Commenting on the publication of the
Schools White Paper, Dr
Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union,
said:
"This is a White Paper which does not
reflect on the mistakes of the past, does not address the
problems of the Covid present and does not have the answers for
the future. Its message is that the education of the future will
be a souped-up version of what we have seen over the last decade.
Schools and their students need better than that. This is not the
vision of education recovery which is needed for England.
"Schools are being battered here and
now by a storm of real problems. Funding levels are inadequate.
Child poverty is increasing. Key indicators of attainment, such
as the attainment gap, are moving in the wrong direction. Targets
for teacher recruitment are not being met while low play and
intense pressures of workload are leading teachers to leave in
large numbers. Our curriculum and qualifications system
is outdated and sells our students short. The pressure
on budgets mean cuts to teaching assistants and welfare
posts.
"The White Paper does not recognise
the seriousness and depth of these issues. Even where it points
to important problems, such as mental health, support for SEND
and behaviour, it does not commit sufficient funding to
them.
"Its main message is ‘academise,
academise, academise’ and a reliance on multi-academy trusts
which is simply not-evidence led. Last week the House of Commons
Public Accounts Committee reported that the existing academy
system lacked transparency and accountability and spoke of the
‘mysterious millions’ that disappeared into the coffers of
favoured trusts. The White Paper presents this flawed and failing
approach as the education of the future. Without convincing
evidence for the ‘value added’ by academisation, it sets out a
massive, costly and unwelcome programme of structural
change. The White Paper does not recognise that the problems
our system faces need to be addressed by bold, inclusive and
compassionate thinking and by multi-agency working, strong
support services, and well-resourced local authorities. The DFE
needs to address the serious issues highlighted by the Public
Accounts Committee about the academy
system.
"The Department for Education (DfE)
has not listened to the emerging consensus that the English
system of curriculum and assessment needs fundamental
modernisation. The concerns of teachers, researchers and
international experts that our system promotes teaching to the
test, narrows the curriculum and fails to engage learners have
not reached the government. Instead, government aims to keep
a failed system in place with the inevitable negative impact on
children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It
aims to keep a failed system in place and to require students and
teachers to work ever harder to meet its demands. Expecting
90% of 11-year-olds to meet an arbitrary ‘expected standard’ in
Maths and English at Key Stage 2 without giving any indication of
the support that will be needed to achieve this target will
immediately raise the temperature in the educational hothouse
that schools have become. It will particularly affect SEND
children whose SATs results ‘bake in’ their educational
failure.
"Schools and parents have been waiting
several years for government to address the very real crisis in
SEND and the scandalous gap between what parents need for their
child with SEND and what an underfunded system is able to
provide. What is missing in the White Paper is an assurance by
education ministers that they have secured a commitment from the
Treasury to secure the funding that is key to the future of SEND
– funding for support staff, funding for support services and
teacher education.
"During the pandemic, schools
demonstrated resourcefulness and initiative in responding to
students’ social and educational needs and supported families.
The White Paper has not properly listened to or learned from on
this experience. It aims to make whole school system march
to the beat of a hugely centralised plan, with DfE dogma trumping
professional knowledge and the local context. Many local systems
of collaboration that are working well and delivering results are
discounted and ignored.
"The statement that every school will
have an Ofsted inspection by 2025 is not so much a pledge of
support as another turn of the screw, which will increase the
strain on teachers without addressing the gaps and pressures
in the system.
"It is fantasy thinking to focus on
structures and top-down reforms as the route out of a health
pandemic. This isn’t the way to support better outcomes for young
people, address inequality, close gaps in learning or engage and
motivate the teaching profession."
