Children's plan

ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the government's new 10-year children's plan, announced by schools secretary Ed Balls in the Commons.

Party response: Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat shadow children, schools and families secretary, David Laws MP, said: "Ed Balls' much trumpeted children's plan seems to amount to a hotchpotch of reviews, recycled policy announcements, and Whitehall meddling.

"Under Gordon Brown, the vision seems to be of a Whitehall screwdriver which reaches into every classroom in England. Only a Gordon Brown government could think it sensible to instruct every secondary school on how to stay in contact with parents.

"The government should be focusing on getting the basics right for children - not dictating to head teachers how to run their schools.

"The review of the primary curriculum is confused and unnecessary - it is unclear whether the government wants more focus on literacy and numeracy, or less.

"Schools need more freedom to innovate, not yet more destabilising change. And the announcement on compulsory languages education was actually made nine months ago. Yet more changes to the testing regime may create additional bureaucracy and less transparency.

"Instead of all this well meaning fiddling, Ed Balls should be concentrating on what the government can do to improve the lives of young people. This means delivering on the child poverty targets, providing extra support for disadvantaged pupils, giving schools real freedom to innovate, and making sure that we have enough high quality teachers and school leaders."

Stakeholder response: ATL

To send a comment to the ATL clickhere

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "We congratulate the government on its ambitious attempt to put young people at the heart of its policies and the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) for organising and investing in children's services so children can arrive at school better prepared to learn.

"We are pleased the government is planning a dedicated health strategy for children and to review the inadequate child mental health services. For too long teachers have been left with little help to deal with the low health esteem and poor behaviour of children who have been mentally and emotionally damaged by their fractured home lives, poor parenting and poverty.

"But unless the government puts in more funding, it will fail to meet its target to end child poverty by 2020s. This would be a grave misjudgement because poverty is the single biggest factor behind poor achievement and stunted lives. 

"Although we are keen for the key stage 2 Sats to be abolished, testing when ready is not the answer. It will simply result in more tests and yet more inaccurate test results.  Over-testing stresses children, narrows the curriculum, and puts needless pressure on teachers – it is not the way to raise education standards. 

"A radical overhaul is over due for both the primary and secondary curriculums - neither is fit for purpose. Instead we want a skills-based curriculum with understanding in place of regurgitation of facts. We propose a national framework setting out the skills pupils will need in adult life, with the exact content being decided locally by teachers with input from parents and the local community.

"Why does the government continue its blind obsession with academies in the face of all the evidence? Even Ofsted accepts that specialist schools do not lead to better teaching and learning, so why does the government continue to champion them with desperate determination. 

"We want good local schools with balanced pupil intakes – not schools divided by social class with the poorest and most vulnerable children concentrated in the least well-performing schools and forever condemned to second-class status.

"And we don't believe increasing the diversity of schools will help the government's aspiration for no schools to have fewer than 30 per cent of pupils achieving five good GCSEs within five years.

"We will work as a social partner to develop the proposal to give all newly qualified teachers access to continuous professional development (CPD) to masters level. 

"It is important to recognise that each NQT has different training needs so some will need practical skills to improve their classroom skills and behaviour management, rather than more academic training. We will work with the DCSF to ensure the proposal has proper funding, support and planning so access to CPD is fair and not based on a funding lottery.  

"We are enthusiastic about the initiative to make schools carbon neutral, but schools will need guidance, support and funding to help them become greener.  And we hope all schools in the building schools for the future programme include carbon neutrality in their planning."

For further information, please contact the ATL press office on 0207 782 1589 or visit our website www.atl.org.uk.

Stakeholder response: NUT

To send a comment to the NUT clickhere

Commenting on the move to make teaching a 'masters' profession, Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Europe's largest teaching union said: "It is excellent news that the government are seeking to enhance teacher professionalism.

"Teaching being a profession in which teachers are expected to hold a masters degree is an idea whose time has come.

"We need to ensure that the masters qualification is integrated into initial teacher training courses and continuing professional development. Masters degrees need to be developed as they have in Finland, reflecting qualified teachers practical knowledge and pedagogy."

Stakeholder response: PAT

To send a comment to the PAT clickhere

PAT general secretary Philip Parkin said: "Children face many, often conflicting, pressures in today's society - from the school curriculum, from the media, from their peers, from commercial interests, from parents."

Curriculum

"The curriculum is over-crowded and too prescriptive. Children are over-tested so more flexibility on the curriculum and testing would be welcome. The government needs to step back from the target-driven and over-tested regime that is the reality in our schools and let professionals use their judgement and skills."  

Staffing in schools and nurseries

"There needs to be a commitment to real, continued  investment to enable us to recruit the necessary levels of staff and to increase and improve the skills of the current workforce so that  we can look forward to a high level of support for the delivery of the children's plan and the ongoing delivery of the Every Child Matters agenda."

Social issues

"Many will share the plan's laudable aspirations. However, a plan cannot magically transform the situation for children without the support of families, education and childcare professionals, the media and commerce. 

"The government needs to listen to the concerns of those who care for and educate children. It cannot just issue a grand plan and tick the box and say 'children, sorted'.

"Schools can play a key role at the heart of their communities, offering a wider range of services for pupils and parents, but if this is to work in practical terms, the funding, training and staff have to be there and practical concerns must be addressed. 

"There is a real danger of overburdening schools and allowing their focus to move away from education to social issues.

"Both are important, but schools cannot solve all of society's problems or take on the responsibilities or roles of parents.

"Education can provide a refuge and opportunity for disadvantaged children, but their education must not be interrupted by the proximity of teams from other agencies.

"Time spent in education is an opportunity for children with social and family pressures in their lives to leave them behind, albeit for short periods.

"We must guard against increasing those pressures by making children immediately available to those concerned with other areas of their lives.

"We need to value education in its own right and see the acquisition of skills and knowledge as a way out of social deprivation not as a tool for further social engineering."

Security

Opening up school sites to a variety of other agencies beyond education has implications for security and the health, safety and welfare of pupils and those who educate them.

"If schools are to provide a 'one-stop shop' for families' welfare needs, this must not impinge on children's education or jeopardise the safety of pupils and staff by allowing unrestricted access to a school site by adult relations who will not have been checked or vetted and who may be in difficult or estranged relationships with other family members.

Children

"Children are individuals who develop at different rates and have different, individual needs. 

"This plan will only succeed if the system recognises this and treats them as, and allows them to be, individuals, not part of a group that must meet certain targets by a specified time.

"The plan should be a framework that allows and enables children to succeed and flourish not yet another plan with a set of targets."

Stakeholder response: Mentoring and Befriending Foundation



To send a comment to the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation clickhere

An increasing number of schools are now finding that Peer Mentoring is proving to be a unique and invaluable tool with which to tackle social issues such as bullying, behaviour, attainment and exclusion.

Peter Collins, Chief Executive of the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, said: "As well as all the obvious benefits the mentees are getting from the one-to-one sessions the programme is having an equally as significant impact on the mentors' personal development as they gain great confidence from the whole experience.  By accepting the responsibility of being a mentor, their sense of personal worth grows resulting in improved motivation, a greater ability to cope with school life and an awareness of their role in society."