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Issue 315 • April 26 2012 Price £1.00
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Careers Guidance Key content
n A summary of the new statutory obligations for delivering careers guidance for students in years 9 to 11.
n How schools can meet the requirement to provide “impartial and independent” advice.
n Advice on assuring the quality of external providers and working with local authorities and other partners.
n A summary of further information and best practice websites and resources for schools.
n Case studies of best practice. Careers
Guidance SecEd's latest Guide To offers advice on how schools can meet the new duty to deliver ‘impartial and independent’ careers guidance. Find it free inside this edition or download it from the supplements section at
www.sec-ed.co.uk
Self-evaluation
Research expert Claire Easton considers why schools should collect evidence for self- evaluation, who they should involve, and how they should go about doing it Page 13
Free web tools
ICT expert and school leader Ben Solly lists his top 10 of free-to-use web tools for the classroom Page 10
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Palace portraits: UK school children saw their faces beamed across the front of Buckingham Palace for three nights last week. Find out why on page 2.
Inquiry into Gove’s plan for mass academisation
By Dorothy Lepkowska
A top-level Commission has been set up to examine the impact and implications of the government’s policy to mass “academise” the nation’s state schools. The inquiry follows the rapid
increase in the number of academies – from 200 to 1,635 since the coalition came to power. It will be launched next month by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and the Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning. The Commission will be
chaired by Christine Gilbert, the former chief inspector of schools and visiting professor at London University’s Institute of Education (IoE). She will be joined by Brett Wigdortz, chief executive of Teach First, and Professor Chris Husbands, the IoE’s director. The panel will hear evidence
from key figures and experts in education and are expected to focus on four main areas: • The implications of complete
academisation for school improvement and pupil attainment.
• How improvement and attainment can best be secured within an academised system.
• How school improvement can be maintained and sustained in terms of accountability.
• What the implications of the policy will be on emerging trends, risks and related questions concentrating on public interest. Ms Gilbert said: “The rapid
expansion of academies is fundamental to the coalition government’s education policies. This represents major structural change to the English school system but little has been done to explore the implications and impact of this expansion. “We intend the work of the
Commission to be a constructive contribution to the debate on academy policy and practice, in particular to the impact of academisation on school improvement and on young people’s learning and achievement.”
The coalition government’s
policy of academisation has met with a mixed response from schools and local authorities. While some schools have willingly converted to academy status, others are being effectively forced to do so. Usually, these are schools which are deemed to be consistently underperforming, among them some 200 primary schools. The move has prompted a
number of local campaigns against academisation around the country by parents and teachers, with threats of legal challenges against the government. In a speech in January, education
secretary Michael Gove described opponents of academies as “ideologues who were happy with failure” and “enemies of promise”. But campaigners claim there is
no hard evidence to suggest that conversion to academy status raises standards, despite government claims that attainment improves when schools achieve autonomy. Mr Gove’s comments prompted
an angry response from teachers’ leaders. Among them, Brian
Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “There are many highly successful schools working with their local authority and partner schools; they are not the ‘enemies of promise’ but professionals dedicated to improving the lives of young people. The keys to school improvement are excellent teaching and leadership and a relentless determination to stamp out failure.” The Commission, whose
work is being sponsored by the Co-operative and CfBT Education Trust, will begin taking evidence next month and is expected to report back on its findings by the end of the year. Adam Lent, director of
programme at the RSA, said: “Because commissions can take years to report, they often focus only on the most overarching questions and even then sometimes miss their moment. “RSA Speed Commissions
will get leading experts to take an intensive look at the more immediate issues confronting politicians with the aim of reporting
in no more than nine months. There are few more pressing concerns in government now than how to make the academies programme really work for children and parents, so this is a perfect topic.” Professor Becky Francis,
director of the Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning, who will head up the Commission secretariat, said: “This Commission may be quick but it will be determinedly rigorous. We are delighted to have commissioners with the depth and breadth of knowledge displayed by Christine, Chris and Brett, but we will also put in place a comprehensive research and consultancy programme to draw in as many views and as much expert evidence as possible. “This will be the first detailed
attempt to understand what the education sector and the wider public really thinks must be done to make the startlingly rapid rise of academies work for pupils.” For more information, visit
www.academiescommission.org you can also follow the Commission on Twitter via @acadcomm.
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