Labour targets teachers in drive to improve standards
By John Clare, Education Editor
EVERY teacher in England and Wales faces detailed annual monitoring as part of the Government's "crusade" for higher standards in education.
Labour's first White Paper, Excellence in Schools, which was published yesterday, said teachers would be judged by how their pupils' results in national curriculum tests and GCSE exams compared with locally agreed targets that took account of each child's starting point.
Teachers identified as under-performing would be invited to change their strategies. Those who failed to improve would be "removed from the profession" by new, "streamlined" procedures so as to avoid further damage to the education of pupils in their care. Head teachers would also be judged by their school's success in achieving the targets. Governing bodies would be required to dismiss those who failed.
"One of the most powerful underlying reasons for low performance in our schools has been low expectations which have allowed poor quality teaching to continue unchallenged," the White Paper said. "Too many teachers, parents and pupils have come to accept a ceiling on achievement which is far below what is possible.
"In some cases, the excuse has been that 'you cannot expect high achievement from children in a run-down area like this'. Even more often, schools in comfortable circumstances have complacently accepted average performance when they should be aiming for excellence."
In future, each local education authority would be required to analyse the test, examination and inspection data for all its schools.
It would compare results and progress with data from other schools serving similar areas and, having taken account of parental and local concerns, set agreed performance targets for each age-group in each subject.
The targets, which would have to be approved by David Blunkett, the Education and Employment Secretary, would be set every three years, starting in September next year, and reviewed annually.
At the same time, inspections would focus even more closely on classroom practice.
Schools failing to achieve their targets would be subject to a series of escalating sanctions, beginning with a formal warning and culminating in outright closure.
"There is a large category of schools which, while not failing, have serious weaknesses of management, or are under-achieving in particular aspects of what they do," the White Paper said.
In last year's national curriculum English tests for 11-year-olds, nearly 25 per cent of primary schools serving the most deprived areas managed to get at least half their pupils to level four or above, the level expected for that age.
Yet other schools serving the most advantaged areas did not achieve such good results.
"We must overcome the spiral of disadvantage in which alienation from, or failure within, the education system is passed from one generation to the next," Mr Blunkett said.
Mr Blunkett promised "unrelenting pressure" on schools and teachers for improvement: persistent failure had to be eradicated.
Teachers' unions gave the White Paper a surprisingly warm welcome. A spokesman for the National Association of Head Teachers, a long-standing opponent of league tables, said: "Given a five-year term, and given the right level of support, I am sure that schools can meet the tough targets set for them."
The National Union of Teachers, traditionally the most militant, said the document provided a "framework for improving achievement which teachers will welcome".
Among other proposals, the 84-page White Paper said primary schools would be expected to devote a "structured" hour a day to literacy from September next year and to numeracy from September 1999.
"It is virtually impossible for children to make a success of their lives unless, when they leave primary school, they can read and write fluently, handle numbers confidently, and concentrate on their work," it said.
All schools would be required to introduce a written home-school contract setting out the respective responsibilities of parents and teachers in raising standards.
A key element of the contract would be national guidelines for homework detailing the amount of time pupils of different ages should spend on it.
The White Paper said mixed-ability teaching in secondary schools had proved successful only in the hands of the best teachers. "We make a presumption," it went on, "that setting [grouping pupils by ability] should be the norm in secondary schools, particularly in science, maths and languages."
However, it announced plans to prevent schools selecting a proportion of their pupils by reference to their general academic ability - a measure introduced by the previous Government a year ago.
"We believe in ΓÇÿdiversity within one campus'," the White Paper said, adding that schools would still be allowed to select pupils with a special aptitude for technology, languages, art or sport.
