Bridget Phillipson's speech on school standards

[thirdistheonewiththehairychest]

The following has been published today:

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-speech-on-new-era-of-school-standards

I'm interested to hear everyone views on it.

I was quite surprised to see her mentioning the importance of knowledge in the curriculum as I thought the plan was to move towards a more skills-based model.

I'm disappointed that she didn't acknowledge teacher workload/pressure at all, or the inevitable impact a more rigorous inspectorate would have on this.

What do I think? Underwhelmed, disappointed, frustrated that this is all we have in terms of a roadmap 6 months in.

i don’t think Bridget has correctly assessed or prioritised the right issues nor has she shown any evidence of a tangible plan for addressing the issues she has identified. Depressing lack of vision or aspiration when it comes to education policy.

The plans for Ofsted are bollocks. The stuff about knowledge is fine, schools clearly made progress in reading/PISA etc under the Tories and the progressive Scottish curriculum has been a disaster so wittering on about skills over knowledge would have been a backwards step.

Coasting schools now being ‘stuck’ schools, outstanding now being exemplary. I wonder how many meetings and work hours it took to come up with the name changes to make it sound like they’re doing something new.

It does feel more like a rebranding exercise than an actual change in policy or strategy.

I like the speech and at least they now seem to be realising that much of what the Tories did was good overall, good foundations to work with. And the anti academy chat has gone away as well. Cross party consensus on education is a must.

Ofsted? I am completely confused, seems more of the same but even stricter.

“I had a family that prized learning.” Well that is the crux of the matter though - is it not. Teachers can only do so and so much. I get that we need everyone to believe the entire education system is fair and sound. But we cannot expect teachers to work miracles against a backdrop of lazy/disengaged/crappy parenting.

I think this is utter nonsense. My county has closed the waiting list for adhd pathway for example because the waiting list is too long. How can that actually be allowed? These will be lots of children who can’t get a diagnosis in the first place because they can’t even get on a waiting list. There are too many children who are being failed in mainstream. There was nothing in that speech about stopping councils from automatically rejecting ECHP requests or providing funding for more 1:1 support/giving TAs a better wage. Without addressing some of those structural points it’s all just words really.

“Focus on need and not diagnosis. With children able to access the right support more often in mainstream so that they can learn and thrive.”

I just listend to Katharine Birbalsingh again and I take back what I said earlier on in the thread. Seems like Bridget Phillipson is stating one thing, but the truth is the opposite. I believe Birbalsingh. We parents need choice and schools leaders know best. They should be in control and Central Government bureaucracy and red tape via a Marxist ideology is not what we parents want. Phillipson needs to go visit private schools and all the top state schools. Otherwise she has zero credibility. All of us want those in charge to actually understand and know what they are doing by consulting and visiting the very best. We want change, we want people who know what they are doing in charge, like Barbalsingh. Phillipson needs to prove to us that she is competent first and foremost and understands education. If she does not visit and learn, she won’t be competent and we cannot trust her.

I just read Barbalsingh’s article. She obviously is not impressed with Phillipson! I have to say I agree. I think a lot of the education policies have come out of spite and ideology rather than trying to make things better for kids in classrooms. It’s one of those classic ivory tower situations where someone in Whitehall has decided upon an answer that isn’t what anyone on the ground thinks will fix anything.

I think ofsted changes will be minimal and in a way I think think that is probably right, there needs to be accountability. What concerns me most is the very large MATs which have become like the LEAs they were trying to get rid of. Some (not all) but especially the large ones are too big and too regimental in their policy.

Birbalsingh has her ideology and others don’t like what she does in her school. My DDs would have hated her school. I agree Labour comes up with the rhetoric of improvement but has few workable ideas regarding how. BP like many of the others in this government appear shallow. Promoted beyond their ability. Labour always has some class war policy. This time it’s private schools. Labour doesn’t really care about what’s good. They are not interested in having a consensus.