Over the past year, the General Teaching Council for England has consulted widely on assessment and accountability and has made recommendations to ministers on tests, targets and performance tables.
We are about to discuss these issues with ministers and undertake further work arising from this advice. New council members will have a key role in building upon these efforts, benefiting from the hard work and evidence-based research already done.
As the professional body for teaching it would be entirely inappropriate for the council to rely upon the kind of rhetorical assumptions made in Pete Strauss’s letter (TES, October 8).
Indeed, one would have thought that, as a headteacher, Peter Strauss would appreciate the value of dispassionate and research-based evidence.
That is why at its meeting on September 21, the council voted to continue to draw on robust evidence from its wide range of stakeholders, logical argument and persuasion to achieve its ambition for an accountability system that best supports all aspects of learning and teaching.
Judy Moorhouse
Chair, General Teaching Council
