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What to expect from Nicky Morgan’s big Policy Exchange speech

Nicky Morgan will make a series of policy announcements during a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank tomorrow. We have the list (and more detail on each one via the headline links)…

 

The creation of a National Teacher Service

 

A pilot is being launched tomorrow in the north west of England to enlist up to 100 teachers and leaders to start work in underperforming schools.

By 2020, the government wants to see 1,500 outstanding teachers and leaders in the service, deployed to the schools “that need them most”.

The service will offer schools that request help an “injection of talent from an NTS teacher or leader who will work with them for a period of up to two years to help drive up standards”.

 

A review of testing for seven-year-olds

 

Contrary to some reports, it looks like baseline tests aren’t on their way out, but more external scrutiny of testing of 7-year-olds could be on the way in.

The government says that to be “really confident” that students are progressing well through primary school, it will be looking at the tests, to make sure they “provide a firm basis for calculating progress to key stage 2”.

The government will work with headteachers in the coming months on how it can hold schools to account and give them “full credit for the progress they achieve”.

 

90 per cent of pupils will study the EBacc

 

Morgan will announce a consultation on the government’s goal for 90 per cent of pupils to be “studying the vital Ebacc subjects of maths, English, science, a foreign language and either history or geography”.

She will also announce that the proportion of pupils entering and achieving the EBacc will become a headline measure “used to hold schools to account through Ofsted”.

 

£5m will be handed to academy sponsors in the north west to drive up performance

 

The grants will be given to REAch2, Outwood Grange Academies Trust, Tauheedul Education Trust, Wakefield City Academies Trust and Bright Tribe, aimed at “improving performance for pupils in some of the most challenging and disadvantaged areas of the county”.

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3 Comments

  1. Colin Lofthouse

    I’m glad we concluded that there was no way politics could be kept out of education at the Politics in Education Summit today. Someone must have told Nicky Morgan.
    Here we go again!

  2. I feel sorry for children and parents up and down the land who will see even more change and confusion. Well if they are in areas of high poverty / deprivation anyhow.

    This seems to be a little like the introduction of grammar schools across the country by the backdoor and it will simply exacerbate inequality.

    How many measures do you have to have before they can no longer be described as headline measure.

    Morgan is re-engineering the process and the losers will be the less wealthy (as usual).