New Labour ministers want to have some early wins. But the big-ticket promises made in opposition – a curriculum review, councillors in every school and 6,500 more teachers – will take some time. So here are some quick, low-cost things the Department for Education could do now.
1. Limit guidance to Ryanair hand luggage
Schools have a duty to pay regard to all guidance issued by government. And there is too much of it, more than any headteacher could reasonably read. Ministers are often under pressure to “do something” about a problem and issuing guidance is an easy option. But it becomes unwieldy.
As schools minister I would ask for every bit of guidance concerning schools to be printed and put in a room. I would then charge the deputy directors with slimming this guidance down to a reasonable volume, perhaps the amount that could fit in Ryanair hand luggage.
2. Review curriculum – but for cutting
The level of rigour in our curriculum is right, but I’m persuaded by colleagues that in many subjects there is too much content. This leads to superficial coverage of more areas, rather than achieving the intended level of rigour. I’m also interested in evidence from exam boards that we could probably reduce the volume of examination time at GCSE without a significant impact on exam reliability.
I would launch a curriculum review, but limit its scope to only cutting things. By pledging not to introduce new requirements yet, you could act on the concerns being raised by teachers whilst giving them confidence that doing so isn’t going to increase workload. Such a review could be done rapidly and implemented by September 2025.
3. Champion flexible working …
Many sectors have benefitted from increases in flexible and home working, but teachers haven’t. Research suggests that employees value the ability to work flexibly about the same as an eight per cent salary increase.
Some schools are trying to innovate in this area. But many aren’t. Teacher Tapp recently found that two-thirds of teachers aren’t allowed to leave school premises for their PPA time.
Ministers could shift behaviour by challenging inflexible practice and championing examples of flexibility. Making this a priority would make a difference to what practice is considered acceptable.
4. … and introduce flexi pensions
Teachers receive a generous pension package with a very high employer contribution, but they must pay in a high employee contribution. So, although the benefits package of teaching is competitive, lots of it is locked up until retirement.
For younger people facing an expensive housing market this is a bad deal. I know teachers who have opted out entirely from the pension scheme to save for a house, which is profoundly unfair. I would reform the TPS so that teachers could scale up and down their employee and employer contributions and opt to take more of their pay in cash rather than pension.
5. Transparent metrics for academy decisions
We used to have a system where schools had two masters – Ofsted and performance tables. These two masters weren’t joined up, and so failure to please either one meant intervention. Damian Hinds sensibly removed the performance table thresholds that would trigger intervention in order to make more sense of this system.
But this didn’t solve the problem. Ofsted’s current framework was designed for a world where there were floor targets – in part as a counterbalance to this sole focus on outcomes. It wasn’t designed to be the only judge of a school’s performance.
And the reality is that performance metrics still matter. Regional directors and Ofsted both use them to make decisions, but how this happens is too opaque.
An explicit framework for how performance metrics feed into Ofsted is needed, and how this is then the single holistic judgement that is made of school performance.
Where regional directors make decisions in the absence of an Ofsted inspection there must be a transparent framework for what thresholds and comparisons are used. Otherwise, the system will continue to feel like the goalposts are hidden.
6. Make secondary transition key focus
The transition from primary to secondary is the moment of greatest leverage in our system. Too many children who were succeeding at primary school fall off track as they move into secondary school.
At Axiom Maths, the charity I run, we are deeply concerned about the 50 per cent of disadvantaged high attainers who stop enjoying and succeeding in maths during secondary school. But we see this across every area – not least attendance, where there is a sharp drop that occurs between Year 6 and Year 8.
Our research has found several contributing causes. There is no easy fix. But ministers can draw attention to this challenge and insist that everything the department does should be considered in light of how it improves transition.
