Education and Inspection Bill

The government's school reform legislation will "guarantee no return to selection by ability", the education secretary has said.

Publishing the Education and Inspection Bill on Tuesday, Ruth Kelly sought to reassure Labour MPs that the plans for new trust schools will not produce a two-tier state secondary system.

Ahead of the Bill receiving its second reading in the Commons later in March, ministers have been seeking to reduce the size of a likely Labour rebellion by offering concessions on the original plans.

"The Bill will provide a guarantee that primary legislation will ensure no return to selection by ability, announcing a series of measures to toughen up school admissions practices, including a bar on interviewing, a more robust status for the school admissions code of practice and greater powers for admission forums," the Department for Education and Skills said.

The Bill also leaves open the option of councils building new schools, despite taking on a strategic rather than providing role, although the education secretary will retain a veto if she feels the plans have not been thought through.

Stakeholder Response: General Teaching Council

Responding to the publication of the Education and Inspections Bill, General Teaching Council for England (GTC) Chief Executive Carol Adams says that incentives for teachers to remain working in challenging schools will be at least as important as legislation to create new forms of schools.

Carol Adams says: "Tackling educational disadvantage and the attainment gap should be the top priority for education reform. 

"It is not acceptable that 40 per cent of our children are leaving school without the baseline achievement of five good GCSEs.

"A strong package of incentives for teachers to make a long term commitment to working in challenging schools will be at least as important as any of the legislative proposals for Trust schools.

"It is the quality of teaching and leadership in schools, and the opportunity to collaborate, that is key to raising standards. 

"Overall, the test of the proposals in the Bill must be whether they can work in the interests of every child in a local area, whilst targeting additional support at those in greatest need of help. 

"It is essential that the measures in the Education Bill work coherently with the requirements of the Children Act and the legal duties of schools and public bodies to address race, disability and gender discrimination. 

"They must promote the achievement of all groups particularly those who are currently underachieving."

Stakeholder response: The Institute of Education

Professor Geoff Whitty, director of the Institute of Education and specialist adviser to the Select Committee, says: “I am pleased that, as well as maintaining those policies with which the Select Committee agreed, the government has attempted to answer some of their key concerns.  The Secretary of State clearly shares the committee’s commitment to improving standards for the most disadvantaged children, but are the measures she announced sufficiently robust to ensure that this will happen in practice?

"I welcome the government’s amended position on trust schools as permissive rather than mandatory but regret that they have chosen not to make trusts embracing a number of schools their preferred model.  This could have given impetus to collaboration and federation and ensured more enthusiastic involvement on the part of stakeholders such as universities.

"The concessions regarding admissions are welcome. The agreement to require schools to ‘act in accordance’ with the Code rather than just ‘have regard to’ it and the proposed ban on interviewing are particularly important.

"However, coming on a day when the Guardian reported new research confirming that social class is the key determinant of pupils’ educational success, the Government’s response is perhaps unduly complacent about the impact that its measures will have on the social mix of schools.

"The proposal that the enhanced admissions forums should have the power to produce annual reports falls well short of the Select Committee’s suggestion about ‘benchmarking’. It would be strengthened significantly if such reports were made a requirement.

"It is bizarre that, having strengthened the force of the admissions code by requiring schools to ‘act in accordance with’ it, the government will only require schools to ‘have regard to’ a local authority’s Children and Young People’s Plan.

Stakeholder Response: National Union of Teachers

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "This Bill is a missed opportunity rather than a defining moment.

"A Labour government in its third term could have built on its successes in funding and in establishing universal nursery education.

"Instead it has chosen to pursue the dead end of more structural reform insisting on trust schools when there is no evidence that they will do anything to raise standards.

"The proposals in the Bill which support teachers’ efforts in tackling bad pupil behaviour are overshadowed by the government’s obsession with so-called choice and diversity.

"The government’s claim that specialist schools represent a model for trust status is false.

"Specialist schools are community schools happy to work with their local authorities and value the support they provide.

"If the government had really wanted to tackle selection, it should have wiped out schools' ability to select by aptitude.

"The retention of such procedures allows the Conservatives to propose, in effect, a return to the 11-plus.

"Unchecked school expansion will be costly and wasteful, leading to other schools closing resulting in damage to surrounding communities."

Stakeholder Response: ASCL

ASCL general secretary John Dunford said: "We have made it very clear to the prime minister and education ministers which elements of the Bill will have a favourable impact in schools and which we are most concerned about.

"We are very pleased to see that the recommendations to support headteachers in personalising the curriculum and in improving pupil behaviour have remained intact.

"We will welcome trust schools if they are used to promote partnerships and collaboration, but we are extremely concerned at the proposal for individual schools to acquire trust status.

"If an obligation to collaborate were placed on these schools, it would ensure that we avoid returning to a two-tier system.

"The vast majority of school and college leaders strongly support collaboration but the government needs to put in place stronger incentives to encourage collaboration and partnership work."

"There has been no great interest in trust status from headteachers and it is unlikely that many schools will go down this route, since it is so similar to foundation status already held by several hundred schools."

Stakeholder Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of ATL, said: "Some parts of the Bill are very good, although much of the political debate has ignored them.

"ATL fully supports the measures which will help improve pupils’ achievement, such as clarifying teachers’ rights to discipline pupils.

"We also support giving local authorities stronger strategic powers including the right to intervene in struggling schools.

"But, and this is a big but, some parts of the Bill are questionable.

"ATL is opposed to trust schools, for which we see no purpose.

"And we can't find any justification for giving a trust the majority representation on a school governing body.

"We are deeply concerned about the role of the schools commissioner – an unaccountable bureaucrat buried deep within the DfES – who we fear will be tasked with arm-twisting to get trust schools set up.

"While we are pleased with the government’s concessions on admissions policy, these haven’t yet gone far enough, and ATL will be lobbying to get these amended.

"There also remains a key question for which there isn’t any magic formula – how can local authorities have a greater strategic role if at the same time the majority of schools, trusts and foundation, are given wide-ranging freedoms and an arm’s length relationship with the local authorities?"

Stakeholder Response: The Association of Accounting Technicians

A spokesperson for the Association of Accounting Technicians said: "The AAT is very pleased that the government has announced that it will put formal structures in place to enable schools to work more closely with FE colleges.

"With over 40 per cent of school children still not getting five A*to C GCSEs, it is clear that, for some, the more traditional methods of teaching and learning just do not work.

"There needs to be a more varied focus within the mainstream curriculum to include vocational qualifications.

"While it's good news that 21,000 19 year olds are now achieving government-funded NVQs at level two - this type of qualification could be delivered to them pre-16; avoiding their disengagement while in full-time education and reducing the long-term cost to the economy.

"The AAT has already piloted a scheme where NVQ level two in accounting is taught to 14-16 year olds as part of their curriculum alongside other GCSE subjects, by facilitating partnerships between local further education providers and schools.

"We hope this Bill will allow for the expansion of this programme and will make vocational learning more accessible to a greater number of young people."

Stakeholder Response: The Professional Association of Teachers

PAT general secretary Philip Parkin said: "I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing a sense of deja vu.

"It seems that nothing has changed since the minor tweaks made to the white paper's proposals earlier this month. It's all depressingly familiar.

"Our serious concerns about admissions, the future of local authorities and the role of trust schools and their backers remain.

"Encouraging competition between schools in this way will mean that some will fail, with dire consequences for pupils and staff.

"The government should not be in the business of building failure into the education system or experimenting with schools and children for ideological reasons."

Stakeholder Response: Institute of Directors

Richard Wilson, head of business policy, said: "The proposals in the government’s white paper may have been billed as ‘pivotal’ and sparked high-octane debate, but we should be clear that this Bill is largely evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

"It is none the worse for that. IoD members support giving greater autonomy to schools.

"We welcome trust schools as a vehicle for promoting flexibility and collaborating with external organisations.

"Eight per cent of IoD members already sponsor specialist schools and city academies

"Ultimately, the evolutionary reforms of the Bill should not distract attention from the government’s pressing priority: to raise standards of literacy and numeracy.

"Only 45 per cent of pupils got five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and mathematics in 2004/05, whilst only 57 per cent of 11-year-olds achieved the standard expected for their age in the key stage two reading, writing and maths tests.

"Improving this level of attainment must remain the key focus."

Responding to other provisions within the Bill, Richard Wilson said:

"The government is absolutely right to clamp down on failing schools and pupil indiscipline.

"However, the necessity for the new specialised Diplomas is less clear. Most IoD members still value GCSEs and A levels and at the time of their announcement in last year’s White Paper, there was no obvious evidence of employer demand for Diplomas.

"This is an obvious worry – qualifications will only be valued by employers if they meet their needs; they are far less likely to be successful if their development is driven by the desire of government ministers."

"The Bill also provides for the creation of the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills.

"This body – essentially a revamped Ofsted – will absorb a number of inspectorates, including the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

"It is vital that the new inspectorate pays due attention to adult learning and training."

Stakeholder Response: LGA

Alison King, chair of the Local Government Association children and young people board, said: "Our discussions with the government have been fruitful and we’re pleased with the concessions.

"It is good that the Bill emphasises the importance of the strategic commissioning role of the local authority, including the recognition that local authorities should be able to open community schools, where this is what parents want.

"However we object to the introduction of a potential veto from the secretary of state.

"Many of our initial fears on a divisive admissions free-for-all have been eased and the tighter safeguards that have been added should ensure pupils get a fairer chance of choosing the schools they want.

"Local authorities must be in the front line in ensuring admissions policies meet the needs of all children, not the needs of schools.

"The government has accepted that an unregulated admissions system is not the way forward, but its measures do not go far enough.

"All schools must face the same rules. Academies need to be an integral part of the local family of schools - taking hard-to-place pupils, and those with special educational needs."