The Government wants schools to take more responsibility for themselves and each other in delivering a true self-improving school system. It wants schools to look not to local authorities for expertise but to each other. We have no problem with that vision and think the wide range of models and structures already in place is a strength and proof of vitality. We support moves to give schools more freedom to innovate but we argue that the creation of a self-improving system needs a degree of coordination and strong incentives to encourage schools to look beyond their own school gate. Otherwise there is a danger that many schools will operate in isolation rather than in cooperation. Academy chains are generally performing well but raise particular questions and need specific solutions. We recommend that it should be made clear how academies can leave chains either with or without mutual consent. We also call for the Department for Education to monitor more effectively the extent to which convertor academies meet the expectation that they should support other schools. The report calls for, amongst other recommendations, that: Ofsted to be given the powers to inspect academy chains and for Government to formalise procedures for schools to leave academy chains by mutual consent, and to set out how an outstanding school can leave a chain against the wishes of the chain management
Incorporating HC 852-i and ii, Session 2012-13. Additional written evidence is contained in Volume 3, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/educom. Incorrect paper number 346-II printed on document
The Government needs to prove that it is serious about closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged children by setting out coherent, long-term thinking on early years and children's centres. Ministers should start by making clear the Government's strategy for realising its aspiration to put in place a highly qualified workforce with equal pay and status between early years teachers and those in primary schools. The Government also needs to be clear what children's centres should be offering and who they are for. The Committee identified three different types of centres but this is not reflected in current policy. They also found that the stated core purpose is far too vague and broad. The core purpose needs to focus on achievable outcomes and reflect the difference between centres, especially where they do not offer early education or childcare. Stronger accountability is needed for how well individual children's centres perform and, critically, for how effectively local authorities use children centres to improve outcomes for children in their areas. Closing children's centres should go ahead only after proper consultation and where alternative options have been considered. While some changes may make the network as a whole more effective, it should be up to local authorities to decide how best to organise and commission services. Funding pressures mean some targeting of services is inevitable but all families should be able to access the services they need and that universal services of some sort play a significant part in encouraging families to engage in the first place
The Committee has summarised and evaluated it's work during the current Parliament in a short film entitled 'Closing the gap', available on the Committee's website. This report is intended to supplement the film and provide an overview of their work in different policy areas during the Parliament. Earlier summaries of their work in individual sessions of this Parliament are available on the website of the Liaison Committee. Based on discussions with key players in the fields of education and children's services the Committee decided that their future focus would be on the long tail of underachievement in education. This theme informed their work for the remainder of the Parliament as they sought to recommend changes to close the gap between disadvantaged children and young people, and their peers
This report finds that poor white British boys and girls are educationally underperforming - but great schools have a transformative effect. The problem of poor, white British under attainment is real and the gap between those children and their better off class mates starts in their earliest school years and then widens as they get older. Just 32% of poor white British children achieve five good GCSEs including English and mathematics, compared with 42% of black Caribbean children eligible for free school meals and 61% of disadvantaged Indian children. Poor white children also do less homework and have a higher rate of absence from school. But good schools and teachers can make a huge difference to the academic achievement of children eligible for free school meals. Twice the proportion of poor children attending an 'outstanding' school will achieve five good GCSEs when compared with what the same group will achieve in 'inadequate' schools. Guidance for schools is needed on how an extended school day could be used to provide space and time for children to complete homework. And more work is needed to understand what interventions can be most effective in improving parental engagement, early language stimulus and other home based conditions which can set children up to succeed. The Government should also publish an analysis of the incentives that influence where teachers choose to work, and use this to design a system that ensures that the most challenging schools can attract the best teachers and leaders.
This report supports the right of parents to educate their children at home and accept that home educating families should bear the costs of that provision. It is not reasonable, however, that it should be so difficult to access an exam centre nor that families should pay exam costs on top of everything else. Home educators and local authorities (LAs) have, since the Badman Review and its aftermath in 2009, made "real efforts to engage" and to "ensure more constructive relationships and better support", but there is clearly some way to go. In particular, the Committee notes the 'postcode lottery' element of current provision for home educators, with different LAs offering starkly different services and patterns of support. It calls on the Department for Education to conduct an audit, review the home education guidance given to LAs and to support pilots for 'local offers of support' being published. The Committee is also concerned that provisions for home-educated young people with SEN are not being fully met.
In this report the Education Committee stresses that the Department for Education must maintain sufficient focus on the critical children's policy agenda to ensure this is given adequate resources and receives enough attention from senior officials and ministers. Children's policy must retain sufficient status alongside schools and colleges, which appear to occupy the majority of Ministerial and officials' time. The Committee's report - which considers evidence from current and former DfE Board members, and independent experts - commends several aspects of the DfE's governance and leadership, including the appointment of four skilled and experienced new non-executives. The Committee recommends, however, that the Board be subject to increased external scrutiny. The DfE should also consider appointing a non-executive Board member with expertise in children's policy issues, and must do more improve staff morale. MPs also suggest a number of improvements to the DfE's current restructuring plans. Central amongst these is a recommendation for the Department to evaluate the impact of structural change on the front line and on customer service.
The Education Committee accepts that changes to student support needed to be made, but says that the delay in deciding on allocations and the guiding principles for distribution should not have been allowed to happen. The report states that the Government should have done more to acknowledge the Educational Maintenance Allowance's (EMA) combined impact on participation, attainment and retention, before it decided how to restructure financial support. The bursary scheme which is to replace the EMA will inevitably lead to inconsistencies which could distort young people's choices of where to study. It is not persuaded that bursaries administered by schools and colleges will necessarily be fairer or more discriminating than a slimmed-down, more targeted entitlement such as the EMA. The report also highlights the difficulty of transferring data between schools and colleges and encourages the Department for Education to do more to ensure that information about pupils' needs can move easily between educational institutions. The Committee supports the Government's focus on Apprenticeships but urges it to protect quality at the same time as increasing numbers participating. It also urges the Department for Education to fund the National Careers Service to provide face-to-face careers advice for young people
The Holocaust stands apart from other historical events in being required through the National Curriculum to be taught as part of the secondary school history curriculum. Beyond the curriculum, the Government supports Holocaust education through a range of grants and projects. The Prime Minister's Holocaust Commission reported one year ago in January 2015, and plans are being made to preserve survivor testimony, to create a new national memorial and secure the long-term future of Holocaust education. This will include the establishment of a world-class learning centre for future generations of students. We have discovered a wealth of good practice and enthusiasm in Holocaust education. Teachers are taking students beyond facts to a deeper understanding of what it means to be an active and informed citizen. In doing so they are ably supported by several educational and charitable organisations. However, too few teachers - particularly history teachers - are being trained to teach the Holocaust. While much of the training available for teachers is of a high standard, more needs to be done to extend its reach to subjects other than history. The Holocaust should remain part of the core history curriculum, and we believe that the teaching of the Holocaust would be strengthened by the adoption of a deliberately cross-curricular approach.
Since the establishment of the National Curriculum and the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies in 1998 and 1999, concerns have been expressed that creativity and innovative approaches to teaching may have been unintentionally constrained. Creative Partnerships was introduced as a two-year pilot scheme in 2002 in 16 local areas, and then more widely from 2004. The scheme funds creative professionals to go into schools and work in partnership with teachers and students, offers continuing professional development to school staff, and also provides guidance on creativity in relation to wider school improvement. This report focuses predominantly on Creative Partnerships as a scheme. Policy-makers now appear agreed on a definition of creativity which goes beyond the expressive and aesthetic arts, and agree that in educational terms creativity should extend right across the curriculum. Evidence suggests a very high level of support for more creative approaches to teaching among school staff and creative practitioners. Continuing professional development is of fundamental importance to embedding more creative approaches to teaching and learning, and should be seen as the core of the operation. Extending creative approaches beyond a particular activity and firmly embedding them in the wider curriculum remains a key challenge for schools and also for Creative Partnerships as an organisation. A priority now for Creative Partnerships and its two sponsoring Government departments in planning for the future should be to produce replicable models or templates, which can then be used and adapted to initiate work in other schools.
In 2012 the House of Commons introduced a new 'core task' for all select committees that focused on public engagement as a distinctive and explicit factor of their work. This report focuses on how the select committees have responded to the new core task. Three core conclusions emerged: a) there has been a significant shift within the select committee system to taking public engagement seriously and this is reflected in many examples of innovation; b) this shift, however, has not been systematic and levels of public engagement vary significantly from committee to committee; and c) a more vibrant and systematic approach to public engagement is urgently needed but this will require increased resources, a deeper appreciation of the distinctive contribution that select committees can make and a deeper cultural change at Westminster. This report therefore details innovations in relation to the use of social media, the structure of inquiries and innovative outreach. Public engagement has not yet been fully embedded into the culture of parliament but there is evidence of significant 'cracks and wedges' that can now be built-upon and extended during the 2015-20 Parliament. Clearly the focus of the committee and the topic of the inquiry will have some bearing on the approach to engagement adopted but a more expansive and ambitious approach across the board is to be encouraged. This report leads to a ten-point set of inter-related recommendations but they can all be connected in the sense that the existing social research demonstrates a clear desire on the part of the public to 'do politics differently'.
The Committee has summarised and evaluated it's work during the current Parliament in a short film entitled 'Closing the gap', available on the Committee's website. This report is intended to supplement the film and provide an overview of their work in different policy areas during the Parliament. Earlier summaries of their work in individual sessions of this Parliament are available on the website of the Liaison Committee. Based on discussions with key players in the fields of education and children's services the Committee decided that their future focus would be on the long tail of underachievement in education. This theme informed their work for the remainder of the Parliament as they sought to recommend changes to close the gap between disadvantaged children and young people, and their peers
In this report the Education Committee recommends that children in care should be found residential homes in their own areas and local authorities should ensure that they have enough suitable placements to make this possible. The Committee was concerned at the number of children being placed in homes far from their own communities and families, and the Government should look at the impact of introducing a 20 mile limit on placements to increase incentives on local authorities to develop more facilities. It is also a matter of great concern that children are being placed in homes located in unsuitable and dangerous areas. The Government must act if its latest reforms do not adequately address this problem. The report also calls for: better training and development of the workforce in children's homes to ensure that staff and managers have the skills and outlook to create a culture which promotes the safety and welfare of children living in them; a national protocol that allows children's homes to deal with incidents of challenging behaviour to avoid the over-criminalisation of children; children to be given a greater role in selecting residential care workers.
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