The Government has introduced a Bill which if successful would remove many of the freedoms that academies and free schools have.
About 80% of secondary schools are academies – so this Bill is likely to impact your local school. To stand up for your local school click here.
What does this Bill do?
Teaching Qualifications: All teachers in primary or secondary schools will have to have Qualified Teacher Status or be working towards it. Until now headteachers at academies and free schools have had the freedom to hire the best person for the job and train them up if they were not a qualified teacher.
Curriculum: All schools must follow the national curriculum – which is currently under review. Until now academies and free schools have curriculum freedoms that means whilst it has to be “broad and balanced”, they don’t have to follow the national curriculum.
Teacher Pay and Conditions: The Bill introduces a pay floor for teachers at all schools and schools must have regard for centrally agreed working conditions. Until now academies and free schools have had the freedom to decide the pay and conditions for their staff.
School places: Schools and the Local Authority will have to collaborate on the number of school places available. The Local Authority will have more say over the school places at each school. If there are any objections to the division of school places in the local area the issue will be referred to the School Adjudicator who will set the pupil numbers for each school. Until now academies and free schools have been able to expand if there is parental demand, and decide the number of school places they offer.
Uniform: Primary schools won’t be able to require a child have more than 3 branded items of school uniform. Secondary schools won’t be able to require a child have more than 4 branded items of school uniform. Until now schools have the freedom to decide their own uniform policy, but have had to have regard to the cost.
New schools: New schools that set up no longer have to be academies. Until now all new schools had to be free schools, this was a great way of getting innovation into the education system and meant that high performing academy trusts could expand.
What’s the problem?
This Bill is centralising a lot of decisions that were formerly made by school leaders. Whether that is around what uniform they have or what they teach, this is a big shift in power from the headteacher or school leader to the civil servants and politicians in the town hall or London.
At the moment free schools and academies has a number of freedoms which help to make it distinct and space to try new things. But this Bill introduces a ‘one size fits all’ approach that threaten educational standards and outcomes.
At the New Schools Network we think this is a mistake and have suggested a number of amendments to the Government which would support their desire to raise standards and have a core entitlement at all schools, whilst protecting the freedom and autonomy that free schools and academies have used to drive up standards in their schools and provide a good education for their pupils.
Specific problems caused by the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and how we suggest fixing them
Curriculum
The problem:
The Government want all schools to follow the national curriculum, but it is currently being reviewed. It is not clear what the final product of the new national curriculum will look like or when it will be fully rolled out to schools.
The Government’s impact assessment suggests that schools may need to hire additional teachers or make adjustments to their facilities and resources, but does not suggest how much this will cost schools in terms of funding or teacher workload.
NSN recommendation:
This clause should be removed from the Bill and the Government should return to it once they have completed the Curriculum review and know the costs and implementation timetable.
School places
The problem:
The Government’s impact assessment suggests that these changes could mean that a good school are told they have fewer school places to keep a bad school open.
The changes will also mean that popular and oversubscribed schools may be unable to expand, reducing the number of good school places available. The Government’s impact assessment explicitly states this measure “could also limit the ability of popular schools to grow”.
NSN recommendation:
This clause should be removed from the Bill. Parents should be empowered to choose a good school for their child and good schools should be able to expand if there is the parental demand to do so. Creating a situation where good schools could be stopped for expanded or even forced to take fewer pupils to keep a worse performing and less popular school open is not a way to drive improvement in our school system.
Teachers pay and conditions
The problem:
Free schools and academies currently have the ability to determine their own employment contract. Some schools have longer school days or Saturday school as they deem this necessary to best support their disadvantaged students to close the attainment gap.
NSN recommendation:
The clause on conditions should be removed from the Bill so that free schools and academies do not need to have regard for standardised and centralised working conditions, thus retaining the freedom to innovate to provide what works for their schools and teachers.
Teaching Qualifications
The problem:
Some free schools or academies hire teachers who are not qualified and train them up. This would be banned under the Bill.
The Government’s own impact assessment says this could affect around 700-1,250 potential entrants a year.
There is a teacher shortage in the education system, so creating another barrier to entry at a time when the Government says it wants to recruit more teachers seems self-defeating.
NSN recommendation:
The clause should be amended so that teachers either hold QTS or are working towards it within 4 years. This retains flexibility around recruitment and recognises that free schools and academies provide training to any unqualified teacher they recruit and often support that teacher to gain QTS.
4 years aligns with the time that internationally qualified teachers are allowed to practice in the English education system before requiring QTS.
New schools
The problem:
This approach will lead to fewer free schools.
Free schools have been a mechanism for the injection of new ideas, new energy and new models of education into the state system.
Free schools can respond to parent demand, provide parents with choice over their child’s education and have driven up standards. Increasingly free schools are being proposed by Multi Academy Trusts with a strong record of delivering a high-quality education.
NSN recommendation:
This clause should be removed from the Bill. Free Schools have been a key driver of innovation and improved standards in our education system and steps should not be taken that could limit their expansion.
What can I do?
If you don’t agree with what is proposed in the Bill please speak up – your voice matters
