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?

uyter - your friend who "complains about occasionally having to work longer than her alllotted hours" is most certainly in the minority. In 13 years of teaching, I have never worked with anyone who simply worked their allotted hours.

ok uyter, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to repeat the same request I put to longfingernails:

tell me how you measure a teacher's performance please.

Accurate and measurable criteria only.

Littlefish, uyter's friend was complaining to her, not to her boss. By that reckoning, anyone who has a rant about their job to their friend should be sacked.

"close monitoring of a teachers teaching standards by the senior management in the school."- this happens.

"standards in that school were shown to not up to a satisfactory standard"

Would you use OFSTED assessment criteria for this, or are there other factors you would like to see assessed? In other words, what makes a school unsatisfactory (and who should ultimately be responsible)?

Monitoring of the progress that the classes that they teach make as well as regular observations of their lessons by more senior teachers in the school. You would perhaps have termly targets for all classes taught and if a teacher regulary and consistently fails to meet these targets then they are shown the door.

This already happens

I don't think uyter is wrong and if these systems of performance assessment already exist in schools then they should perhaps be made more stringent. I would also like to free up teachers and give them more autonomy and more pay but would also increase their accountability for their pupils learning results.

It would be really really nice if before making recommendations people bothered to find out what already happens

I'm not holding my breath

If these procedures already exist then they need to be extended and the targets that teachers are set should be made more ambitious.

Why uyter? What evidence do you have that the procedures in place are not working? I'm not saying that I agree with the procedures in place or am convinced of their efficacy, but I am on the inside, being a teacher.

I would like to know what convinces you that the procedures we have in place to monitor teachers' 'performance' need extending as you suggest. To what end? What is the success criteria? Or is it simply the idea of changing something for change's sake which appeals?

I say we need this because e continue to fall down the international league tables for educational standards. In an ever globalising world we need a well educated population in order to remain competitive so educational standards must be raised.

Can you link to this evidence please?

I would be interested to know what the evidence is for this claim

What is the basis for comparison between countries?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1571445/World-rankings-for-reading-maths-and-science.html

The link you gave doesnt clarify what the basis for comparison was

Or who put the list together

Ok, that's a good start- it shows the UK placing in world ranking in 2007 for three subjects (very little info there; do you know what was measured?).

Now how about some evidence to back up your claim that "we continue to fall down the international league tables for educational standards"?

Cheers.

Its done by the OECD

How was the pupils' performance assessed?

article on slipping education standards
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/reading-and-maths-standards-falling-in-britain-says-oecd-762805.html

How are they assessing performance?

Fwiw i was educated and taught in one of the other countries cited which performs better than the uk, and now teach in the uk

does the OECD take random samples of pupils and test them? how do they ensure an unbiased sample so that they are comparing like with like?

I'm not an expert on how it was assessed but this article discusses it a little
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23425511-britain-plummets-in-world-league-tables-for-reading-and-maths.do

Here som more info on how its assessed
www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_34487_39700732_1_1_1_1,00.html
and here:
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/63/35/37464175.pdf

I find it v interesting that Canada performed so well, as there is no national education system, rather each province decides curricula etc

Looking at those international comparisons the education system in this country is in an even worse state then I thought it was and I thought it was pretty bad.

Well, it seems to me that the answer is for children to start school later, as they do in the countries which outperform us. Finland, for example