The president of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) will today call on the government to involve headteachers in a “long-term plan” for education to avoid repeating the “blizzard of change” that has rocked the sector in recent years.

Carl Ward will brand the scale and pace of the government’s education reforms “ridiculous” - and say they have put “intolerable and unsustainable pressure” on schools.

Today is the first day of ASCL’s 2018 conference in Birmingham.

Mr Ward, chief executive of City Learning Trust - a multi-academy trust in Stoke-on-Trent - will criticise short-termism in education policy.  

“This ministerial merry-go-round and its accompanying carousel of changing policies and directional swerves is a problem,” he will say.

“It’s a problem because education is not short term. Children spend longer in primary school than most governments spend in office.”

Education plan needed

He will call on the government to work with schools, colleges and businesses to develop a long-term education plan, which he will say is needed to avoid a repeat of the upheaval which has accompanied the latest round of reforms.

“What has happened over the past few years is quite frankly, ridiculous,” he will say.

“Setting aside whether the reforms have been wrong or right, their sheer weight and complexity has placed intolerable and unsustainable pressure on schools, teachers and leaders.

“Every single GCSE has changed. Every single A level. The primary school curriculum and key stage 2 assessment. Performance tables overhauled and rendered quite bewildering. The entire architecture of the education system transformed, fragmented and put into a state of flux. Anyone of those reforms would be a major undertaking. To have embarked upon them all at the same time has been madness.

“The consequences are all too clear. We are mired in a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, which is fuelled largely by the negative perception of our profession caused by this blizzard of change and workload that has gone into overload.”

Ethical leadership

The speech comes on the day that ASCL has produced a report setting out a draft set of principles for ethical leadership in education.

In the report, the union suggests it could convene a permanent committee to advise the government on “ethical educational leadership issues”.

“It would be beneficial to the stability of our system - and the service we offer children and young people, their parents and communities - if the committee is able to examine policy changes for ethical implications as they arise, and advise government accordingly,” the report states.

“We are all aware how policy can drive ‘perverse incentives’ - and the committee could operate as a valuable sounding board for government to mitigate against unintended consequences.”

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