Government’s quick fix plans on failing schools won’t work

6 September 2005

Commenting on Government plans to reduce the time schools have to come out of special measures to one year, Steve Sinnott, General Secretary of Britain’s biggest union for headteachers and classroom teachers, said:

“Ruth Kelly’s proposal, to reduce to a year the time for schools to get themselves out of special measures, is an impossibly short timescale.

“Local authorities and schools themselves will come under intense pressure to adopt quick-fix, cosmetic measures, rather than the steps necessary to tackle problems.

“Bringing down the guillotine after a year will drive committed staff from failing schools who otherwise would have stayed, thus making the problem worse.

“If implemented, such an arbitrary policy will drive up the number of schools forced to close which otherwise could have improved.

“I hope this is not a back-door way of increasing the number of candidates for Academy status; a disastrous experiment which undermines the community of schools and introduces back-door privatisation.

“I urge the Education Secretary to return to a constructive agenda of really supporting youngsters from the most challenging backgrounds.”