False economy
The government’s proposal that schools can absorb 6.5 per cent teacher pay awards through efficiency misunderstands the system (DfE believes schools can make savings in leadership teams, October 31).
Their error is to see the sector in aggregate. There are opportunities for efficiency and examples of large reserves, but these are not uniformly distributed, whereas the cost of teachers is.
As primary school rolls fall – staff, buildings and overheads remain locked in inefficiency. Some of this can be defended as scarcity in low-density areas, but much is because the government will not engage in a school closure and amalgamation programme.
If the government wants to allocate money more efficiently, it needs to allocate its demands more efficiently as well. But there is no evidence of a let-up in the bureaucratic burdens placed on schools.
Also, government pointing to support staff as the source of salvation ignores the considerable SEND and safeguarding work schools now do in place of local authority services.
Nor is it helpful to suggest weighting the 6.5 per cent towards the later years. This looks more like an acknowledgment of the electoral cycle than the school business cycle.
The trust system is best-placed to deliver efficiency and to ensure collaboration does not unravel with a change of head, but schools can help one another through collaboration short of merger, which is right where diversity of choice matters.
Tomas Thurogood-Hyde
Director of corporate services, Astrea Academy Trust
The Big Resist
Following the High Court’s rejection of NAHT’s report card challenge (High court rejects NAHT’s Ofsted report card challenge, November 3) the struggle to establish a reformed, not just renewed inspection system, is more urgent than ever.
Apart from supporting any NAHT appeal, all professional associations should urge, not merely request, their members to desist taking the role of assistant inspectors until an agreed inspection system is in place.
They might go even further and agree to suspend the membership of would-be assistant inspectors? That would jeopardise, even sink Ofsted’s roll-out.
They should also call on their members not to seek appointment as HM Inspectors for the time being.
At the very least a totally independent evaluation of the early stages of the new arrangements needs to be commissioned by a consortium of the unions, or perhaps established through crowd-funding.
More controversially, a small number of headteachers (perhaps very close to retirement?) should be asked to resist the entry of Ofsted into their schools, with legal expenses, if necessary, covered by the unions.
A chance of professional immortality for the heads concerned?
Colin Richards
Joint lead of the Alternative Big Listen
Curriculum review snapshot views…
“An incredible, landmark moment to reverse the fortunes of an important, but beleaguered, subject.”
Dr Richard Kueh, chief education officer of CAM Academy Trust, on calls to bring RE into the national curriculum.
“Without investment in high-quality professional development and practical classroom resources, the potential benefits of this policy will not be fully realised.”
Dani Payne, head of education at Social Market Foundation, on financial education lessons in primary schools.
“Given the particular challenges in science teacher recruitment, this will need to be accompanied by more ambitious, targeted teacher training bursaries as well as a renewed emphasis on teacher retention.”
Billy Huband-Thompson, head of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, on the introduction of an entitlement to triple science at GCSE.
“This is a great aim, but we know how hard it is to teach critical thinking in the abstract – we need to see what the programmes of study will look like.”
Daisy Christodoulou, director of education at No More Marking, on teaching pupils to spot misinformation.
“The priority should be exposing children to the best that has been thought and written, not necessarily seeing themselves reflected.”
Adrian Hilton, conservative academic, on making the curriculum more diverse.
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