10th June 2015 5:00
By Blue Tutors
The government has laid out plans for rapid interventions in under-performing schools in England. Announced in the Queen’s speech, the plans target so-called “coasting schools”, and will target the leadership groups of the schools in question. Education secretary Nicky Morgan has said that there will be an increase in the number of academies and free schools as a result of the plans. The government has also made changes to Ofsted categories, requiring schools to meet higher standards to be judged within the ‘requires improvement’ category, which comes above ‘inadequate’.
Under the plans, schools which are judged to be failing to progress would be required to work with expert advisers, or to obtain ‘sponsorship’ from another, high-achieving school. If schools do not show improvement after taking these measures, they risk losing their governing body and being turned into an academy. The education secretary confirmed that schools who are deemed not to have the capacity to improve will be subject to interventions which may well include the application of the academy model. The government has said that it expects to create an additional 500 free schools under the plans.
The proposals have drawn complaints from head teachers regarding the negative language used by the government to describe comprehensive schools. Head teachers and the NUT have pointed out that there is no evidence that academies are more likely to raise standards than other kinds of schools. Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has said that the key to improving schools is to improve the quality of classroom teaching, rather than instituting new management models. He called for greater support for teachers and head teachers, in order to raise the status of the profession and the quality of teaching available in state schools.
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