Balls to map out education strategy
Updated on 30 June 2009
Education reform plans include promises to be tougher on discipline and to offer pupils personal tuition if they fall behind. Cathy Newman reports.
The proposals are part of the government's education reforms outlined by Schools Secretary Ed Balls in parliament.
It is part of the spending package launched by the prime minister yesterday, but how the government plans to pay for the measures is still unclear.
The white paper will set out "pupil and parent guarantees" - a set of entitlements for every child during their school career, and a description of what every parent should expect their child to receive.
This includes -
- One-to-one tuition for those falling behind
- A personal tutor to act as a single point of contact at secondary school
- An entitlement to five hours of sport and week inside and outside of school
The strategy will contain details of the new US-style "report card", which will see every school ranked on a number of measures, including behaviour, attendance and take-up of sport, as well as academic performance. Each school will then be given a final overall grade.
The wide-ranging document will also set out plans to make weak schools merge with good schools to create "chains" under the authority of one headteacher.
Moves to scrap National Strategies have been welcomed by teaching unions who say it shows that ministers now recognise that teachers can be trusted to deliver the curriculum and make professional judgments about what, and how, to teach.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Mr Balls said: "There is a clear guarantee for every child and every parent with enforcement mechanisms to make it happen.
"Any child that is falling behind at primary school and is below level 4, the level which we think every child should get to in English and maths, will get one-to-one or small-group tuition in the first year at secondary school.
"We've hired 100,000 teachers to do that tuition but if as a parent, that's not happening you can appeal to the governing body, then you can go through the independent complaints procedure to the local government ombudsman.
"I think we can ensure children will get that one-to-one tuition."
He also promised to provide extra support and teaching for those children who perform extremely well in tests.
He added: "Children who are in the gifted and talented programme will have special help, extra classes, and parents will know at the beginning of the year what help they are going to get.
"The assessment that they are gifted will be made by the school."
Mr Balls denied the suggestion that he would be spending £400m raided from the PFI contingency fund.
He said: "I have a budget of over £7bn for school building each year. We were concerned a year ago that the PFI market may come under pressure during the downturn and therefore we put £400m aside in case that happened.
"In fact, the deals on PFI have continued to flow through so the treasury and I agreed we didn't need to keep that unallocated pot.
"I had a problem that because there were more young people staying in education after 16, who were indicating this September they were going to stay on.
"I was short of funds. I made some very difficult decisions in my budget to shift £650m from efficiencies and underspends over so that I could guarantee 55,000 more places.
"I can now say in the white paper, this September every young person at 16 will have a place in school, college or an apprenticeship and I've challenged the Conservative education spokesman Michael Gove on this many times.
"He cannot match that commitment because the shadow chancellor George Osborne has said the first call in the Conservative party is not education and those guarantees.
"It is health and development, but then to pay for a tax cut for millionaires through inheritance tax."
