The teachers' MOT is a good idea

The final White Paper package showed imagination, with the five-yearly teachers' MOT providing a surprise addition on the day. It makes sense to ensure teachers' skills are up-to-date, though it will be important that the focus is on what matters to good teaching, and not on simply reinforcing passing fads. But given the reluctance of too many governing bodies or heads to remove incompetent teachers, it is potentially a good move. And it is good that the government apparently plans to continue to publish performance table data alongside the Report Card: all the data should be on a single government website if it is genuinely to be accessible. More details are obviously needed on what is to replace the Primary Strategy in terms of quality and pressure to improve, and it remains to be seen how good School Improvement Partners are in their extended role, but with the reinforcement of the importance of trusts and academies, this is a reforming package. It places a considerable onus on the Tories now to give real detail about how they would do things differently.

Keep tests and tables

I have a column in today's Independent arguing the case for keeping primary school tests and the importance of those results continuing to be published nationally. You can read it here.

Report cards in the balance

John Dunford, the thoughtful leader of the Association of School and College Leaders, has given a measured account of the potential benefits of the Government's planned report cards for schools, at his association's annual conference.

But the ASCL has unanimously rejected the idea of grading schools on an A-E scale. However, without a simple scale with which parents can compare schools, the report cards are in danger of confusing rather than assisting with accountability.

This is not to say that report cards are without problems. Unless there is reasonable alignment between grades, minimum test and exam scores, and Ofsted inspections (which may only take place every six years) the cards could become an excuse for poor performance. Of course, a measure of progress is also important, but so are absolute results too. So, in developing the idea, it is not only important that the Government has a straightforward way of rating schools, it is equally important that schools are not able to pick and choose different ratings.