New digital “school profiles” will link existing databases and offer parents a “one stop shop” for information about performance, Bridget Phillipson will announce today as she pledges a “new era on school standards”.
The government said it would publish “proposals for a significantly strengthened school accountability system”, with the education secretary vowing to raise “the bar on what we expect from schools”.
The government has come under increasing pressure to set out its “vision” for school improvement. Phillipson’s schools bill seeks to roll back academy freedoms and give councils more power, including to open schools again.
As part of its reforms, government will “revamp the way parents see information about schools, through new digital ‘school profiles’”.
At present, there are multiple online databases for the public, such as “get information about schools”, “compare school performance”, Ofsted’s website and scores of weekly, monthly and annual publications on things like attendance.
The government’s plans “will mean a comprehensive modernisation of the Department for Education’s existing online schools directory, creating a one-stop-shop where parents can see key, up-to-date data around areas like attainment and attendance, as well as the school’s latest inspection report card”.
‘Significantly strengthened accountability’
In its press release, the government said Phillipson would “overhaul school inspection and accountability”, and that it would “publish proposals for a significantly strengthened school accountability system”.
Plans for the inspection side of those reforms have been published by the watchdog today.
It is consulting on new report cards which will see five colour-coded judgments issued across up to 11 areas of inspection.
However, inspection is only one part of the accountability system, and the DfE has said little about how its intervention in failing and struggling schools will work under the new regime.
For example, the school reforms turn the current duty to issue an academy order to maintained schools in a category of concern into a power. But the DfE hasn’t clarified in which situations it would still use it.
Schools Week approached the DfE for more information, but received none.
Phillipson to set out schools ‘vision’
The Department for Education said the education secretary would use her speech today “to set out the government’s wider vision for a school system fit for the future, which delivers improved outcomes for young people across the country”
“Never will we go back to the dark days of weak accountability,” she is expected to say.
“Because it was the children from disadvantaged backgrounds who suffered the most.”
She will pledge to take us “into a new era on school standards”, adding that “our searchlight on poor performance must now become brighter, to see the problems of today and tomorrow quickly and clearly.
“So a more rigorous system, raising the bar of our expectations, on what good really looks like when it comes to the futures of our children.”
Phillipson backs ‘rich, granular insight’ of report cards
Phillipson will say that the reforms will “swap single headline grades for the rich, granular insight of school report cards.
“Raising the bar on what we expect from schools, shining a light on all the areas that matter, each given their own grade.
“Identifying excellence and rooting out performance that falls short of expectations, so that parents have clearer, better information about their local schools.”
Her comments are likely to add to fears in the sector and among unions that Ofsted’s reforms are a foregone conclusion.
A 12 week consultation begins today, but critics fear the watchdog will press on with the reforms regardless of feedback.
The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, recently accused prime minister Sir Keir Starmer of an “act of vandalism” and an “attack on higher standards”.
Conservatives argue that their reforms, which included a massive expansion of academies first created under New Labour, have seen England rise up the international rankings for English and maths.
They warn this performance is at stake if academy freedoms are withdrawn.
But the government has said it wants all schools to be subject to the same rules, for example the requirement to follow the national curriculum, and to pay teachers based on the same minimum salary bands.
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