Centralised education system is failing pupils - Clegg
16 June 2008



The Government’s ‘one size fits all’ approach to schools will today be accused of failing thousands of pupils by not providing a personalised education by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg.

In a speech this afternoon, Nick Clegg will set out plans to give schools greater freedoms, allowing them to tailor education to the needs of their pupils. He will propose:

· Scrapping mandatory national tests for seven and 14 year olds, with the money saved put into early assessment at age five and a huge expansion of one-to-one reading and numeracy tuition.

· Abolishing the overly prescriptive national curriculum and replacing it with a shorter document, and allowing all schools the curriculum freedoms currently enjoyed by Academies.

· Taking the politics out of the day-to-day management of schools by establishing an independent Education Standards Authority and slashing the size of the central government department by half.

· Changing targets so that schools are incentivised to address the needs of all pupils, not just those ‘borderline’ pupils.

In his speech today sponsored by CentreForum and hosted by Microsoft in central London, Nick Clegg will say:

"We need to take the politics out of the day-to-day, and term-to-term management of schools.

"We need to strip Ministers of their power to meddle and micro-manage, and give them a new strategic role. And we need government to stop being so afraid of diversity.

"There is nothing wrong with different schools being different from one another. In fact, when the system encompasses difference, schools can learn from others’ success, and improve together, in a way that is impossible when uniformity is imposed from above."

Setting out plans to take powers away from the central Government department, he will say:

"The DCSF would be halved in size. It would focus only on setting the broad strategic goals of the education system, and the legal frameworks.

"And ministers would have to stop sending their regular diet of directives and diktats to schools. In fact I’d ban them from doing it - with an Education Freedom Act.

"An Educational Standards Authority would be a powerful body: with independent oversight of exam standards; with responsibility for schools inspection, incorporating the existing OFSTED; and with responsibility for commissioning research on good educational practices and disseminating advice on best practice to schools.

Proposing to abolish mandatory national testing at seven and 14, Nick Clegg will say:

"By scaling back some of the excessive national testing - at Key Stages 1 and 3 in particular - we will save millions of pounds.

"And the money can be put directly into improving basic skills for those who presently fall behind from day one, and never catch up.

"My intention is to use testing to target support - not merely to target criticism. One to one tuition for 5, 6 and 7 year olds has been shown to have huge benefits."

Applicability: this item refers to England and Wales. Due to devolution, detailed policy may be different in other areas of the UK.

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Hope this is okay, but decided to put these together rather then starting new threads each time.

Commenting on the news that the Conservative Party has asked Sir Richard Sykes to lead a new inquiry into the future of testing and assessment, Liberal Democrat Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, David Laws said:

"There is no need for endless reviews about the future of the national tests.

"The recent marking shambles has even further strengthened the case for completely abolishing the Key Stage 3 tests, the reliability of which has now been discredited by the incompetence of ETS.

"Ed Balls should not only withhold payments from ETS and find a new contractor, but also announce wholesale reform of the testing regime.

"The tens of millions of pounds saved by ending the Key Stage 3 tests should be used to identify and address educational failure where it first arises - in infant and primary schools."

they shouldn't test any kids. especially in primary. the teacher knows them best & I always prefer their information than any test results

I agree with you Lucybelle, with the possible exception of year 6. But even then the idea if you do well you can have your choice of school is bull - for one thing kids don't even sit them until after the places have been awarded. Miss G performed well above the average and ended up in a 'failing' school.

Also from what I've seen secondary schools locally do not give much credance in them preffering CAT tests, or streaming after the students have been there for 6 months.

The test of the pudding is in the eating as they say. SATS were introduced in 1995 with the intention of creating year on year improvements. 13 years later the government provides a list of 'shame' of 300 schools which it claims are failing. These were the 'worst' with less then 30% of the students getting 5 GCSEs A - C. How many would there have been had it been less then 50%?

I also doubt the quality of some of the education children now get. At one school I was asked to listen to year 6 students read. Their reading was good, but there comprehension of what they were reading was questionable. One boy who read really well I decided to ask if he knew what some of the words were and he had no idea what cobblestones were, or a canal. Both which had featured in the section he had read to me. He didn't know. When I mentioned it to the teacher she agreed it was not acceptable, but the criteria was for them to be able to read the words, not understand them

In other ways the quality of surroundings, atmosphere and in parts teaching has improved, what has failed is the SATS and the government getting involved in the miniscule aspects of education prescribing what must be taught and when.

Ours are now streamed as soon as they start at Secondary however the CATS I think sometimes involve some changing around.