bring about rapid increases in the numbers of disabled children and their families who could benefit from short breaks. By the end of 2009-10, 47,000 more children were receiving short breaks than in 2007-08 before the programme began.
3. Regulations have been laid in Parliament to introduce a duty on local authorities from April 2011 to provide a range of short breaks to carers of disabled children, and to publish information to parents about what they can access. The regulations were consulted on in January 2010 and the consultation response was published this month.
4. Funding provided for short breaks will be delivered to local authorities through the Early Intervention Grant. The Government will be providing £198m/£202m/£206m/£210m for short breaks over the next four years. This figure includes the previously announced recycled Child Trust Fund money of at least £20m each year.
5. A summary of the SEN Green Paper call for views responses will be published on the Department’s website today.
6. The research evaluation of the short breaks programme is available on the Department’s publications website.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 9 December 2010.

Nick Gibb has today commented on statistics showing key stage 2 attainment by pupil characteristics.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

These figures reveal that our education system is letting down half of all 10- and 11-year-old boys who qualify for free school meals. It is not acceptable that at the end of primary school these children are still not reaching the standard in English and maths they need to flourish at secondary school. After 7 years of primary school, children need to be fluent in these basic skills which is why the government is putting such an emphasis on improving pupils’ reading ability in the first years of primary school, with a focus on phonics.

It is also why we are giving such a priority to raising standards of behaviour in schools and supporting teachers and headteachers in their effort to instil a zero-tolerance approach to poor behaviour and low level disruption in class.

We want to raise academic standards for all young people and to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds, so starkly demonstrated by today’s figures.

Further information

The Statistical First Release showing the key stage 2 results broken down by pupil characteristics are available on the DfE’s data, research and statistics website.

Just over 4,000 schools – 26% – did not administer the tests this year. In all about 420,000 pupils took the tests, and results were returned to schools on time on 6 July 2010. As well as national results, statistics for key stage 2 tests are published for government regions and local authorities. The Department’s Head of Profession for Statistics has confirmed that today’s results are representative of the national picture and comparable to previous years. The results for 20 local authorities have not been published as it was considered that the schools that took part were unrepresentative of the profile of schools in the area as a whole.

Science was not included in the national curriculum tests this year. Instead a 5% sample of schools took science sampling tests to estimate national attainment in the subject. National results for this were published on 10 August 2010.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 8 December 2010.

Education Secretary Michael Gove today confirmed up to £2 million to fund tighter security measures in Jewish faith schools.

Community Security Trust (CST), a charity working to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish community in the UK, will receive revenue funding for the extra measure of security guards at 39 Jewish voluntary-aided faith schools across England.

Parents of children at these schools currently pay around £1.6 million a year out of their own pockets, along with the CST providing £400,000, to ensure their children have a school environment safe from any potential anti-semitic or racist threats.

Schools are responsible for funding general security measures such as fencing, gates and CCTV out of their main school budget. However, following assessments obtained by the CST, the extra security provided by guards in place at Jewish faith schools helps ensure pupils and staff remain safe.

Confirming the funding on the last day of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, Michael Gove said:

Faith schools make a fantastic contribution to our education system and none more so than Jewish faith schools, which teach children the importance of ethos, values and a belief in social justice.

Children and staff at these schools should feel safe at school and able to learn in an environment free from any anti-semitic or racist threats. That is why I have secured funding of up to £2 million for 2010-11 to be made to the 39 schools via the Community Security Trust.

The first payment of £650,000 will be paid in arrears for the autumn 2010 term, with up to £2 million funding being provided for 2010-11, subject to further evaluation.

Richard Benson, Chief Executive of Community Security Trust, said:

CST is grateful to the Secretary of State for recognising the importance of security provision at state-funded Jewish schools, and for the time he and his Department have spent assessing the problem and constructing a viable solution. We will work with the Department for Education and the Jewish school sector to ensure that the funding for school security is distributed efficiently and according to need.

Joshua Rowe, Chair of Trustees at King David Schools in Manchester, welcomed the news:

What a wonderful Chanukah present for the whole Jewish community. We hugely appreciate the support the Secretary of State for Education and the Government will now offer – to ensure that our schools and pupils receive the protection they require and deserve.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 7 December 2010.

Michael Gove has today responded to the publication of the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report which shows England continuing to slip in its international standing in mathematics, science and reading for 15-year-olds.

The report says that the best education systems around the world

• recruit and develop the best teachers
• allow greater freedoms for schools and leaders
• have clear standards, high expectations, and external exams
• have effective identification and sharing of best practice
• have clear, transparent and proportionate assessment and accountability systems

These are the very policies we are taking forward in our white paper, learning from the best of what works from around the world and applying it here.

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove said:

Today’s PISA report underlines the urgent need to reform our school system. We need to learn from the best-performing countries.

Other regions and nations have succeeded in closing the gap and in raising attainment for all students at the same time. They have made opportunity more equal, democratised access to knowledge and placed an uncompromising emphasis on higher standards all at the same time. These regions and nations – from Alberta to Singapore, Finland to Hong Kong, Harlem to South Korea – should be our inspiration.

While each of these exemplars has their own unique and individual approach to aspects of education, their successful systems all share certain common features. Many have put in place comprehensive plans for school improvement which involve improving teacher quality, granting greater autonomy to the front line, modernising curricula, making schools more accountable to their communities, harnessing detailed performance data and encouraging professional collaboration. It is only through such whole-system reform that education can be transformed to make our nation one of the world’s top performers.

England has continued to fall in the PISA rankings, meaning that in just nine years we have dropped from 7th to 25th in reading, 8th to 27th in mathematics and 4th to 16th in science. We have been overtaken by countries such as Poland, Iceland and Norway. This is despite England spending far more on education than comparable nations such as Germany.

And the report worryingly shows that England has relatively high numbers of low-performing pupils compared to countries like Australia, Canada and Finland. We are also less successful at overcoming the effects of social background than countries such as Canada and Japan, meaning that the poorest children in England are up to 2 full years behind their wealthier peers.

Schools minister Nick Gibb added:

I’m concerned that almost 40% of pupils in England never read for enjoyment. The difference in reading ability between these pupils and those who read for 30 minutes per day was equivalent to a year’s schooling.

By far the most popular activities recorded for our 15-year-olds involved communication either through email or online chat. Of course this has its place and it’s good that our young people have these skills in the computer age, but we cannot allow our youngsters to neglect the basic hobby of picking up a book and reading it simply for the enjoyment of it.

We need to reform English. The great tradition of our literature should be at the heart of school life. Our literature is the best in the world and we should be proud if it. But thousands of children – including some of our very brightest – leave school unable to compose a proper sentence, ignorant of basic grammar, incapable of writing a clear and accurate letter. We will change this as an absolute priority.

The most striking high performer is the newcomer to PISA, Shanghai China, which tops the tables across all three subjects. Their pupils are a full two-and-half years ahead of ours in mathematics.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 30 November 2010.

Education Secretary extends Michael Grabiner’s appointment as chairman of the board at Partnerships for Schools (PfS) for 12 months.

Michael Grabiner was first appointed as chairman of PfS on 2 January 2005 and was reappointed in 2008 for a further 3 years until 1 January 2011. The 12-month extension to his current appointment will mean he will remain in post until 1 January 2012. Recognising the current financial climate, Michael Grabiner has volunteered to take a 30% pay reduction from 2 January 2011. He has had a number of roles in the private sector. He was previously a partner at Apax Partners LLP, the Chief Executive of Energis plc, and Director of BT Europe.

The press release issue by the Department for Education on 30 November 2010.

Education Secretary Michael Gove will today present an Honorary MBE to Mr Joseph Synott, Assistant Headteacher of the Guru Nanak Sikh Academy in Hillingdon, West London.

Mr Synott, an Irish citizen, received his award for services to education at a presentation ceremony at the Department for Education’s offices in Great Smith Street.

He has been a teacher in the London Borough of Hillingdon for over 30 years, and became the first assistant head of Guru Nanak when he took up post in January 2000.

An exemplary teacher, Mr Synott has demonstrated a strong commitment to the education of many children throughout his career. He has forged strong links between the school, local businesses and community leaders, and played a leading part in Guru Nanak’s conversion to an academy earlier this month. He has been singled out by the headteacher for his tremendous work on inclusion and community cohesion.

Commenting on the award, Michael Gove said

I’m delighted to be giving Joseph Synott his MBE. He is a teacher who clearly understands the importance of helping every pupil to do well. Teachers like Mr Synott are the backbone of our school system. He can rightly be very proud today as we recognise years of hard work and selfless dedication.

Notes to editors

1. As Mr Synott is not a British citizen, Michael Gove is presenting the award on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen.
2. Guru Nanak is an oversubscribed academy in a mixed socio-economic location in Hillingdon, drawing students from a wide area. It opened as a voluntary aided secondary school on 1 September 1999 and was the first Sikh faith school in England. It has specialist business and enterprise status. Graded as outstanding by Ofsted during its inspection in 2008, it converted to an academy on 1 November 2010.