Draft legislation: Children's Trusts; Sure Start; Pupil Groups; Apprenticeships; Wellbeing; School Buildings; Admissions

In the last three months (June-September) there have been ten draft legislation pieces open for consultation from the DCSF alone. These are listed below, in order of initial publication.

Admissions - a technical area, so best reading the document if interested.
Pupil wellbeing - educational establishments are required to promote pupil wellbeing, this is draft guidance as to how they could achieve.
Schools causing concern - proposed changes on how to deal with schools which cause concern.
Strengthening Children's Trusts - proposals aimed at making the Children's Trust the main strategic body for children's services.
Zero carbon schools - calls for evidence so the government can realise their 2016 target.
Apprenticeships - steps to legislate for the provision of apprenticeships, including making the LSC ensure apprenticeships exist.
Draft guidance on safeguarding children from sexual exploitation.
Draft guidance for children not receiving a suitable education.
Under performing groups - changes to which groups of children are monitored reducing the overall number but including pupils on free school meals for the first time.
Sure Start Children's Centres - legislation to make this provision a legal requirement.

Summer holidays - good for education?

Mike Baker questions the role of the annual summer holidays for schools and considers how they effect children. The DCSF have recognised that summer born children do occur extra difficulties compared to their peers as a result of their time of birth and have vowed to offer additional support to them via extra tuition for catch up classes.

Ofsted: weak teachers hard to fire

The Chief Inspector of schools, Christine Gilbert has written in the Sunday Telegraph that students are being let down by inadequate teachers (BBC News).

Ms Gilbert called for schools to be able to fire underperforming staff more easily and criticised a "revolving door syndrome" which enabled poor to teachers move from school to school.

She said: "As I go round the country heads tell me how difficult it is to get rid of weak teachers.

"They say they start the procedure and they might be 18 months down the line and the teacher will move... we need to be thinking of ways of preventing that.

"That isn't Ofsted's role but I sympathise with head teachers about that."

A Failed Generation - Conservative Party paper: "schools increase inequalities"

This paper by the Conservative party states that in the past decade educational inequality has increased and that the current education system entrenches disadvantage.

Key points:
- 55% of secondary schools in the 10% most deprived parts of England do not achieve 30% of children getting five good GCSEs including English and maths – the Government’s official benchmark for a failing school. This is compared to just 3 per cent in the 10 per cent least deprived areas.
- Last year five local authorities – including Islington, Darlington and Blackpool – did not have a single pupil from a maintained school attempt GCSE Physics.
- Last year, over 60 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals did not gain the 3Rs at Key Stage 2.
- Shockingly, 33,909 pupils eligible to receive free school meals did not attain any GCSE grades higher than a D in 2006/07 – 47% of all FSM pupils.
- In the last year, the attainment gap at GCSE between the poorest areas and the wealthiest widened by 15pp – from 28% to 43%.
- In 2002, the gap between free school meal pupils and the rest in science at Key Stage 2 was 10pp; it now stands at 15. And the gap has widened to 20% in maths – up from 16% in 2002.
- In 2002, at Key Stage 2 (aged 11), the gap between 11 year-olds eligible for free school meals (FSM) and those who were not reaching the expected level was 26 points for English, 16 points for maths and 10 points for science.
- In 2005, for the same pupils aged 14 this gap had grown to 27 points for English, 27 points for maths and 30 points for science.
- And in 2007, by the time pupils came to take GCSEs 21.1% of FSM pupils gained five good GCSEs including English and maths, compared to 49% of non-FSM pupil s- a gap of nearly 28%

The paper does not state any recommendations nor give Conservative Party policy.

A Level results 2008

The key headlines from this years A Level results:

- 2.7% increase in the number of entries at A Level and a 1.2% increase at AS level.
- 7.5% increase in maths A Level entries and a 15.5% increase in further maths.
- Biology, physics and chemistry witnessed 2-3% increases in the number of entries.
- English is the most popular A Level (with 10.8 of all candidates taking English) this is followed by maths and then biology.
- A-C grades are up from 72.8% to 73.9%
- A grades see a small rise to 25.9%

Yorkshire and Humber has made one of the smallest improvements in the number of candidates gaining grade A at A level (2002-08) and only 22.3% of entries gain a grade A (second worst government office region).

For full report refer to the JCQ paper here.

GCSE results 2008

The key headlines from the GCSE results 2008 are:

- Overall pass rate at A*-C grades are up by 2.4pp to 65.7%
- English is up 0.7pp and maths 1.1pp
- Entries receiving either an A* or A grade has risen from 19.5% last year to 20.7%
- Entries to chemistry, physics and biology have increased by around 30%
- Boys pass rate is exceeding that of girls, hence the gender gap is closing: boys pass rate in English is up 0.9pp (girls 0.4pp) and in maths it is up 1.2pp (girls 1.0pp)
- For the first time boys pass rate went through the 60% mark and now stands at 62.1%

pp = percentage point(s)

Yorkshire & Humber remains the government region with the lowest percentage achieving a grade C (60.8%) or grade A (16.8%).



For full results see JCQ paper here