Stories + Views: Government Policy

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Janet Downs: Channel 4 Fact Check asks if Coalition plans for childcare would reduce costs for parents. Or would they increase profits for nursery chains?

It’s a central plank of the Coalition’s plans for early-years reform – that the UK is over-regulated. Removing the red tape and allowing bigger staff-child ratios, schools minister Elizabeth Truss says, will reduce child-care costs. This would bring the UK in line with other countries. And nursery staff would need to have at least Grade C in Maths and English. Channel ... read more and comment →

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Fiona Millar: Performance related pay. Don’t believe the spin.

Last week I decided to write my Guardian column on the issue of performance related pay for teachers which the Coalition government wants to introduce from this autumn. You can click on this link to read the full text of the article. Before I started writing it, I put out a request for opinion and evidence on Twitter and received a huge ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Ian Bolton: "'As time went on Old Herbaceous found himself isolated in a most peculiar fashion. Nobody took any notice of him.'..."

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Janet Downs: The “often negative approach” towards teachers “didn’t work”, says ex-schools minister who seemed to understand that most top-performing countries work with teacher unions

Teachers are “key players” which must be in the front of ministers’ minds when education policies are decided, said ex-schools minister, Gillian Shephard, quoted in TES. Shephard became Education Secretary at the tail end of the last Conservative Government when she replaced John Patten who refused to talk to teachers. She knew the Conservatives weren’t likely to win the 1997 election ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Terence Donovan: "The idea of Mr Hayes being referred to as a 'left wing Herbert' is priceless. Thank you...."

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Henry Stewart: Schools: Co-operation Works Better than Competition

There is an excellent piece from Estelle Morris in tomorrow's Guardian headed "Competition will do very little to improve schools", including this: "As competition takes hold there is every incentive for schools to use this greater autonomy to ensure their own survival. That is understandable, but it is the antithesis of the government's objective of schools supporting one another to become ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Mark Baker: "Harvard and Yale academics Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff are the guilty parties: '...the true nature of successful markets is that they are defined as much by collaboration within larger firms – in this case groupings of schools – as they ......"

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Janet Downs: Parents critical of Government’s education policies, YouGov poll reveals

Despite all the hype, the Government seems to be losing the battle to persuade parents that academy status will improve education. A YouGov survey on behalf of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) found that only 14% definitely agreed that academy status would result in improvement. 55% did not while 31% said they didn’t know. Gove’s supporters might be cynical about results from ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "John - And you're absolutely correct about the wording of questions. Take this example from an ICM poll (2010) done on behalf of the National Grammar Schools Association: "Q.1 There are currently 232 state grammar schools in England and Northern ......"

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Janet Downs: Gove v Reality

Watch short 6 minute video highlighting Gove's misrepresentations: PISA data, academies data (featuring Henry Stewart's research), Swedish free schools, US Charter schools and more. Follow links to evidence and articles.     read more and comment →

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Latest comment by John Mountford: "Thanks, Ivan. I did sign up on 38 Degrees. Maybe this time around we could get this up the hill a little further. It has to happen!!!..."

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Roger Titcombe: The real problem with Gove

‘Learning Intelligence’ (Open University Press) edited by Michael Shayer and Philip Adey is a series of accounts from teacher practitioners of the application of the principles of 'cognitive acceleration', a continuing three decade project by Shayer and Adey (sadly recently deceased) into how children's cognitive development in Piagetian terms can be developed. It is based on the principle of plastic ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "Ben - there's a fundamental difference between a curriculum which has play at its heart and one that just allows teachers to use it if they want to (or if they have time after they've delivered mountains of knowledge)...."

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Terry Wrigley: “Academics savage Gove’s conveyor-belt curriculum” (The Independent)

A week ago Michael Bassey and myself drafted a letter and circulated it to a number of colleagues working in Education faculties in English universities.  We were overwhelmed by the response and after two days had over 100 names, including more than 50 Professors of Education. We never imagined it would make front page news. All parents should be concerned about ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Rebecca Hanson: "Mainly I attended consultations because I wanted to understand what was going on and the rationale for why things are as they are. I would listen and learn and if I felt something wasn't clearly explained I would ask. One ......"

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Janet Downs: What about the free schools judged to be good? And why is the DfE updating press releases published some time ago?

For the sake of balance I tried to track down the six free schools judged to be "good". I found five of them - if anyone knows the name of the sixth please let me know. Brief details of the five are: Aldborough E-Act. Good. Has surplus places. Ofsted said pupils will be allocated to the school when their local schools ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by agov: "All familiar and very true concerns. Most parents who say verbally that they have no complaints/are happy with a school don't bother to express that on Parent View even when specifically invited when Ofsted are in town...."

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Mike Baker: The DfE is trying to force academisation on our school, on the basis of one inadequate Ofsted report

I'm a parent at Gladstone Park Primary School in Brent, which has always previously been rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding, but at the latest inspection in November was astonishingly rated as “inadequate”. This follows a change in Ofsted’s rules last summer whereby the school as a whole is rated according to the worst feature found, and the inspectors ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Mike Baker: "Andy, thanks for this suggestion. I've now got hold of and gone through our RAISEonline data. The data for 2012 is overwhelmingly positive, the one and only blue (statistically significant negative) figure being for a category with one ......"

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