Responding to 'Your child, your schools, our future'

Released 01/07/2009

School leaders and politicians respond to education white paper

ASCL General Secretary Dr John Dunford:

"Empowering the best school leaders and making more use of them across the school system is an important policy direction and I welcome the proposals for a bigger role for outstanding leadership teams, with accreditation and better pay for heads taking on responsibilities across more than one school."

"Moving away from the centrally imposed prescription of the national strategies to a system led by school leadership teams is a positive step. School leaders will welcome and accept this challenge, but the money previously spent on the national strategies will need to be delegated to schools to purchase the support needed to continue school and system improvement."

"Schools are already accountable to parents in many ways and the 2009 ASCL Bill gives new rights to parents to complain to the local ombudsman. This is a sledgehammer solution to crack a nut. The parent guarantee in the white paper will potentially open up even more grounds for vexatious complaints. Having said that, the attempt to strengthen the home-school agreements in order to ensure that parents support schools on behaviour is very welcome."

"Given the success of the system and the confidence in its leaders being shown by the government, it is frustrating that ministers feel the need to introduce more legislation, even before the previous education bill finishes its course through parliament. Schools need less legislation, not more, in order to reach the next level of success. In particular, the pupil and parent guarantees will be fraught with difficulties. Statements such as ‘every secondary school pupil receives personalised support from a personal tutor who knows them well ...' are not appropriate in legislation, and will inevitably result in disputes and court cases."

"The additional obligations being placed on schools will need to be viewed in the context of the tight funding settlement that is inevitable in 2011. The government will need to be sure that it can provide adequate funding to support the additional expectations that it is placing on schools."

NCSL Chief Executive, Steve Munby:

"We currently have the best generation of school leaders we've ever seen and I welcome them being given more autonomy. Excellent teaching and learning have never been more important as we prepare the next generation for a world we don't fully recognise and where the future remains uncertain.

"But we shouldn't be despondent. Just as the medical profession has built its knowledge and expertise by sharing research practice and what works together, so we must help school leaders develop innovative methods of leadership to ensure no child is left behind."

Mick Brookes, general secretary, NAHT

Commenting on the notion of licences for teachers, Mick Brookes, General Secretary, pointed out that this needs far more clarity. "It is vital that any revalidation process does not become overly bureaucratic and an undue burden on head teachers faced with administering it. If the licence is to be taken seriously, it needs to be built around a wholly professional approach."

Michael Gove, Conservative Shadow Children's secretary

Michael Gove has attacked the education plans outlined by Labour, pointing out that they are a combination of unfunded commitments, re-announcements, and policies that aren't even supported by their own Ministers.
Legally enforceable home-school contracts were called ‘totally wrong' by the Schools Minister, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, just three months ago. Parenting orders have existed since 1998, but not a single one has been applied for in the last five years - and pilots of the one-to-one tuition policy have proved disastrous.

Gove stressed that Ed Balls, Labour's Schools Secretary, has not given teachers the powers they need to deal with violence and disruption: "He rejected our plan to give teachers the power to search for banned items. He rejected our plan to let schools make parent contracts compulsory. His new gimmicks will not solve the deep proble

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