Tag: Department for Education

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.

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

The Schools Minister writes in response to Chris Keates’ comments published in the Yorkshire Post on 25 November 2010 regarding academies and free schools.

Dedicated people working to build great school

What a shame that the hostility Chris Keates obviously feels towards academies and free schools (Yorkshire Post, 25 November 2010) blinds her to the facts.

The truth is that academies, introduced by the last government, have raised educational standards: GCSE results have improved twice as fast in academies as the national average and in some academies much faster than that.

International evidence shows that free schools also raise standards in schools. So in Bradford, the passion and determination of inspirational teachers to make a real difference with new free schools should be celebrated, not attacked.

Contrary to what Ms Keates says, free schools will not be established without rigorous checks and independent schools that become free schools will have to stop charging fees.

The schools white paper sets out our plans to raise standards and start to close the gap between rich and poor. It’s shocking that the latest figures show that only 40 of the 80,000 children in England eligible for free school meals secured places at Oxford or Cambridge.

It is the children from the poorest backgrounds who have been let down the most so, yes, we want to move fast.

Fortunately, passionate teachers, parents and charities are working flat out to create more great schools and give pupils more choice. It is they, not Ms Keates, who are leading the way.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 23 November 2010.

The 2010 Ofsted annual report published today shows that while generally across the schools sector the number of inspections this year resulting in an inadequate rating has doubled, academies have bucked the trend using their freedoms to raise standards across the board with more than ever being rated as outstanding.

Commenting on the report, Education Secretary Michael Gove, said:

This report shows us the real picture of our schools revealed by the new, more rigorous inspection regime. A worrying 576 schools, up from 360 last year, are either in special measures or have been given a notice to improve, with the number rated as inadequate in the last year twice as high as the year before. Even taking into account the new inspection system, this is simply unacceptable. No parent wants to send their child to a failing school and they shouldn’t have to.

There are also concerns in safeguarding, children’s homes and fostering. Whilst the vast majority of professionals in this area do an incredible job in very difficult circumstances delivering high-quality care, there are some areas that can be improved. The Munro review will look at child protection to help professionals get the support they need so that they are able to spend more time with children and families and less time on paperwork.

The report shows that solid leadership, high-quality teaching, freedoms over the curriculum and strong governance all add up to high standards and rapid improvements. Academy schools which have these freedoms have bucked the national trend and have seen an increase in the numbers getting the top Ofsted rating despite the new tougher inspections. That’s why our White Paper this week will outline further plans to make these freedoms a reality in as many schools as possible.

There has been a marked improvement in children’s services inspected and the best foster homes, children’s centres and social workers are turning around the life chances of some of society’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable people. There is a lot we can learn from and I’m determined that we will free up both the education and the children’s sectors so that professionals can learn from the best, adapting delivery to their local needs rather than having to follow a set system dictated from Whitehall.

Key points on academies in the report include:

• Academies are bucking the trend with 26 per cent being rated outstanding compared to 13 per cent of secondary schools nationally.
• The percentage of academies judged outstanding has increased since last year and the percentage judged inadequate has decreased despite the more demanding inspection framework. This is the opposite trend when compared with all schools.
• Academies are continuing to achieve big year-on-year above-national-average increases in their GCSEs, including English and mathematics results, which highlights the excellent progress they are making.

Commenting on the quality of teaching, Michael Gove said:

The biggest factor in raising standards in schools is the quality of its teachers. The best education systems in the world consistently draw their teachers from the top tier of graduates by academic ability and select them carefully to ensure they are taking only those people who combine the right personal and intellectual qualities.

There is consensus amongst the highest performing countries that the most important thing we can do for teachers is train them well and then throughout their professional career. Too much teacher training involves either teachers being told how to comply with government criteria, or what John Bangs called quite rightly ‘death by PowerPoint’.

Teachers need to learn from other teachers. I have been impressed by arguments that the way to ensure we have good continual professional development is by getting teachers to observe superb practitioners of the craft and to learn from them. Today’s Ofsted report is a ringing endorsement of this, highlighting how schools with outstanding teaching frequently have senior school staff monitoring lessons which allows others to learn from the best teachers. That’s why our White Paper tomorrow will outline plans to give schools more flexibility to do this by removing restrictions on the time heads and other senior staff are allowed to monitor lessons.

But this has to start right from the outset with initial teacher training, and the Ofsted report is also clear that teachers need more practical classroom training to back up their theoretical training. Our White Paper will also outline plans to ensure trainee teachers spend more time in hands-on learning in the classroom.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 22 November 2010.

All children will be given a phonics-based progress check in year 1 so teachers can identify those not at the expected level in reading and in need of extra support, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced today.

Mr Gove said too many primary school children were failing to reach the expected standard and that the short, light-touch test would be designed to assess how well year 1 pupils could read simple, decodable words. He added that the screening check would be based on systematic synthetic phonics as it was internationally proven to drive up basic reading skills from a young age.

Mr Gove said it would be administered by pupils’ teachers and would be designed to

• confirm whether individual pupils had grasped the basics of phonic decoding by the end of year 1
• identify those pupils who needed extra help, so the school can provide support.

Today the government is launching a public consultation to ask teachers, parents, professionals and the public to submit views on how the check might work. It will be piloted in summer 2011 and will take place nationally from summer 2012. To help schools select an effective synthetic phonics programme, the government has published the core criteria that define the key features of such programmes.

Michael Gove said:

A solid foundation in reading is crucial to a child’s success as they progress through primary school, into secondary school and then in later life.

But, in spite of the hard work of teachers and pupils, too many children are currently not reaching the expected reading levels at age 7 and age 11.

We are determined to raise literacy standards in our schools, especially of those not achieving the expected level – a light-touch phonics-based check will provide reassurance that children in year 1 have learned this important skill, will enable us to pinpoint those who are struggling at an early age and will give them the help they need before it is too late.

It will be impossible to drill for and will be a true gauge of a child’s reading skills.

Parents want to know how their children are reading and this will tell them.

On phonics, Schools Minister Nick Gibb, speaking on a visit to Elmhurst Primary School in Newham, London, said:

There is more to reading than phonics – but there is also a weight of evidence that systematic synthetic phonics, taught in the first years of a child’s education, gives children key building blocks they need to understand words, underpins children’s attainment of a good standard of reading and can inspire a lifetime love of reading.

The government is determined to raise the standard of reading in the first years of primary school so that children can master the basic decoding skills of reading early and then spend the rest of primary school reading to learn.

The fact is that alternative methods have left too many young people with poor literacy levels, especially among children of more disadvantaged families, and we are determined that every child can read to their full potential.

Provisional figures released earlier this year showed that in 2010:

• 15% of 7-year-olds failed to reach the expected level (level 2) in reading at key stage 1
• 19% of 11-year-olds did not achieve the expected level (level 4) in reading at key stage 2.

England has also slipped down the international table for reading in primary schools. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 10-year-olds saw England fall from third out of 35 countries in 2001 to 15th out of 40 countries in 2006.

Shahed Ahmed, the Headteacher of Elmhurst Primary – one of the schools where the check will be pre-trialled, said:

At Elmhurst Primary School we firmly believe that the best way to teach how to read in the early stages is through a rigorous, systematic, engaging phonics approach. I believe that all schools would benefit from taking this approach. It’s important that schools know for young children how good their phonics knowledge is.

An end-of-year-1 phonics check would encourage all schools to teach early reading properly through phonics, and they would then know then the strengths and weaknesses of their pupils.

Ruth Miskin, a leading authority on teaching children to read, said:

Despite numerous well-meaning initiatives over recent years, we still have 20% of children who are unable to access a secondary school curriculum. However, there are many determined heads who ensure that every child learns to read by 6- or 7-years-old. There is no reason why this success cannot be replicated across the whole country.

This reading check will help all headteachers focus their efforts upon the children who are most likely to slip through the net. If we catch these children early, they will have an equal opportunity to make the most of their education and lives.

Ofsted will inspect the teaching of reading and phonics in schools and the impact on pupils’ results, and on 14 November 2010 it published a report showing best practice in the teaching of phonics. The information provided from this test will allow Ofsted and schools to have a better conversation about each school’s teaching of phonics.

The government has also revised the core criteria that define the key features of an effective systematic synthetic phonics programme, to help schools in selecting a suitable programme. Publishers of products have been invited to submit new self-assessment forms for their products, assessing them against the new criteria.

Jan Tyson, headteacher at Turnfurlong Infants School in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, said:

Systematic synthetic phonics is key to teaching children reading and writing. It provides them with strategies to decode words, which is especially important because English is such a difficult language to learn with the many different ways to make the same sounds from different letters or combinations of letters.

How phonics works

Phonics focuses on sounds rather than, for example, having children try to recognise whole words.

In analytic phonics, words are broken down into their beginning and end parts, such as ‘str-‘ and ‘eet’, with an emphasis on ‘seeing’ the words and analogy with other words.

In synthetic phonics, children start by sequencing the individual sounds in words – for example, ‘s-t-r-ee-t’, with an emphasis on blending them together.

Once they have learned all these, they progress to reading books.

The ‘synthetic’ part comes from the word ‘synthesise’, meaning to assemble or blend together.

Children who learn using synthetic phonics are able to have a go at new words working from sound alone, whereas those using analytic phonics are more dependent on having prior knowledge of families of words.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 18 November 2010.

Responding to reports that 80 per cent of local authorities cannot guarantee they will fund their children’s centres at the same level in the next financial year as in the current year, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

We have ensured there is enough money in the system to maintain the network of Sure Start services. We have secured funding for free childcare for three- and four-year-olds as well as the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. As councils make their spending decisions in the coming months, I hope they recognise the priority the Government has placed on early education.

We know high-quality Early Years support can have a lasting impact on children’s lives, so we will expect local authorities to channel resources at those who will benefit most from the excellent support children’s centres can offer.