Blog posts for tags:Schools, creativity, Schools

It’s all change in the government. Theresa May has been sworn in as our new Prime Minister, and there is wholesale change across the political Cabinet.  In education and skills, there are several ministerial changes, and responsibility for skills, along with Higher Education, has returned to the Department for Education (DfE). We look forward to seeing how bringing education, universities, FE and Apprenticeships under one minister’s remit will ensure joined up decision making for the benefit of learners.

Last month saw the refreshing of Ofqual’s corporate plan for 2016 through to 2019. It sets out a number of key objectives that Ofqual wants to achieve over the next 3 years, and reading between the lines, we can also get an inkling of the challenges Ofqual will be facing during that period. Ofqual has set out its key objectives in this plan; “covering standards maintenance and reform in both general and vocational qualifications, as well as our own organisational development.” This sets the theme for the plan, focusing on the introduction and regulation of new qualifications in the GCSE and Functional Skills spaces, continued rigour around Technical and Professional Education (TPE) and efficiency savings in the way Ofqual operates.

It’s not often that education takes centre stage in British politics, but when it does, you can bet that it’ll capture public opinion. The government had probably not expected that its proposal to force all schools to convert to academies in the Educational Excellence Everywhere white paper would prove to be such a political hot potato. 

Careers advice has once again been a hot topic in the news, as many in and outside of the sector have emphasised its importance, and some have criticised the current resources available to school learners and leavers. Gatsby has carried out a survey on the current state of careers advice in the UK and made recommendations to improve the guidance young people receive going forward. In the foreword of the report, Lord Sainsbury argues that, while many reports in the past have been critical of the careers advice available to learners, the situation hasn’t improved. He cites persistent youth unemployment and the widening skills gap facing UK employers as evidence of this.

A petition to include more creative subjects in the EBacc will be discussed in parliament after gaining over 100,000 signatures. The petition states: “The English Baccalaureate, or Ebacc, is a standard which maintains that English, maths, science, a language and a humanity [subject] define a good education. The exclusion of art, music, drama and other expressive subjects is limiting, short sighted and cruel. Creativity must be at the heart of our schools.” Many believe the EBacc’s focus on more traditionally academic subjects may push creative qualifications to the side, which will result in pupils being discouraged from taking them. Malcolm Trobe, Interim General Secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) argues this could lead to arts becoming a “preserve of the elite”.

In March the Department for Education (DfE) published the long anticipated ‘stage one’ consultation into the National Funding Formula (NFF) for schools. The DfE believe a change to the way schools are funded will create a“fair, transparent funding system where the amount of funding children attract for their schools is based on need and is consistent across the country”. The consultation essentially proposes a transition so that by 2019-2020 “a pupil would attract the same amount of funding to his or her school no matter where they are in the country”. As the amount each pupil at a school would attract is determined on a national level, there would be less of a role for Local Authorities under these proposals.

Last week the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility released its Overlooked and left behind: improving the transition from school to work for the majority of young people report. The report follows a 9 month inquiry in the senior chamber, and makes a series of conclusions and recommendations for the government. The committee feels that “Non-academic routes to employment are complex, confusing and incoherent. The qualifications system is similarly confused and has been subjected to continual change”. It also notes that non-academic routes don’t guarantee entry into quality employment and are poorly understood by employers.

In April, the Department for Education published a list of facts that we need to know about academies. There’s been a good deal of lighted hearted analysis and conversation about this on Twitter, but my chief concern is that not a single source of the purported evidence is referenced (beyond the Schools White Paper itself). Whilst the social media dust was settling on the above publication, the Number 10 Press Office (possibly to anticipate the Labour-led opposition day debate on the schools White Paper in Parliament), sent out the following tweet:

As promised in yesterday’s Budget announcement, the government has today released a white paper on schools, entitled ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere.’ Forget the 3 ‘R’s – it’s all about the 3 ‘E’s. The key headlines include a couple of new initiatives, and some further details on policies that have been emerging for some time:

Chancellor George Osborne today announced the Budget 2016. The key education headlines related mainly to schools, with the news that the government intends to turn all state schools into academies confirmed after being leaked last night. The Chancellor said that by 2020, all schools either will be an academy, or will be in the process of becoming an academy. This has been a key focus of the government’s time in parliament, including during its coalition with the Liberal Democrats.