ATL’S EDUCATION
MANIFESTO
Our young people urgently need the skills and knowledge to enable this country’s economy to grow. Failure to develop these areas will leave Britain unable to compete with the other advanced economies and we will be left behind in the global market. In order to prosper, it is vital our schools and colleges offer the highest quality education, led by the best and most experienced education professionals. This manifesto looks forward therefore to a new deal for students and education staff. ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
ATL, the education union, works with its teacher, lecturer, support staff and leader members to achieve high standards of education. Our manifesto is written at a time of profound change. The world of work has been transformed by a communication revolution which has overturned the way knowledge is accessed, the way information is disseminated, the way skills are developed and the way working patterns are adapting.
WE WANT… …an ongoing dialogue with decision-makers to share the knowledge and experience which forms our vision for education.
Our education system cannot ignore the consequences for everyone involved – those who teach and those who learn – if we fail to rise to the challenge of change. ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
OUR PRIORITIES
1
Children and young people need a broad and balanced curriculum which focuses on skills development as well as academic excellence and prepares them for life. The CBI has called England’s schools ‘exam factories’. So many exams are taken that the system is creaking. Schools have lost faith in the ability of exam boards to award the right grades and appeals have risen. Yet the coalition government’s return to an over-reliance on testing through final exams which will assess just a small part of pupils’ achievements and its drive to promote a narrowly academic curriculum will ignore the skills and attributes young people need to live fulfilled personal and professional lives. ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
WE WANT… …young people to gain qualifications which assess both academic knowledge and its practical application. We want to develop and assess the skills that employers say they need: communication and analytical skills; IT skills; creativity; interpersonal skills; resilience; a strong work ethic; and empathy.
Young people need a stake in society. The transition from school to further and higher education and to the world of work must be helped through financial support and excellent careers information and guidance. More than one million young people are unemployed. Those that are in work too often suffer from low pay and job insecurity. The coalition government has starved the FE sector of funding, created inequality in school and FE sector pay, and has made it more difficult for disadvantaged young people to continue their education and training. The loss of the Education Maintenance Allowance, the cut in funding for 18-yearolds in full-time education, the new student loans and fees system and the abolition of the national careers service are all actions of a government that is not investing in the nation’s most precious resource – its young people. We are in danger of losing a generation because they feel that they have no stake in society; a lost generation with no access to the life their parents could reasonably hope for – decent work, a family and the possibility of making a mature contribution to the good of society.
2 WE WANT… …to forge a new deal for young people so they have a productive future in our society. We want to restore financial support and careers advice so young people understand education is the most powerful route to improving their life chances.
ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
3 Public money for the education of children and young people should not be used to make profits for private companies or individuals who run our schools. State education is one of this country’s success stories. For every excellent academy promoted by ministers there’s an equally excellent local authority school. Our further and higher education institutions continue to punch above their weight, generating billions for the economy despite being asked to do more with less funding. Yet the coalition government is dismantling state education, and public money which should be used to educate our children is being diverted into the hands of shareholders and highly paid chief executives. Evidence shows nearly £80 million has been spent on legal, accountancy, recruitment, property services and other consultancy fees connected with academy conversions. The ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
coalition government has also diverted at least £637 million from the education budget to set up free schools which educate fewer than 22,000 pupils – including spending £45 million on the proposed establishment of a free sixth form college in Westminster despite the lack of need. Yet cases of financial mismanagement and poor educational standards in free schools and academies keep coming to light, demonstrating the impact of the loss of local oversight. While free school and academy sponsors may lose their schools, the real victims of their failure are the young people whose life chances rely on a high quality education.
WE WANT… …an end to schools, colleges and universities being run for profit, either directly or indirectly. We want publicly-funded education institutions to be democratically accountable to their local communities with fully transparent funding and governance structures, including a register of interest to prevent indirect profit-making by private companies and individuals.
Education professionals need a better working life with an end to unjust attacks. It is now recognised that the quality of teaching is the single most important factor in raising standards of learning. Yet, as a nation, we treat our education staff badly. The profession’s workload has rocketed as its morale has plummeted. Constant negative criticism by the media and illinformed comments by politicians have left the profession battered and bruised. The loss of the requirement for teachers to have qualified teacher status (QTS), piecemeal approaches to continuing professional development (CPD) and increasing challenges around recruiting heads – because their jobs are as secure as their last Ofsted judgement – mean teaching is becoming less attractive as a career choice and 40% of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within five years. We are facing a huge increase in pupil numbers. Yet the coalition government’s rush towards school-based teacher training means there’s no longer a nationwide system for ensuring there are enough trainees in the right subjects in the right places. Soon we will face a teacher shortage.
WE WANT… …a return to a nationwide system of teacher training where students gain a professional qualification awarded by an institution which is focused on giving trainees the broadest preparation for a career in teaching.
WE WANT… …teachers to maintain their skills and knowledge through a contractual right to CPD with some control over its content, dedicated time to research their subject, to learn with expert colleagues and to feel free to innovate – all to the benefit of their students.
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Teachers need an end to excessive working hours and a genuine career path through a national pay structure. Recent DfE analysis shows that primary teachers work around 60 hours a week and school leaders even longer. This is not sustainable for staff and means pupils do not receive the high quality education they deserve. Much of this work is bureaucracy not connected to teaching and learning, and stems from a lack of trust in teachers’ professionalism: detailed lesson planning; supplying vast quantities of data for inspections and assessments; and assembling evidence for the new performance pay structure. We want the accountability and assessment systems to be slimmed down so teachers can teach.
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Scrapping the national pay structure will create a potential for 20,000 different pay mechanisms – one for each school – and open up the prospect of nepotism and discrimination, as well as making financial transparency a virtual impossibility.
WE WANT… …the restoration of a consistent national pay structure for teachers so they can plan their future in teaching, with sufficient local flexibility that enables heads to manage their schools fairly. As part of the education team, we want support staff to have a national pay framework and we want an end to exploitative conditions such as term-time-only contracts.
Schools need a proper accountability system based on collaboration and support, with local inspection arrangements and a new role for Ofsted. The current accountability system for schools is not working. Ofsted is no longer trusted to make accurate and reliable judgements on individual schools and requires radical reform. As a nation we are spending over £157 million a year on an inspection agency which has endemic internal quality control problems. Until school leaders can focus on much wider education outcomes than just those which can be understood by poor quality Ofsted inspectors, we will not develop the highest quality education system. Higher standards can be built only if the expertise of teachers and leaders is fostered in an environment of professional respect, appropriate challenge and clear accountability. The effect of London Challenge in transforming the capital’s schools from the lowest to the highest performing state schools in the country shows what can be achieved when schools collaborate rather than compete.
6 WE WANT… …a local accountability system where schools are required to work together to share good practice, and local partners provide support, with a new role for Ofsted to evaluate these local arrangements.
ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
And finally, a message to politicians Education policy-making has been marked by impatient politicians who have wanted simple answers to complex questions, by selective use of evidence and by political interference in professional issues which should be left to professionals’ judgement. Higher-performing education systems, in contrast, are characterised by policy coherence, long-term goals and proper consultation with a range of stakeholders including parents, employers and education professionals. These systems invest in staff through high quality initial training and entitlement to effective continuing professional development. Time taken to build consensus with the profession, who want to be worked with, rather than done to, is time well spent. Education matters: talk to us ATL’S EDUCATION MANIFESTO
Talk to us Visit our website for more information:
atl.org.uk/shapeeducation Email us:
shapeeducation@atl.org.uk Join the debate:
#ShapeEducation @ATLUnion @ATL_AMiE
Transition from school to FE, HE and work needs financial support and excellent careers guidance Education and students’ futures need to be prioritised over profit Education professionals need an end to excessive working hours and a genuine career path through a national pay structure and CPD Schools and colleges need an accountability system based on collaboration, with local inspection and a new role for Ofsted
ATL/PR55
Young people need an assessment system and a curriculum that are broad and balanced