England’s worst performing council closes pound;24m secondary just four years after it opened - 15 July 2013

Knowsley, on the outskirts of Liverpool, will claim to a very dubious honour at the end of term this week. It will become the first local authority to shut a brand new school built under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme.

The council voted earlier this year to close the pound;24 million Christ the King Centre for Learning just four years after it was completed. Its current student roll is 381 out of a 900-place capacity.

In January 2011 TES first reported the authority was considering plans to shut the school due to falling student numbers, but a parent backlash gave a stay of execution.

Knowsley was the first local authority to rebuild all of its secondary schools under Labour’s ambitious, and vastly expensive, pound;55 billion school rebuilding programme. There was no requirement when the council was bidding for building funds that it should outline how demand for places would meet the planned supply, a failure that has reached its natural climax with the closure of Christ the King.

Rooted to the bottom of GCSE league tables in 2001, the local authority, flush with Building Schools for the Future money, frequently opted for unconventional methods in a bid to boost performance. But to little avail - last year it remained very much the country’s worst GCSE performer.

As part of the failed improvement strategy schools were rebranded “centres for learning”, teachers renamed “progress leaders” and Knowsley itself became an “innovation zone” and a “test bed for wider government urban policy”.

The authority even carried out an audit into students’ “learning styles”. It concluded the majority were “kinaesthetic learners” who learned best through physical activity. Teaching methods and school buildings were changed accordingly.

And in January 2010, Knowsley proudly proclaimed it was the first local authority to have all of its secondary schools rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future.

But just 12 months later the news about Christ the King’s precarious position broke, and two fraught years after that we have now, finally, reached the end. In less than a week the remaining students will walk out of the school gates for the last time and Knowsley will gain a very public white elephant.

Richard Vaughan

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The national strike is “like being forced to witness some slow-moving lemming leap”.

Our very own editor Gerard Kelly has penned some thoughts on the news this morning that the big two classroom unions, the NASUWT and the NUT, are planning a national strike for the Autumn term. It’s excoriating stuff:

“How are pointless strikes with no chance of success likely to help teacher morale? Do teachers really deserve or need to be led over the top and over a cliff? This is not a strategy, it is an adolescent farce. It’s like being forced to witness some slow-moving lemming leap.”

Read the full article here.

Why not let him know what you think on Twitter @teseditor or by email.

All out! National strike announced for the Autumn - 12 July 2013

England’s two largest teacher unions, the NASUWT and the NUT, have announced joint plans this morning for a one-day national strike.

The action is part of an ongoing joint campaign over a number of issues in education labelled “Protecting Teachers Defending Education”. This covers not just pay and conditions - especially performance-related pay - but wider education policies, including academisation.

The move comes after a one-day strike held at the end of last month, the success of which was disputed by the government and the union leadership. According to official Department for Education statistics some 776 (27 per cent) of schools remained open during the June strikes, 789 (28 per cent) remained partially open and 1,214 schools (42 per cent) were closed.

Regionalised one-day strikes will take place at the end of September and beginning of October, with plans for a combined national walkout by the end of the Autumn term.

This morning’s announcement also included the continuation of “action short of strike action”, a kind of work-to-rule campaign that has affected a number of schools.

“The secretary of state needs to take seriously the very deep concerns and anger of teachers and school leaders,” Chris Keates, NASUWT general secretary, said. “The relentless attack on the teaching profession is damaging the morale of teachers and undermining the education of pupils.”

And this was echoed by Christine Blower, NUT general secretary: “Michael Gove is well aware that under his time as education secretary, teacher morale has plummeted. Teachers are angry at the government’s continual undermining of their pay, pensions and working conditions.

“Strike action is always a last resort for teachers and they are very well aware of the difficulties that this causes for parents and pupils. Teachers, however, have been left with no option.”

In the week beginning 30 September, members will take part in strike action in the East, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside regions and in Wales (regions to be confirmed).

In the week beginning 14 October, members will take part in strike action in the North East, London, South East, South West regions and in Wales (regions to be confirmed).

“We are very disappointed that the NUT and NASUWT have announced they will be taking further strike action, which less than a quarter of teachers actually voted for,” a DfE spokesman said. “Industrial action will disrupt pupils’ education, hugely inconvenience parents and damage the profession’s reputation in the eyes of the public at a time when our reforms are driving up standards across the country.

“It is disappointing that the NUT and NASUWT are opposing measures to allow heads to pay good teachers more. We have met frequently with the NUT and NASUWT to discuss their concerns and will continue to do so.”

Tell the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell what you think.

The TES weekly podcast is here, you lucky people. You best have a listen - 11 July 2013

Previewing tomorrow’s magazine, the TES team discusses the biggest news of the week including of the latest draft of the national curriculum, we hear from curriculum expert Dylan Wiliam, sexism in the classroom and how zero tolerance behaviour policies are racially discriminating.

Listen to it or download it here.

Tell the podcast’s editor Richard Vaughan what you think.

Gove may want them to, but are independents really going to apply for teaching school status? Unlikely - 11 July 2013

Since Labour schools minister Lord Adonis said he wanted to poach the “educational DNA” of independent schools in 2008, governments have been in love with what the private sector can do for the state sector.

In recent years - largely driven by privately educated politicians - there has been a strong drive for private schools to do everything from sponsoring academies to lending teachers to state comprehensives.

These requests have been met with various levels of enthusiasm.

On the one hand, you have the likes of Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, who has leapt on every new initiative with gusto. But on the other hand, most schools argue that they do not have the funds or the manpower to get properly involved.

Of course, the increasing numbers of private schools converting to become independent state-funded academies and free schools (nine have either completed or are in the process of completing the switch) will mean their “DNA” is transferred to the state sector, but many of these moves have been motivated by cash flow rather than pure altruism - not exactly what Lord Adonis had in mind.

As such, it seems ambitious that education secretary Michael Gove yesterday called for more private schools to become official ”teaching schools” - the government’s flagship policy to wrest control of teacher training from university education departments and place it firmly with schools.

Currently, only three out of 358 of them are independent schools.

But again, rather like sponsoring an academy, becoming a teaching school is a huge undertaking, and the entry criteria are tough. Schools must have an existing track record of excellence in teacher training and have an established network of links with other schools.

Key figures in the independent sector have said they welcome the diversification of teacher training, but even enthusiastic schools will have a lot of concerns about the size of the undertaking.

Some schools may also reject, on principle, becoming involved in a government-backed initiative. They know that however “free from the constraints of government” Mr Gove wants teaching schools to be, these sorts of schemes will always have strings attached.

Irena Barker

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Are teacher training providers about to be held to account for the NQTs they train? - 10 July 2013

How much does the performance of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) say about those who trained them? Can you judge a course by the quality of students’ work in the classroom months later?

These are suddenly very real questions.

Schools inspectorate for England Ofsted has revealed that it is now paying “greater attention” to the quality of lessons taught by NQTs. Inspectors are recording where the teacher trained and using this information to “inform the inspection process”, helping the body make decisions about when and where to inspect teacher training courses.

This strategy was triggered by an Ofsted analysis that identified 17 providers currently rated as “outstanding” but whose most recent alumni had been observed teaching inadequate lessons. This has led the inspectorate to “prioritise” these providers for inspections in the 2013-14 academic year, according to a recent memo sent to school inspectors by Ofsted.

One initial teacher training coordinator, who asked to remain anonymous, told TES: “We are all interested in raising the quality of training, but this is not a very well thought through approach

“This will seriously disadvantage large providers. The chance of one of their NQTs being inspected is higher, and the chances of them delivering an inadequate lesson is higher.”

James Noble Rogers, executive director of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, said the performance of NQTs in the classroom also depends on the help given to them by their school.

”[Ofsted] ought to see the NQTs’ performance as also due to the support of the school, and also look to see if it is consistent or if this is a one off. If the performance is consistent does it reflect on the culture of the school?” he said. “Only then should Ofsted start to look back at the initial teacher training providers.”

But Ofsted certainly doesn’t look set to give ground on this, so the only question that remains is: how much trouble will it cause training colleges and education departments, both of which are already under the cosh?

Kerra Maddern

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The new national curriculum will “introduce five-year-olds to fractions for the first time”, say ministers. They have to already - 09 July 2013

This week’s announcement of a new national curriculum could be viewed by ministers as a huge success in showcasing the way they are “raising standards” in education.

Everyone from The Guardian to The Daily Telegraph and the BBC dutifully trotted out the line that this “rigorous”, “more stretching” curriculum would “revolutionise learning” by, in the government’s words, “introducing five-year-olds to fractions for the first time”.

But the problem, as my TES colleague Helen Ward has pointed out, is that this just isn’t true. The new curriculum does require Year 1 students to understand basic fractions such as a half and a quarter.

But so did the previous national curriculum, introduced under Labour. You can see here that it requires key stage 1 students (five- to seven-year-olds) to “understand that halving is the inverse of doubling and find one half and one quarter of shapes and small numbers of objects”.

Moreover the previous government’s National Numeracy Strategy, used in conjunction with the curriculum to guide schools on what should be taught when, also makes it clear here that Year 1 students (aged 5-6) should also be able to use “halves and quarters in context”.

So much for the top line in this week’s media blitz on what the Department for Education has billed as a curriculum “far better than the current one”.

There are other aspects, highlighted for journalists, that may have been explicitly stated in the national curriculum for the first time but are hardly new to state schools.

Take the fact that nine-year-olds will have to know their multiplication tables up to 12x12. Last summer when the government first proposed its changes, a poll by TES and the NAHT headteachers’ union of more than 500 primary leaders and classroom teachers suggested that students in more than half of primaries already knew the tables.

What about the fact that children will be expected to recite a range of poetry by heart in Year 1? This could be seen as a slight toughening up on the previous curriculum, which said students of the same age should “learn, recite and act out stories and poems”.

But it is worth noting that last year’s poll found that around half of primary teachers said their students learned poetry by heart anyway.

Other poll findings worth considering by those convinced that there is a lack of “rigour” in primaries today are that:

• 54 per cent of primary teachers said their students normally mastered long division.
• 80 per cent said students could add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions.
• Two-thirds said that students at their primary learned algebra.
• 44 per cent said that their students were taught the subjunctive.
• 88 per cent said that students learned the names of solar system planets.
• A foreign language was taught in the primaries of 90 per cent of teachers and 83 per cent said that this began in Year 3 (children aged 7-8).

• So much for more rigorous and stretching, then.

  William Stewart

  Tell the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell what you think.

  “We meet with them all the time” - minister insists that academy chains don’t need to be inspected - 09 July 2013

  The minister in charge of academies has insisted that academy chains do not need to be inspected by Ofsted - because ministers and civil servants “meet with them on a regular basis”.

  Lord Nash, who joined the government in January, told an audience at the Independent Academies Association national conference last week that he had no plans to allow inspectors into academy chains in the short term.

  Under the stewardship of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the country’s chief inspector of schools, Ofsted has once again started inspecting education departments of local authorities but has so far been denied access to chains.

  And this does not look likely to change any time soon. “We don’t see at the moment the need for Ofsted to inspect academy chains. We already get all of the data on how their schools are performing.We know all of the academy chains well and meet them on a regular basis, so if we have a concern we can discuss it with them then,” Lord Nash said.

  “At the moment, I don’t think there would be a great deal of benefit in us asking Ofsted to inspect chains but that might change.”

  In 2006, Lord Nash set up Future, which sponsors Pimlico Academy and Millbank Academy in central London.

  Calls for academy chains to be inspected have become more urgent in recent years as some have expanded to equal the size of many local authorities.

  And earlier this year, E-Act, one of the largest academy chains in the country, was reprimanded in a report by the UK government’s Education Funding Agency for its “extravagant” use of expenses, all footed by the taxpayer.

  Mary Bousted, general secretary of classroom union the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, described Lord Nash’s standpoint as “facile”.

  “Chains are getting bigger and bigger and the need for them to be inspected is getting greater. The DfE will not be able to get out from under this,” Dr Bousted said.

  “You have to ask why ministers are so reluctant to do it? Does the department suspect that if it overturns the stone they are going to find something ugly wriggling underneath?”

  Richard Vaughan

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  All the national curriculum coverage you will ever need - 08 July 2013

  In the latest instalment of our coverage today of the most recent iteration of the new National Curriculum, we have three subject analyses for you: primary English, design and technology (Damp;T) and history.

  These are the areas most altered in the new version, with wholesale changes to history and Damp;T representing significant victories for their respective sectors.

  Unsurprisingly ministers and civil servants reject the idea that these modifications to their plans for the National Curriculum - to be introduced in 2014 - represent backtracking but there can be no doubting how drastic the changes to history and Damp;T are.

  In addition, there have been many other smaller alterations - some more significant than others - that are outlined in the posting below with climate change and evolution featuring heavily.

  What do you think of the latest version of the new National Curriculum? Email the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell with your thoughts.

  New national curriculum: Evolution downgraded, climate change upgraded and much, much more - 07 July 2013

  Some subjects have seen a complete rewrite in the latest version of the national curriculum for 2014 - so we’ll shortly have a detailed look at the wholesale changes to history and design and technology.

  But there are many smaller but significant changes across a range of subjects. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve found so far:

  • Primary schools will not be restricted in the foreign languages they teach. The draft had limited the choice to French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Latin or ancient Greek at key stage 2 (ages 7-11). But 61 per cent of teachers objected to the change, with concern voiced that it would crowd out community languages such as Urdu and Polish, and Jewish schools expressing particular fears about Hebrew teaching. The governmenthas conceded the point and students may now study any modern or ancient foreign language.
  • Geography has regained a specific requirement to study climate change (which in the draft was examined only as a scientific phenomenon). At key stage 3 (ages 11-14), students are expected to understand “the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present” and “how human and physical processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate; and how human activity relies on effective functioning of natural systems”.
  • In its announcement of the last version of the curriculum, the DfE boasted that, “Evolution will be taught to primary pupils for the first time”. But the British Humanist Association today points out that there is in fact a step back from the latest draft version, following objections by religious groups. In the previous version pupils in year 4 were expected to understand some basic evolutionary concepts, such as that humans, plants and animals inherit characteristics from their parents. But now all the material on evolution is held back until year 6.
  • Reports that the curriculum would have additional requirements for pre-20th century English literature were not borne out. Students are still expected to study pre-1914 and contemporary poetry, prose and drama, as in the draft, along with two Shakespeare plays. The mention of “seminal world literature”, however, has lost the requirement that it be written in English, potentially clearing the path for literature in translation.
  • There is a greater emphasis on statistical techniques at key stage 3 science, with students required to “apply sampling techniques”, “apply mathematical concepts and calculate results”, and use “simple statistical techniques” - language which was not present in the draft.
  • Chemistry at key stage 3 now includes additional earth science, with topics including the Earth as a source of limited resources, the efficacy of recycling, the rock cycle and the formation of different types of rock.
  • A new section on space has been added to the physics curriculum at key stage 3, covering gravity; the sun as a star, other stars and galaxies; seasons and the Earth’s tilt; and light years as a unit of astronomical distance.
  • Biology at key stage 3 will no longer require students to carry out simple food tests for sugars, proteins or fat. But it has added aspects of plant nutrition: how they take up water and minerals through roots and the role of leaf stomas in gas exchange by plants.

  • No doubt there’s more to emerge - let us know if you spot anything.

    Joseph Lee

    Spot any other important changes? Email Joseph Lee or the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell.

    The new national curriculum: Flower-arranging out, Churchill in and plenty of other controversial stuff still to digest - 08 July 2013

    The 224-page national curriculum framework document has landed, and it’s being scoured to find out what changes have been made.

    A written statement from education secretary Michael Gove makes it clear that the biggest changes are in design and technology, and in history.

    The draft curriculum had been heavily criticised for dumbing-down design and technology, with too little emphasis on the skills for engineering and technology careers, and too much sewing, “decorative display” and cookery.

    “We have revised the draft programmes of study for design and technology to ensure that they sufficiently reflect our aspirations that it should be a rigorous and forward-looking subject that will set children on a path to be the next generation of designers and engineers,” Mr Gove said. The first Damp;T effort included references to many traditional skills - and received the approbation that one might have expected.

    Meanwhile in history, Mr Gove faced opposition from academics, including his own former adviser Simon Schama, that the narrative account of British history promoted by the draft curriculum was too insular and needed a greater international perspective. Mr Gove’s statement explicitly said that world history coverage has been increased.

    Mr Gove also highlighted increased emphasis on vocabulary development in English, a greater choice of foreign languages, and the replacement of ICT with computing, especially emphasising programming.

    The revised version alsosees the return of Churchill as a named figure in the history curriculum - largely a symbolic change. The 12 times table is back, and will be required of students at the end of Year 4. It is also expected to contain requirements on pre-20th century novels in English, and climate change in geography.

    More detail will follow on this blog later today but in the meantime share your thoughts by emailing Joseph Lee.

    Tell the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell what you think.

    “Why we must make maths compulsory to 18” - 05 July 2013

    This morning shadow schools minister Kevin Brennan has made a plea for all students to study maths to 18.

    Writing for the TES, Mr Brennan echoed yesterday’s Sutton Trust report, confirming that an incoming Labour government would make the subject compulsory in sixth forms and colleges for school-age students.

    It’s impassioned stuff:

    “Currently only 20 per cent of children in the UK study maths until 18 - this is wrong. In countries such as Germany, the US and Hong Kong this percentage is 80 per cent. In our culture we consider it embarrassing to be illiterate, but we are happy to say that they cannot do basic maths. We cannot expect to ever compete internationally while maths remains the poor cousin.”

    Read the full article here.

    Tell the blog’s editor Ed Dorrell what you think.

    Best have a listen of the new TES podcast, eh? - 05 July 2013

    The TES team discusses this week’s big issues, including a survey showing that a third of teenagers have attempted or considered attempting suicide, a look at a Bollywood school being opened in Bradford and this week’s cover story, which tells us where the best paid teachers in the world are.

    Download it here.

    Tell the podcast’s editor Richard Vaughan what you think.

    Will “tech levels” close the gap between academic and vocational education? - 04 July 2013

    The new “Tech levels” announced this morning are the latest in a seemingly endless line of government initiatives that aim to close the perception gap between academic and vocational education.

    At the core of the reforms is the decision that only level 3 qualifications that have attracted the support of businesses or universities - now branded Tech levels - will be included in new-look 16-19 performance tables from 2016.

    To qualify, exam boards will have to persuade employers or universities to endorse the occupational qualifications so that young people know which courses have the best job prospects.

    It has been suggested that these changes could mean that at least 80 per cent of the 5,000 vocational qualifications currently approved for 16- to 19-year-olds will not hit the mark - a huge change to the current system.

    In addition, qualifications that lead to recognised occupations - such as engineering, IT, accounting or hospitality - could be sanctioned by professional bodies.

    Vocational qualifications not directly linked to an occupation but providing broader study of a vocational area will need the explicit backing of three universities.

    Despite the scale of the reform, the Association of Colleges supported the changes, while the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said that it was in favour of “rigorous and responsive” vocational qualifications if they lead to an apprenticeship or a job.

    But not everyone is happy. Chris Jones, director general of vocational qualifications body City amp; Guilds, said that the “excessive” focus on league tables was damaging, and that by only including Tech levels in league tables the government was inferring that other vocational qualifications were “worthless”.

    Darren Evans

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