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B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading) - The Student Room
B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009, Centre Party A Bill to reform secondary and tertiary education in the UK to ensure that all students have their talents nurtured and leave schools with a good standard of basic skills and the skills they need for their chosen career;
And as an important bonus, making the UK an attractive place for skilled industries to locate themselves.
Preamble
Education is panacea.
Improvements in education have been linked to lower crime, lower poverty, less inequality and greater economic growth.
However UK state education, especially at secondary level, is too-often an exercise in box ticking and jumping through hoops.
Schools are bound by a strict, formulaic system and curriculum that is good at teaching the standard C student but struggles to nurture the talents of those with less-normal aims and abilities: those who are more suited to practical tasks and the very bright students who are not pushed.
Change is needed.
Change in emphasis - what is school for?
Nurturing talent not passing exams.
Change in structure how to provide it?
By acknowledging that teachers are the experts and know best how to nurture students, but that they must be supported by facilities, by having the freedom to teach and by having a range of curriculum options.
And change in horizons that a pretty good school is not good enough, that we must demand far better and be prepared to invest the money to make it so.
This bill aims to be that change.
Lastly, we must remember that education is an investment.
Better education today means better economic growth and higher tax revenue tomorrow.
I do not argue that this is entirely self-funding, and that is why there will be more bills coming in the future to cut spending and raise tax revenue.
However this money is not being poured into a black hole, it will reap dividends in the future;
And in a recession, when demand has crashed and people, especially young people, are having trouble finding employment, what better way to stimulate the economy back into growth?
BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-
1.
Emphasis
(1) Since schools primary aim should be to ensure that all students have their talents and skills nurtured, teachers and schools are hereby allowed the freedom to innovate, and go off curriculum, to do this.
The requirement to follow the national curriculum strictly is removed, though the national curriculum stills stands as the basis from which teachers should selectively deviate.
(a) Schools are required to allow teachers enough time to innovate and nurture students.
This may involve extra-curricular teaching or putting students in contact with employers or other teachers who specialise in that area to further their interest.
This may involve extra-curricular teaching or putting students in contact with employers or other teachers who specialise in that area to further their interest.
(b) Schools are required to encourage students to talk to teachers about their interests and developing their talents, and a national campaign will be launched to make parents and students aware that their school is there to help them develop their talents and interests.
(2) Schools are allowed to stream by ability in academic subjects to any degree they like.
Formal guidance is changed to focus on ensuring that all students are appropriately taught, that the very able are stretched and that teaching is accessible to the less able.
(3) Class sizes are restricted to 25 except in exceptional circumstances, and schools should aim to get average class sizes lower.
(4) The charter for schools and guidance for representatives from the department responsible for education are amended to include a term encouraging them to talk to national and local employers to ensure that the education they offer will enable students to be prepared and have the skills required to enter work.
(5) Ofsted guidance is amended to include an assessment of schools on a holistic basis as well as by subject, and an assessment of how well schools nurture the talent and interests of their students in addition to the quality of their lessons.
2.
Years 10 and 11
(1) All students will take English and mathematics at GCSE.
These are referred to as the 'core GCSEs'.
(a) In Welsh language schools Welsh will also be a core GCSE.
(2) Comprehensive schools are required to offer the following options for students in year 10 and 11 in addition to the core GCSEs: to take more GCSEs as currently to take an accelerated academic programme (if the school also offers A levels, see 3(c)) to take practical qualifications.
(a) Students can combined options from these, but must, as a minimum, study for 5 GCSEs or the core GCSEs plus a practical qualification or an accelerated academic qualification.
(b) Schools are allowed to set minimum requirements for entry onto accelerated academic programmes.
(c) To fulfil this requirement it is expected that most schools within a local education authority will offer
(3) An accelerated academic programme will lead to an A level or similar qualification, to be taken over between two and three years.
They are designed for students who wish to study additional A levels or who wish to go to university a year earlier with a similar number of A levels as present.
They will require a similar minimum workload to 3 or 4 GCSEs.
(a) Schools can decide which subjects to offer accelerated academic programmes in, subject to offering at least one science, at least one language and at least one humanity.
(b) Schools are free to structure these as they see fit.
(c) If a school does not offer A levels they can decide not to offer accelerated academic programmes, however they must ensure that students who wish to pursue these can do so elsewhere.
(4) An exam board, the Practical Qualifications Authority (PQA) will be set up to launch a range of practical, skills-based qualifications, called Practical Certificates of Education (PCEs).
These will be broad qualifications of a similar minimum workload to 3 or 4 GCSEs.
Options that will be launched from the outset will be: electrical engineering mechanical engineering business, finance and accountancy information technology social work performing arts.
(a) Schools must offer at least two of these.
Local education authorities must ensure that at least four are offered within the area accessible to every student.
(b) These qualifications must include at least one month of full-time work experience relevant to the subject.
This can be done during the school term if other studies permit, or during the summer break, or at any other time.
3.
Post-16 Education
(1) National Vocational Qualifications will be revamped to make them more inline with employers and students needs.
This will be done by a review of the curriculum aimed at making them a better preparation for work and allowing flexibility in the degree of specialisation.
In addition, there will be a compulsory work placement of at least three months in an area relevant to the subject.
(2) A review into A levels will be launched to make them more inline with universities and students needs.
This review will be wide-ranging review, with the aim of devising a qualification that acts as good preparation for degree-level studies, that is challenging enough to help top universities distinguish between the top candidates while remaining accessible to candidates not aiming for the top universities.
One option the review will examine is whether taking IB SL or HL courses as standalone courses could supplant A levels.
4.
Post-18 Education
(1) The government will launch a practical degree qualification and will encourage universities to offer them, by providing funding for them.
Practical degrees will be aimed at providing the skills needed to perform technical, skilled jobs and appealing to students wanting a degree more-focused towards practical tasks and employment.
The government will work closely with a wide range of employers and universities to ensure such degrees meet this requirement and are challenging for students.
Whereas academic degrees are focused on the academics and teach practical methods where necessary to do this, practical degrees will be focused on the task or vocation and will teach academic studies where necessary to compliment this.
These degrees should involve a year-long placement in industry.
(2) Universities will be encouraged to reclassify degrees in accountancy and finance, business, media, design, architecture and other practically- or vocationally-focused degrees into practical degrees.
Doing as such will remove the requirements for these degrees to be strictly academic and will give universities more freedom to focus the degrees towards a vocation, as described in (1).
(3) The government target of getting 50% of young people into university is scrapped.
5.
Finance
(1) The education budget will be raised by £15 billion, from the current £75.7 billion, to meet these aims.
This will be reviewed in 2012 to see if it has been enough to reach this and if it is all necessary.
(2) Some of this funding will be used to launch a new national teacher training initiative to try to meet the increased demand for teachers, especially teachers of practical qualifications, that this will cause.
(a) This will be accompanied by a marketing campaign to raise awareness of teaching as a career option and let people know that red tape is being cut and teachers are being allowed the freedom to teach and innovate.
(b) The government will provide £10,000 per teacher in support for Teach First to expand the number of teachers they recruit, up to 1000 teachers per year.
(c) The government will provide extra training for teachers working in schools classified by Ofsted as failing and will provide one-off payments of £2000 to teachers deemed 'exceptional' by Ofsted who wish to work in such schools.
The government will also pay a bonus to teachers in these schools of up to £2000 per year linked to improvements in their students' performance.
(3) In the short term this funding will come from the capital spending and employment portions of the stimulus package.
In the long term this funding will partly pay for itself through higher tax revenue, with the rest coming from either borrowing, increased tax revenue or reduced spending as the commons sees fit.
The method of funding will be reviewed in each budget.
6.
Commencement, short title and extent
(1) This Act may be cited as the Education Reform Bill 2009.
(2) Section 5 of this Act shall come into force immediately.
Sections 1, 3(2) and 4 will come into force on 1 September 2010.
All other sections will come into force on 1 September 2011.
(3) This Act extends to all parts of The United Kingdom except Scotland.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
note:
Quote: : by Drogue introducing the second reading As you can see, I've made some changes to this bill following feedback from the first reading.
However there are a few contraversial items I have kept, at least in some degree, and I'd like to explain why.
Firstly, I've made accelerated programmes only compulsory to be offered by schools if they offer A levels already, to avoid the need to take on an entirely new function and retrain significant numbers of staff.
However I feel these are absolutely critical.
Far from the honorable Collingwood's assertion that the benefit is small, the key is ensuring that all students stay connected and appropriately challenged by their education.
Very bright students will not be challenged by GCSEs, thus something must be there to challenge them.
It must be an option available to all, even if some schools do not offer it.
Moreover in order to keep schools comprehensive, it is not acceptable to myself or many other contributors to this bill for LEAs to hive off these courses onto grammar-like schools that remove the most able students from the comprehensive system.
Secondly, I have elaborated on the section on practical degrees, to try to show the difference more clearly.
Universities do not do a good job of providing students with the skills needed for most graduate jobs, especially skilled, practical and technical vocations.
The aim is to free universities up to classify things in different ways and make it clear to prospective applicants what type of course different ones are.
Management can currently be studied as a theoretical degree or a far more practical degree with a year in industry.
This distinction aims to make it more obvious which of those options a course at a particular university is.
With the current emphasis, driven by students, of getting employment out of their degree, there is much demand for this sort of degree.
Moreover, with the push in this bill to have more credible practical options from 14-18, it provides a clear place to go if students want to extend their practical education further.
As to using exams, coursework or other methods of grading, I leave that to the experts - the universities.
Lastly on finance.
I've been clearer on where the money will come from.
I feel without a budget it's not possible to be much clearer.
However I would stress that all spending much be looked at every year, not just new proposals, as some current spending is far more questionable, in my mind.
Moreover, TSR has significantly higher tax than in real life, and it is the my view, and one shared by much of my party, that the stimulus was not large enough.
The key to getting out of a recession is spending money sensibly, but spending significant quantities of it.
I wrote a note a while ago that, while we didn't want to return to boom-time spending, we needed a stimulus of around £125bn to keep employment at a little over 5%, slightly higher than the estimated long-term equilibrium rate.
The UK government stimulus was $40.8, less than 1/3 this amount and at 1.5% of GDP, far less than the US (5.9%), Germany (3.4%), Japan (2.2%) and many other countries.
This despite the UK having the lowest debt as a percentage of GDP of any G7 country except Canada.
We can afford it, we need it, and this is the best way to spend it, being valuable investment spending that will reap dividends for years to come.
I welcome comments on how to improve this bill.
I feel especially on areas around improving teacher quality, the detail of the new qualifications and how to ensure that students get the options and the choice they need to make their education relevant for them without putting undue burden on schools to provide unnecessary options.
With this in mind, I commend this bill to the house.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
In Section 5 (f), how would you rate "exceptional" teachers?
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : In Section 5 (f), how would you rate "exceptional" teachers?
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : I'm guessing you mean Section 5(2)(c)?
If so they'd be rated by Ofsted as currently, taking into account comments made by students, senior staff and other teachers, but with amended criteria as per Section 1(5).
A bit like employees of many private companies are rated for bonuses, but with Ofsted acting as the judge.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : All right - just that the section's a bit arbitrary on how these performances should be rated.
My suggestion would've been a ratings system based on, for instance, median A level grades in the teacher's class.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Yeah, that's a **** way of testing performance.
Teachers don't actually make or break A Level grades, hard work does.
Teachers should not be on performance related pay, they should be given the breathing space to teach and inspire, not worry about the arbitrary nature of examination results and whether they might then fail to make their next mortgage payment.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : I agree with your point about not having teachers be dependent on exam results regarding their pay, but I think schools should incentivize the better teachers, who usually end up in private or academically excellent state schools, to also look towards the lower end of the state sector and see how they can help there.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
I personally don't think Welsh should ever, ever, ever be regarded as a 'core' subject.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Let's start by not calling it the "lower end"???
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : I personally don't think Welsh should ever, ever, ever be regarded as a 'core' subject.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Enter the PC brigade.
Can't we call things that which they are?
The state sector schools which are performing below the norm.
You clobbered me well enough in the bar over my (rather idiotic) lapse regarding social democracy vs.
Democratic socialism.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : It has the same legal status as English here...
And that is only in Welsh-medium schools where Welsh is taught in the manner that English is taught in English-medium schools.
It continues the practice that already exists.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : My bad.
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Originally Posted by cardozo EDIT: and you've added more which is a load of pish because my mums welsh and speaks it fluently, so as above.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Then you should know better and not be quite so xenophobic.
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Why are you so belligerent?
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Because it's total what you originally did say and even your defense of your misreading.
Why would it be terrible for welsh-language schools across the border to teach Welsh as a core GCSE?
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : ...
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Re: B203 - Education Reform Bill 2009 (second reading)
Quote: : Are you completely birdbrained!?
I'll make it a little bit easier for you.
I missread that this applied to all welsh schools .
Infact is applies to all welsh speaking schools .
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