School funding to move to Whitehal

[onimolap]

Link to BBC story here

Is this a good move? Is cutting out the LA really going to make the system more responsive to teachers?

Is it really, though, a hostage to fortune got when the political pendulum swings again to an era of either Big or authoritarian government?

And has anyone seen anything on the formula for, or likely level of, the Pupil Premium? Or will that all follow after agreement on this new funding formula?

Thank you Saggar

Come on you lot. Read my post and discuss it with me!

I don't disagree with the fundamentals of your proposals longerfingernails. I think that teachers performance should be better scrutinised and reviewed and in cases where teachers are shown to be incompetant then they should sacked but your proposals seem to be draconian in the extreme.

"Fortunately, I think Michael Gove agrees with me"

There's an accolade

I don't think it will make the system more responsive to teachers. Headteachers possibly, but not necessarily actual teachers. I wonder if it will mean an increase in the number of non-teaching staff employed by a school. And IME that alters the school environment. I work in a school with almost as many non-teaching as teaching staff, and I think a lot of the staff do feel as though the teaching role is almost backgrounded, which is bonkers in a school. Of course, it might be perception, and I'm not sure I entirely share the view myself, but it is widespread among older teachers (or rather more experienced teachers) certainly.

claig, I'm not sure what happened to that proposal. I know academies were to potentially be exempt from it, so I'm not sure how that has influenced current thinking.

I will have a look- or perhaps someone who knows will be along in a minute.

I never liked that sort of policy. I hope it never made it.

Ah... seems like they were abandoned before parliament was dissolved:

Here

"Detailed and costed proposals to replace unpopular school league tables with American-style school-by-school report cards, register home-educated children and weed out poorly performing teachers through a new "licence to teach" were also abandoned"

great news thatthey are dust. The Tories were against these 5 year licences and Labour were for them. That is a bit surprising, as presumably these licences threatened job security for teachers.

Labour's policies were less damaging to education IMO, but they were in no way good for it. The license to teach proposal was appalling.

Not as appalling as sacking the bottom x% of teachers, but there you go

yes, I don't agree with sacking the bottom 10% in teaching or in any other industry. It's a bit too close to Stalin's policy of decimation, where 1 in ten soldiers were randomly killed to instil fear in the others.

It would have the effect of discouraging people from becoming teachers, it would create a climate of fear and hostility towards management and it is unjust. You have to develop trust with your staff, not just constantly evaluate their performance. Imagine if you thought you were going to be in the bottom 10%. What incentive would you have to do a good job?

I think that education does need a major shake up and that some teachers do need to up their performance but longerfingernails's proposal was ridiculous like most of hers are

Riven I want to vote for you as PM!

I agree it is back-door privatisation and everything else that Riven said but I also wanted to add;
Get rid of OFSTED, have a team of inspectors that work with a cluster of schools. The cluster of schools should also work together, sharing good practice/staff. The inspectors role would still be to evaluate performance and standards but would also be more pro-active in improving standards.

I'm not against using the private sector to administer public services in principle. Many of the universal health care systems in other European countries use private companies to administer them and they seem to be vastly superior to the NHS.

LFN-your idea is silly and would ensure that inside 5 years there would hardly be any teachers however I think that teachers do need greater pressure being applied to them to improve their pupils results.

"I think that teachers do need greater pressure being applied to them to improve their pupils results."

Please elaborate uyter.

I have a friend who is a teacher who often tells me that there is nothing she can do with some of her pupils. Where I work this "theres nothing I can do about it" attitude would not be tolerated and I don't see why it should be allowed in education.
She also complains about occaisionally having to work longer than her alloted hours but again where I work this occaisonally happens and if you complained about it you'd be told to find another a job as you should go the extra distance to achieve your goals.

This still doesn't make any sense

unless all teachers improve their classes by the same amount some teacher will be poorly performing relative to the others

Eg all teachers in a school improve pupil's performance by 2 grades, except for teacher x who only improves it by one grade- teacher x is in the bottom 10% and is sacked

What about pupils who are predicted an A* and achieves it- the teacher has failed by your reckoning as no improvement has occurred

What sort of work do you do uyter

I'm a solicitor

How does performance management work in that profession, what kind of targets are set for you

Thanks uyter, but that's not really what I asked- I wanted to know how you envisaged this extra pressure applied on teachers? What might it look like and how will it be effective?

I wasn't aware that solicitors weren't able to moan about their job to their friends either...

I'm a school governor, and while our local education authority does wind me up in many ways, they also provide a ton of support. Our head and senior teachers are already alarmed that may be cut anyway - even more sidelining of LEAs could be very damaging.

For instance, one thing that winds me up is the LEA has all the power - so if it decides we have to go to single point of entry (everyone in Sept rather than Jan and Sept) we have to do it.

But they also provide endless help, especially through the school improvement partner. It's a consistently outstanding school, but we still need to develop and get better.

tehtersend- This extra pressure would be close monitoring of a teachers teaching standards by the senior management in the school. The senior management would also be held to greater account and if standards in that school were shown to not up to a satisfactory standard or improving fast enough then they would be removed and replaced.

What do you suppose happens now? As far as I know this is the norm

chibi- performance management where I work is monitored by my boss who looks at the volume and quality of work that I get through. If either is not deemed adequate then you will be shown the door.