The government’s planned White Paper for education, the impact of Covid on schools and the future of Ofsted and exams have all come under the spotlight during a packed headteachers’ conference this weekend.
Headteachers gathered for the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) event in Birmingham on Friday and Saturday, where speakers included education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton and Labour shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson.
Here we round up all the key issues raised by speakers and debated by school leaders at their first face-to-face gathering for two years.
Heads want GCSE league tables scrapped this year
More than eight in 10 school leaders think league tables should be scrapped this year because schools have faced different levels of disruption during the pandemic, a new survey reveals.
ASCL president Pepe Di’lasio was given strong support from members when he told the hall that schools were being “thrown to the wolves” with the government’s decision to publish tables this year.
Tes recently revealed that the Office for Statistics Regulation is currently assessing whether the Department for Education’s performance tables comply with national standards.
Zahawi urged to keep Covid tests free
At a press conference launching the conference, ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton revealed that his union was among a number of trade unions and other organisations that have just written to the education secretary urging him to ensure that Covid tests remain freely available.
Mr Barton warned that Covid absence in schools was still causing disruption and there were cases where staff illness from the virus and a lack of supply teachers had led to whole year groups being sent home this week.
He said that schools had previously been told that “vaccines and testing” were the route out of the pandemic.
Covid tests will no longer be freely available to the general pubic after the end of this month.
Oak lessons translated for Ukrainian children fleeing the war
Mr Zahawi told heads during his keynote speech on Friday that Oak National Academy will roll out translated versions of its lessons in Ukrainian and Russian for refugee children from Ukraine newly arrived in the UK.
The online school’s 10,000 lessons will be made available to Ukrainian children in their own languages to help support families arriving in the UK seeking refuge from the Russian invasion.
Mr Zahawi had earlier announced plans for the UK to take in 100,000 children fleeing the war in Ukraine, speaking on BBC One’s Question Time on Wednesday.
DfE is moving NTP money directly to schools amid criticism of the programme
The education secretary also told heads that the DfE was shifting £65 million in catch-up cash to the school-led tuition route of the National Tutoring Programme, from the academic mentor and tuition partner pillars.
The move comes after the tuition partners and academic mentors strands of the government’s catch-up effort, run by the company Randstad, were heavily criticised in a report from the Commons Education Select Committee last week.
Mr Zahawi said that, of the estimated 1 million courses started since the beginning of the programme, around 532,000 were provided through the school-led tutoring route.
Zahawi to launch consultation on school underperformance
In his speech, the education secretary also said that he would be launching a consultation on tackling school underperformance.
And he told heads that one of the priorities in the forthcoming White Paper “will be the schools and areas of the country most in need of support”.
Mr Zahawi added: “Areas including County Durham, Cornwall and Hartlepool will get extra investment to build strong trusts, enabling them to retain and recruit the best teachers and tackle those problems that have stopped them achieving what they should be achieving.
“I want to get this right, and I want you to have your say, so I will be announcing a consultation shortly on tackling school underperformance.”
Barton says heads find DfE’s plan ‘underwhelming’
In his keynote speech this morning, Mr Barton said that the details released so far surrounding the government’s White Paper were “underwhelming”.
He questioned the creation of a 90 per cent target for primary children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030.
He said: “Simply setting higher targets for literacy and numeracy, without a plan, a philosophy, without investment, will achieve little.
“Indeed, a fixation on literacy and numeracy - important as they are - could prove counterproductive, narrowing the primary curriculum at the very time when we should celebrate more children taking part in the arts, in sport, in making things, in learning early leadership skills.”
Labour calls for Ofsted to change
Ms Phillipson hit out at Ofsted in her speech to school leaders, saying that teachers and headteachers are too often feeling “punished” by the watchdog’s inspections.
She added that Ofsted operates “in a way that is often too high-stakes, and where the risks of a bad inspection outweigh the rewards of a good one”.
“A cat and mouse game between inspectors and schools, with no incentive to have an honest professional dialogue, to accept weakness and work to address it, are the unhelpful features of such an adversarial system,” she said.
Labour’s shadow education secretary also said that the fact that 85 per cent of schools are “good” or “outstanding”, in Ofsted terms, is “testimony to the hard work of school leaders and teachers across the country over these last three decades”.
But she added: “Let me be clear. Labour believes that inspection has been part of that success.
“An independent schools inspectorate, with chief inspectors not beholden to ministers, unafraid to speak their minds, is a sign of a mature and confident education system.
“But to be supportive of Ofsted’s role, is not to believe it cannot be better. For one thing, it is hardly surprising if the Ofsted we need tomorrow is different from the Ofsted we needed 30 years ago.”
Ofsted to resume summary evaluation of MATs
During a speech that Ms Spielman delivered remotely on Saturday morning, the chief inspector revealed that Ofsted’s summary evaluation of multi-academy trusts was getting back underway.
Ofsted does not have the power to inspect multi-academy trusts but has been evaluating their work by carrying a series of school inspections within the same trust and then producing summary findings.
Ms Phillipson, in her own speech, called for MATs to be included in inspection - something that Ms Spielman has voiced support for previously.
Spielman says Covid has ‘fractured the social contract’ between parents and schools
Ms Spielman has also told headteachers that Covid disruption “fractured the social contract” around education and the need for pupils to be in school.
She told heads that “now is the time to remake the contract” to improve attendance.
Ms Spielman also told heads that Ofsted had done its best to “put fair play at the heart of the game” as it returned to full inspections.
Birbalsingh says heads should ignore Ofsted
Headteachers should ignore Ofsted and focus on what they think is right for their school, the chair of the Social Mobility Commission said in her speech on Saturday.
Social mobility tsar Katharine Birbalsingh told heads that she did not think Ofsted was “necessarily, as an idea, a force for good”.
However, she added that under its current chief inspector, Ms Spielman, the inspectorate was better “than it had ever been’.
Barton warns that GCSE exams could widen the disadvantage gap after Covid
This year’s exams are likely to widen the disadvantage gap because of the impact of Covid, Mr Barton warned this weekend.
His comments come as Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton told the ASCL conference on Saturday that it would not be possible to award differential exam grades that take Covid impact into account for students.
Mr Barton said:” What we have seen from Covid is that is has affected the disadvantaged more significantly than the advantaged, and there is no great surprise in that.
“If you were from a disadvantaged background when you were in lockdown, you didn’t have access to books, you didn’t have data, you didn’t have the internet, you will be going into the exams at a disadvantage, no matter how much people have tried to help you.
“Then it might be that at your school, you have been affected by Covid, or your cohort has or your teacher has.
“Now that is bound to have an impact.”
