Caution call by Aspect on schools
Responding to the schools proposals contained in the Queen’s Speech Aspect, the school improvement and children’s services union, called for caution and an evidence-based approach.
Aspect general secretary John Chowcat said: “There are no short cuts to school improvement. It requires careful and sustainable capacity building within individual schools and colleges. Education is unavoidably complex and multi-facetted and every school needs access to high quality external support whenever necessary.
“The evidence on academies and other highly autonomous state schools to date shows sharply differing results. There is no clear pattern and the Swedish experience is that far from creating a pedagogical revival or producing efficiencies that rather costs have risen and social segregation increased.
“New types of schools proposed by the government should therefore be subject to careful pilotting and detailed evaluation of the evidence before major new programmes are confirmed.”
Notes to editors
1 Aspect is the only professional association and trade union exclusively representing professionals working in educational improvement and children’s services.
It has the largest representation of any professional body on the Soulbury Committee. These professionals play a vital role in shaping and influencing the lives of millions of children and young people.
Aspect members include advisory headteachers, directors and managers of education and children’s services, school improvement and early years advisers, education welfare officers, 14-19 coordinators, heads of Sure Start, Ofsted inspectors, Early Years Professionals, parent partnership staff and self-employed consultants. Over the past five years membership has doubled and Aspect now represents over 4,000 professionals working in the field.
2 Swedish experience http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6039807
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info@aspect.org.uk
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