The school day should be extended to allow for a significant expansion of co-curricular activity, including music, art, drama and sport, says a major policy report.
The report, commissioned by the Laidlaw Foundation, also finds that parents and teachers want Ofsted inspections and the school accountability system to be more transparent, well-rounded and less high-stakes.
The research reveals that just 6 per cent of parents polled were opposed to the Labour plan to introduce a school scorecard to replace inspection grades.
The research has been conducted by Public First, a leading policy consultancy, which polled more than a thousand parents and conducted roundtables and expert interviews with teachers and multi-academy trust (MAT) trustees to gain insight into the current education system.
Here are six key findings from the report.
1. Extend the school day to widen access to co-curricular activities
There are two key linked recommendations in the report. It calls for the curricular offer in schools - including music, drama, art and sport - to be significantly expanded, and for this to be a key feature of school accountability.
The report adds: “This is a social justice issue and an expanded offer would need to reach all children, in every school across England. It could transform the health and wellbeing of many of Britain’s poorest students.”
The also report recommends that the government would need to extend the school day and open up schools in a more structured way during holidays, to “avoid undermining academic outcomes”. It says that planned reforms would need to be supported by significant additional investment - in money and time.
2. Create meaningful ‘life skills’ curriculum
There is a need to define “life skills” and to create a curriculum offer that meaningfully embeds these as part of the curriculum, the report says.
The research found a significant appetite among parents and staff in the school sector for a stronger focus on what it describes as the “currently nebulous” idea of life skills and character education.
“Our research suggests more work is needed in this space, and more meaningful curriculum design, if it is to be embedded more broadly in teaching and learning,” the report says.
Parents were almost twice as likely (57 per cent) to name preparing children for adult life as an essential task for schools compared to preparation for further academic study (32 per cent), the report shows.
And just over half (54 per cent) of parents would prefer for their child to go to a school prioritising extracurricular activities and life skills, versus 37 per cent who would prefer that their child goes to a school prioritising academic achievement and exams.
3. Labour’s Ofsted report card plan is widely supported by parents
Labour’s proposal for Ofsted to produce a report card style judgement received significant support from parents, with over two-thirds (77 per cent) in favour of adopting the proposal - particularly those parents from higher socioeconomic groups. And just 6 per cent think it is a bad idea.
The party has announced that it will move away from the system of headline grades to a new “report card” if it comes into power in the next general election.
In their recommendations, Public First and the Laidlaw Foundation said that the “idea of school inspection by an external, independent body, should not be abandoned”, but added that there is “extensive willingness to explore reform”.
4. Most parents want Ofsted to remain
The report found that more than half of parents (60 per cent) believe that Ofsted inspections should change, but a large majority (85 per cent) agree that the watchdog should continue to inspect schools.
In terms of change, a large proportion of parents (42 per cent) want greater transparency from Ofsted about how it reaches judgements, 37 per cent of parents want longer inspections and a third (34 per cent) said they want an end to single-word judgements.
While parents are broadly positive in how they perceive Ofsted - they are more than four times as likely to say Ofsted makes schools better (47 per cent) rather than worse (11 per cent) for pupils - they care more about the “atmosphere” of the school than the Ofsted rating, the report says.
More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of parents see quality of teaching as the most important indicator of a good school that Ofsted should report on, while just over a third (37 per cent) of parents said that pupil outcomes should be used as an indicator.
5. Exams are ‘preferable’ but teachers are open to reform
Although teachers said that exams cause “unnecessary stress” for children, they prefer to have them - both teachers and MAT trustees view them as “an imperfect but preferable option to a system without them”, and that exams maintain the impartiality of the assessment system.
However, they are open to improvements. The report says that there is significant desire for the curriculum to be “slimmed down”, in order to both create time for “depth within the curriculum” and for other, super-curricular learning and experiences.
Teachers also think that the stress of exams “damages their relationships with students”, particularly those who struggle the most academically, and they dislike the “distortionary effects” that exams have on the curriculum in schools.
6. PSHE teaching has become an ‘afterthought’
The report says that current PSHE and citizenship teaching is currently considered both a “dumping ground” and an “afterthought”.
The report concludes that the current PSHE provision does not “meaningfully deliver the life skills that parents and educationalists believe are important” - including digital and financial literacy - and it says that both parents and teachers struggle to articulate exactly what PSHE is.
Instead, they call for a “root and branch review” of PSHE, with a view of “deepening, extending and giving it greater coherence”.
Susanna Kempe, chief executive of the Laidlaw Foundation said that the “current system of accountability is not working” and that “we can and must do better”.
Ed Dorrell, partner at Public First, said: “The ultimate reward for getting this right could be the creation of a new generation of happy and healthy young people.
”This research suggests that there is huge appetite both within and outside the education system for something akin to this vision, but only if the reforms needed to make it happen are conceived of, funded and delivered well.”
