More of Balls’ Games?

nick cowen, 12 December 2007

Yesterday Ed Balls, the secretary of state for children, schools and families, unveiled the government’s plan to make Britain “the best place in the world for our children to grow up in” – writes Claire Daley and Nick Cowen.The so-called “Children’s plan” aims to tackle crucial education and social issues facing children today in the light of recent critical reports by Unicef, which have sparked concern over the state of British childhood.
The government has faced criticism for generating policy which “lacks vision”, so the question is, could the new proposals really revolutionise the British childhood (as Balls has pledged), or it is simply a new excuse to flood teachers’ desks with directives and undefined reviews?

Brown asserts that the real vision of the Children’s Plan is to shift from a narrow perspective in education to a “broader focus”. Balls Children’s Plan supplies Brown’s vision specific examples of proposals for a more personal approach include with £385m set aside to build 30 new school playgrounds and rebuild 3,500 playgrounds in deprived areas, the new plan acknowledges that education is not constrained to the classroom is. As Burning Our Money points out, the plan doesn’t entail any new spending since October which means that it isn’t too clear where exactly this money is coming (i.e. which areas will be sacrificed).
A more personalised approach to teaching is attempted with firstly a planned review of school assessment, possibly leading to more flexible testing, is being considered by a curriculum review headed by Sir Jim Rose, and secondly a scheme for all secondary school children to be assigned a personal tutor.
A Further proposal is for a newly qualified teachers to gain a masters qualification in their first year of teaching. A clear policy again, but possibly pulling against the vision of personalised care, after all a highly qualified teaching profession might include distracting new teachers within their most challenging first year. Perhaps new teachers should be assigned a personal tutor without risk of targets and qualifications to achieve.
So, will the government’s proposals really introduce a world class education system for our children?
We’ll have to wait and see but we should remain sceptical. Opposition Children’s minister Michael Gove has attacked the patchwork “collage” of Ed Ball’s Children’s Plan for not being clear enough (a comment intended to hark at a general lack of Brownite vision across the board of Labour policy making). With definite targets including 90% of children achieving 5 A*-C grades at GCSE by 2020, Balls has defined the criteria for his own success. The highly questionable quality of statistics to review achievements in education (highlighted recently by us) means the success of the Children’s Plan will be difficult to ascertain. The building of school playgrounds will be easier to assess, as long as Balls succeeds in his ambition to roll back the “no ball games” culture to liberate children from the suffocation of playing competition proof games.