Enjoy 2009. There’s a bumpy ride ahead

The classroom should be calmer this year. But the recession could make future years a lot rougher, predicts William Stewart

2nd January 2009, 12:00am

William Stewart

Only the most reckless, foolhardy pundit would ever predict a quiet year in education. That said, the coming year should be a relatively calm one for those at the chalkface. At least compared to 2008 when schools faced a new secondary curriculum, new A-levels, the first work-related diplomas, and the new early years foundation stage curriculum, causing predictions of system meltdown.

By contrast comparatively few reforms are slated for introduction in the next 12 months. Instead, 2009 should be a time of transition with last year’s changes bedding in and the first signs of future years’ upheaval just starting to emerge. In that sense the focus will shift from secondary to primary. It will also be the year that schools come under new types of scrutiny - it is not yet clear if they will be better or worse than existing methods.

Primary

By September, those teaching 5 to 11-year-olds are likely to have had their professional futures mapped out on a variety of fronts.

The Department for Children Schools and Families will announce its school improvement strategy for the primary sector. It could have been called the primary National Challenge, after the secondary scheme that threatened schools with closure if they failed to reach a target for raw exam results. But ministers and officials appear to have been stung by the angry reception that scheme received. So instead the Government has been looking at taking a much more holistic view of primary performance, ditching the emphasis on raw scores.

The scheme is likely to include extra one-to-one tuition and support for leadership and the deployment of advisers in schools judged to need extra help.

In April Sir Jim Rose is expected to publish the final report of his primary curriculum review. His recommendations will be considered by the Schools Secretary, with the final curriculum format to be consulted on by September. The review could well trigger more protest about national tests, because although many consider them a major factor in what is taught in primaries, Sir Jim has been told not to comment on them in detail.

His report will coincide with the publication of the conclusions of the separate, independent primary review led by Pro- fessor Robin Alexander which is likely to criticise testing.

Schools will also be watching out for problems with this year’s key stage 2 tests, taken over by Edexcel following last year’s ETS debacle. Any difficulties will add to pressure for the tests to be abolished - as they were for key stage 3 - or reformed.

The single-level progress tests could be an alternative, but trials have revealed they have problems of their own.

Anyone expecting the Government to abandon primary school accountability through testing is likely to be disappointed.

Inspections

The whole system of school accountability will start to change radically in 2009 anyway. Ofsted introduces a new inspection framework in September when new school report cards - which could eventually replace league tables - start being piloted.

The new-style inspections would see inspectors spending more time observing lessons in low-performing schools.

The framework would also mean high-performing schools inspected every six years instead of every three, with data-based “health checks” published in between.

But such checks are being treated with greater scepticism after Ofsted’s failure to spot the shortcomings in Haringey that contributed to the Baby P tragedy.

The Commons schools committee will examine inspections as part of a major inquiry into school accountability that also looks at the report cards, which aim to give a more holistic view of school performance.

The law needed for the introduction of these new “health checks” for schools is to be introduced in a Children, Skills and Learning Bill. This will give the Schools Secretary more power to force local authorities to intervene in low performing schools. It will also set up a new pay body for school support staff.

Independent schools in England will face greater scrutiny from the Charity Commission, which will begin its public benefit inspections in earnest.

Secondary

The recognition that the quality of teachers, rather than schools, is key to raising standards will start to show as the new masters in teaching and learning become available.

But it is initially being focused on secondaries in the National Challenge, a scheme that still sees the school as the unit to focus on. This year should determine whether the support offered to schools through the controversial improvement programme starts to outweigh the bad publicity they suffered because of it. All secondaries will experience their first summer without having to prepare 14-year-olds for compulsory national tests.

But the difference it will make in the classroom will vary, with some schools planning to plough on and hold the tests internally, while others may bring forward GCSE work. Secondary schools will be more affected than primaries by many parts of the legislation in the Children, Skills and Learning Bill. These measures include:

a requirement that all secondary schools work in behaviour improvement partnerships,
giving schools powers to search pupils for alcohol, drugs and stolen goods,
the transfer of funding and responsibility for 16-19 education from the Learning and Skills Council to local authorities and an expended apprenticeship scheme,
a new exams regulatory system with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority replaced by Ofqual and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency.