When I talk to parents, the one thing they almost all want above anything else is to know that they’ll be able to send their child to a good local school. Our mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards across the whole education and care system so we can give every family that certainty. I know that schools, trusts and local authorities are partners with us in that mission.
The new children’s wellbeing and schools bill will help deliver on this ambition by giving every child a national core of high-quality education, while also allowing schools more flexibility to innovate beyond it.
The changes we will introduce through the bill will apply for every child across every school, while ensuring space for schools to collaborate and drive improvements. We know that where schools have worked together sharing their knowledge and expertise, as happens in our best multi-academy trusts and our best local authorities, we can secure the highest standards and best outcomes for our children.
Once our curriculum and assessment reforms have been implemented, every child in every school in every part of the country will benefit from a new cutting-edge national curriculum taught by qualified, expert teachers.
We will also update the pay and conditions framework, making it more flexible to enable and encourage schools to think creatively about the challenges we face in recruitment and retention, then apply this to every school.
We will also promote collaboration between schools and communities. Cooperation between schools and local authorities on admissions and place planning will be strengthened and the ability of councils to direct admissions of individual children to any local school, to ensure decisions reflect the needs of communities especially the placement of vulnerable children. Our priority will simply be what best delivers high standards for our children.
These changes will ensure every child is supported to achieve and thrive
We have already taken strides as part of our bold reforms to deliver a system which serves all pupils. We have scrapped overall Ofsted judgements which were low-information for parents and high-stakes for schools. We will replace them with a new report card, encouraging schools to work together to spread success by identifying what works well and what needs to improve.
Where a school is struggling, our new regional improvement (RISE) teams will draw on excellence and expertise in the system to work with schools to get a plan in place to deliver the improvements needed. They will also share best practice and promote excellence everywhere.
To support this, we will also have greater flexibility to intervene in failing schools, changing the current duty to issue academy orders to a discretionary power. This will allow us to identity the right approach for each school.
I want to be crystal clear: we will not hesitate when it comes to tackling failure. Every child has the right to an excellent education.
We’ve seen brilliant innovations in our schools and trusts, in particular in driving improvements for disadvantaged and vulnerable children. This is activity that we should learn from, best practice that we should spread throughout the system working with schools and leaders as we do so.
That is what this bill looks to deliver: a core framework for all, alongside enabling and supporting schools to innovate and drive forward high and rising standards for every child.
Together, these changes will put children at the heart of education and ensure every child is supported to achieve and thrive. We know teachers, leaders and staff in our schools are partners in this endeavour, in ensuring that excellence is for everyone.
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