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We also echo the call for the government to cease the over-regulation of schools and to trust the profession more. We must stop issuing legislation so freely; we must give new legislation time to bed in and be adopted and adapted by the experts in our schools; we must cut the amount of guidance and government diktat sent to our schools and trust them to get on with the job of educating.

Furthermore, do you agree that we must respect more our classroom practitioners as professionals and give them the freedom to do their jobs to the best of their ability and not constrain their practice by forcing them to jump through endless bureaucratic hoops?

Thursday 20 May, 2010

Rt Hon Michael Gove MP Secretary of State for Education Department for Education Sanctuary Buildings Great Smith Street London, SW1P 3BT

Re: SecEd’s priorities for education

Dear Mr Gove, Many congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Education.

In the past few years, a groundswell has been building among this country’s education professionals and with this has come a clear recognition of some key priorities for our education system.

SecEd, as the voice of the secondary education profession, has refl ected this opinion in its editorial pages and I am writing now on behalf of our readers, and with the endorsement of members of our Editorial Advisory Board, to seek your views on these priorities.

While celebrating the huge progress made in our education system in recent years, we still have some entrenched problems that hinder our teachers and headteachers in delivering on their responsibilities to the highest possible standards.

In discussions with our editorial board, which is made up of more than 200 practising professionals, including school leaders, teachers, support staff and other educationalists, these issues surface time and again.

Accountability

SecEd has long fought for schools to be freed from restrictive and damaging inspection and measurement systems.

School league tables in England unfairly damage the reputation of our schools and foster an environment within which parents are encouraged to only consider raw results as a measure of a school, teachers are forced to teach to the test, and students are put under too much pressure, too young, to achieve arbitrary benchmarks.

Parents select schools on so many more factors than attainment alone and unless league tables can fairly refl ect all of these factors, then they should not be published – as they are not in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

While the league tables now do refl ect CVA scores, many commentators, including Professor Alan Smithers from the University of Buckingham, have acknowledged that this has led us into a “statistical minefi eld” (Tests, Tables and Targets, Commission of Inquiry into Assessment and League Tables, NAHT, 2007). What do you intend to do to reverse this situation?

Furthermore, while we recognise the need for an inspection system of our schools, it cannot be right that some headteachers feel they have no choice but to leave the profession as a result of an Ofsted inspection.

Teachers must see Ofsted as a critical friend, not a mortal enemy as many of our readers do. We are keen to know what the new administration will do to introduce a system of “intelligent accountability”, a concept supported by many noted educationalists.

Prof Smithers concludes his essay, referenced above, by saying that “governments must never lose sight of the fact that schools are there for the pupils, not to chase increasingly meaningless points totals”. To achieve this we must place less emphasis on raw data.

Trust the profession – cut bureaucracy

Teaching is a profession, and it is only through the quality and excellence of our school leaders and classroom practitioners that our education system can rightly be named among the best in the world.

However, within our profession we have thousands of talented teachers who fi nd their ability to truly inspire, engage and educate our younger generation restricted by a national curriculum that is too prescriptive. More and more commentators, as well as the Liberal Democrats, have acknowledged the need to slim this document down, and trust more in a professional teacher’s interpretation of what students need to know and need to learn, and how they learn it.

Pete Henshaw

Editor, SecEd

020 7501 6771 pete.henshaw@markallengroup.com www.sec-ed.co.uk

Teachers endorsing this letter from SecEd’s Editorial Advisory Board include:

Paul Ainsworth, Vice Principal, Belvoir High School, Leicestershire Chris Dunne, Headteacher, Langdon Park School, London Jude Hanner, Principal, Sir Charles Lucas Arts College, Essex Peter Kent, Headteacher, Lawrence Sheriff School, Warwickshire Neil Morris, Headteacher, Christopher Whitehead Language College, Worcestershire Paul Scutt, Headteacher, Bishop Fox’s School, Somerset Jo Smith, Vice Principal, Long Field School, Leicestershire Jacques Szemalikowski, Headteacher, Hampstead School, London Dr Bernard Trafford, Headteacher, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Richard Williams, Humanities Teacher, Clevedon School, North Somerset

St Jude's Church, Dulwich Road, Herne Hill London SE24 0PB

As one of our editorial board asks of you: “Set targets only for the most strategically important factors and then only when you are sure that you have provided schools with the right level of resources to make them attainable. Wherever possible, work on the assumption that, given suffi cient resources, headteachers and teachers are perfectly capable of deciding the most effective way to meet the targets that you set; they don’t need to be micro-managed by ministers.”

Vocational focus

We believe the increasing focus of recent years on raising the parity of esteem of vocational qualifi cations is absolutely right. Not every child is academically gifted and our education system still, in places, stigmatises this fact.

The Diplomas programme has the potential to raise the standing of applied and vocational education. However, the Conservatives and Liberals have strong views on Diplomas and it seems clear you will look to alter the programme. Whatever your views, would you agree that the greatest challenge is to ensure that vocational education is seen by our society as of equal value to traditional academic qualifi cations?

Workforce Reform

Great progress has been made since the signing of the National Agreement, which has at last recognised the importance of the team around the child and the wider school workforce that is essential to 21st century schooling. What is your government’s position on taking this work forward?

False accusations

We welcome your focus on tackling the frightening implications of false accusations against school staff, including your intention to pursue anonymity for those accused. With the knowledge that up to 99 per cent of accusations made by students are proven false (SecEd’s Don’t Abuse My Name Campaign), how will you better protect teachers and school staff who fi nd themselves the victim of a false allegation?

Furthermore, the abuse of “soft information” in CRB checks and by police is having serious implications for the career prospects of teachers who have been found innocent of all allegations. What will your government do to tackle this issue?

My editorial board and I, as well as SecEd readers across the UK, look forward to your views on and responses to these priorities for our education system.

My kindest regards,

SecEd delivers teachers’ demands for education to Michael Gove

by Chris Parr

SecEd has this week written to the new education secretary demanding that his department places more trust in teachers and stops the stifling of education practice caused by over- zealous accountability, inspection and measurement systems and too much government regulation. The letter to Michael Gove has

been penned by SecEd editor, Pete Henshaw – in close communication with our Editorial Advisory Board of 200 practising teachers, heads, senior leaders and support staff. It focuses on the damaging

impact that league tables have on schools, Ofsted’s obsession with raw data, and calls for government diktat to schools to be reduced and the curriculum to be slimmed down. Other demands focus on clos-

ing the vocational-academic divide, maintaining the progress made by workforce reform, and protecting teachers against false accusations and the damage they can do to careers and reputations. Mr Henshaw said it was essen-

tial that the views of the teach- ing profession be treated with the utmost importance by the new sec- retary of state. He added: “This letter, which

has also been signed by headteach- ers and teachers from state and inde- pendent schools across England, will ensure that Mr Gove is made acutely aware of the passion for education that exists in our schools.

SecEd • May 20 2010

New era: Michael Gove is the new minister for education

“We have always sought to rep-

resent the views of this profession, and we know from talking to hun- dreds of teachers on a weekly basis that the issues highlighted in our let- ter affect many teachers in schools across the country.” SecEd will be printing Mr

Gove’s response in full when it is received. Elsewhere this week, the final

details of the ministerial team for the newly rebranded Department for Education has been revealed by

After being confirmed as the

new education secretary, Mr Gove said nothing was “more important to the fairness of our society than getting education right”. In a letter to his Department, he

said: “Too many children still leave primary school every year without meeting basic standards in English or maths and too few 16-year-olds get five decent GCSEs. “So improving literacy, raising

pupil attainment, extending paren- tal choice, freeing teachers from bureaucracy, improving discipline and closing the widening gap between the richest and the poorest should be our shared goal.” The teaching unions cautiously

welcomed Mr Gove to his new position. Christine Blower, general sec-

retary of the National Union of Teachers, said his experience as shadow secretary would be vital, “particularly when working along- side the Liberal Democrats in pro- tecting the education budget”. Dr John Dunford, general sec-

Mr Gove. The schools minister will be Nick Gibb, a Conservative MP and strong supporter of SecEd’s five-year Don’t Abuse My Name campaign, which seeks anonymity for teachers facing false accusations from students until a full investiga- tion has taken place. Tim Loughton, another Tory,

will become the Department’s junior minister, while the Liberal Democrats will be represented by Sarah Teather, who is the new min- ister for children and families.

retary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added: “Secondary school and college leaders are ready to work with the new government to continue to improve our education system. “It is only through the commit-

ment and backing of school and college leaders that government ini- tiatives succeed, so we urge the new education secretary to work closely with practitioners to ensure that policies are worthwhile, achievable and based in reality.”

Trust schools, school leaders, and teachers

SecEd’s landmark letter to the new education minister, Michael Gove, this week highlights a number of key priorities that we, guided by our editorial board, feel are vital to the future of education. A number of passionate views

were submitted by our board as we composed our letter to Mr Gove, and a range of issues were raised. Chris Dunne, head at

Langdon Park School in London and one of the signatories of our letter, said he wanted the new education secretary to treat the profession with “the respect that its track record of success and improvement shows that it deserves”, and called for an end to “micro-management” from ministers. Dr Bernard Trafford, head

at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, had a number of demands for the incoming admin- istration. He echoed Mr Dunne’s sentiments, calling on the gov- ernment to “trust schools, school leaders and teachers”. In addition, Dr Trafford also

wanted to see the national cur- riculum “slashed”, saying that even the Liberal Democrat’s idea of reducing it to a 17-page docu- ment did not go far enough. He added: “We don’t want

any more imposed initiatives unless they are fully piloted and properly funded. Also, special needs assessments should be

independent of local authorities so that decisions aren’t made on grounds of cost.” Another headteacher from a

school in the east of England, who asked to remain anony- mous, urged Mr Gove to re- professionalise the profession, let headteachers have greater control over their budgets, and end the “target culture, driven by dodgy data”. He continued: “School admis-

sions should take account of the needs of all children, and schools themselves should not be expect- ed or required to solve all the problems of society. “Also, stop issuing hundreds

of pages of advice and guid- ance – which no-one reads – just because yet another single-issue pressure group has sent you an email demanding that schools do something about their perceived injustice.” Peggy Farrington, headteacher

at Hanham High School near Bristol, also raised the issue of fairer funding for schools. Her authority, South Gloucestershire, is one of the worst funded in the country on a per-pupil basis. Finally, Mark Creasy,

headteacher of Arrow Vale High School in Redditch, had a rather more light-hearted policy sugges- tion. He said: “I for one think every headteacher should get free access to the relaxation room at the Department for Education. We need it more than they do.”

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