According to a study published by the National Audit Office today, a million children are being failed by schools eight years after Tony Blair hollered that famous line, education, education, education. Although just 577 schools are judged to be failing or have ‘serious weaknesses’ by Ofsted, the NAO report has found that the number of schools failing to provide a decent education is far higher. ‘We estimate that these 1,557 schools educate around 980,000 pupils, or 13 per cent of the school population,’ it says.
Ministers spent £840 million on improving struggling schools last year and £160 million on replacing failing comprehensives with city academies. There are many Labour backbenchers who see no pressing reason to tinker with the structure and organisation of schools: they would prefer that ministers preserve the status quo and allow the extra money to bring about any improvements it can. However, the NAO’s report could be employed by the PM and Ruth Kelly to help them drive through reforms outlined in the White Paper.
The NAO highlights the character of schools in its analysis of the common traits of underperformance. These include ineffective leadership, weak supervision by governors, poor contacts with the community, and negligent local authorities. All these factors combine to produce both below par teaching and bad pupil behaviour.
Perhaps the most dramatic statistics concern school leadership. The numbers of appropriately qualified individuals applying for these crucial posts is, the NAO asserts, ‘generally falling’; and it appears that in 2004-05 ‘28 per cent of primary and 20 per cent of secondary schools had head teacher vacancies’. As the NAO pithily puts it, ‘leadership counts’. Speaking on the Today programme, the headmaster of Phoenix High School in London, William Atkinson, said that heads are not paid enough and that the burden of bureaucracy is intolerable. To turns around a school, as he is credited as having done, heads must ignore many of the government’s diktats.
In theory, the White Paper is designed to address some of these problems, although the great concern is that the independence envisaged for schools will turn out to be illusory, and a further concern is that regulations will increase the degree to which head teachers’ are straitjacketed. Although the White Paper might turn out to be a plaster for an axe wound, in the circumstances, that might just be better than nothing.
Comments (7)
I found one story about a school in the USA where pupils were taught according to their interests. The example was about a boy who liked dinosaurs. For reading he has stories about dinosaurs, for geography he found places where they lived etc. I think this is an interesting approach.
Posted by Alan | February 16, 2006 7:25 PM
Posted on February 16, 2006 19:25
"To turn around a school...heads must ignore many of the government’s diktats". -- Remember when the only way to produce any output at all was by _ignoring_ central planners' directives? When will the Soviet school system be marketised?
Posted by Sudha Shenoy | January 18, 2006 2:09 PM
Posted on January 18, 2006 14:09
The latest information about the New Model School can be found here.
Posted by David Green | January 13, 2006 7:22 AM
Posted on January 13, 2006 07:22
And somewhat off topic, does anyone there at Civitas want to tell us what is happening with the New Model School?
Posted by Bishop Hill | January 12, 2006 10:23 PM
Posted on January 12, 2006 22:23
Why, Bishop Hill, it's almost as if you know my gameplan!
Posted by James Hellyer | January 12, 2006 9:31 PM
Posted on January 12, 2006 21:31
That will only work if the democratic "accountability" is replaced with a proper market accountability. Just setting them free of central control won't do it.
Posted by Bishop Hill | January 12, 2006 6:47 PM
Posted on January 12, 2006 18:47
If you consider that schools receive around £5,000 per pupil, then most comprehensives could be considered to be multi-million pound businesses. For example, the one I went to would have a turnover of around £7,500,000.
Perhaps its time that headmasters were treated the company managing directors they really are, and be freed to run their schools as they see fit.
Posted by James Hellyer | January 12, 2006 10:31 AM
Posted on January 12, 2006 10:31