State School Head Teachers concur with Jury Team’s policy
A number of Head Teachers and Governors from state schools have signed a letter publicly backing plans to give autonomy to state schools, giving them more power of the curriculum, staffing, admissions and budget, as well as the key ares of contention over examinations. They have argued for radical reform after more than a decade of being bounced around and tied up with all of Labour’s bureaucratic indolence.
The Jury Team are delighted to be reading such endorsement of what has been one of their key policy suggestions for quite some time! The government should pay for school education but parents, not the government, should have the main responsibility for deciding where their children are educated. Government should pay schools according to how many pupils they educate and it should pay them more for disadvantaged pupils so that these can have more resources. However the government does not need to run the schools. In Holland 67% of schools follow such a funding model, and it is 55% of schools in Ireland. Furthermore, the US Charter schools, which have generally been very successful, work on the same model.
There should be a ballot in every school to decide whether to opt out, which would be initiated by the governors or by 5% of the parents requesting this ballot. It would require a 55% agreement with at least 50% of the families voting and to avoid being tied up in a repetitive campaign where it is clearly not popular, a ballot could be held not more often than once every five years.
Jury Team clearly agree with these Head Teachers in the belief that independence gives back to teachers their professional respect and, subject to the governors, gives Head Teachers the right to manage their school without interference. They understand, unlike the main three parties, that a school must succeed otherwise parents will simply stop sending their children there. Better still, it allows undersubscribed schools to take measures to improve, and it is shown when such efforts are made the results are tremendous. Furthermore, this gives parents a choice, makes the children the key focus, motivates staff and raises aspirations.
This General Election vote with YOUR HEAD!
Tags: 2010, General Election, Jury Team, Opt-out, Schools
So sad to see that the Jury Team fails to involve the key member of the Secondary Education process – and it is not the Head Teacher.
Who inspired you the most when you were at school? Who will you expect to best help your children or grandchildren to prepare for a better life?
A Head Teacher, a classroom assistant, the deputies, the dinner ladies, the governors, the OFSTED inspector, the pupils (Labour’s policy), the parents (Conservative’s policy), Politicians, Education journalists, Professors of Education, the Janitor or the subject specialist teacher?
A generous 5 out of 10 for the Jury Team’s decent start, but unless you build policies to assist the one key member on this list you miss such a great opportunity to improve our Education service.