Well, here are the bare bones:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11822208
“Heads will get more powers over discipline and teacher training will be shaken up”
And; “Schools would be backed in introducing blazer and tie uniforms, and traditional prefect and house systems.”
Well, that’s the BBC’s take on it anyway, which is a bit bizarre!
It is also marked by an idea that ex-forces people will be able to instil “discipline” into school pupils. “Discipline” is a word that I personally hate hearing used in conjunction with the word school, unless it is the self-discipline that is needed by students to personalise their learning and to do their best. So few in government know how difficult and how much work goes into projects at GCSE and what self-discipline and denial is exercised by so many students in order to achieve in those projects. Some of the Geography work I saw from many of my old students was breath-taking! Also, the best use of ex-military personnel had very little to do with actual discipline and more to do with imaginative curriculum and superb teacher-student relationships. That was demonstrated by an organisation called “Skillforce” whom I have Quality Assured and were truly outstanding in what they were doing for their, generally low-achieving and low self-respect, students. I couldn’t recommend them more highly, but any ex-forces personnel simply have to produce quality-first teaching for our youngsters.
There are some good things in there. I do agree with having straight talks with teachers who are struggling every single day. It’s horrible to see them struggle in their classrooms, fire-fighting lesson after lesson, but some are just not cut out to be teachers whilst their peers are forming marvellous classroom relationships and working small miracles, which just seems beyond those few. There is a big world outside the classroom. Trust me, I know!
I also like the reduction in the statutory part of the National Curriculum and the idea of more freedom for headteachers – an amazing bunch of professionals who do quite ridiculous jobs. How, is often beyond me and I work with them on a daily basis, wondering as to how they do actually do the job!
What I really don’t like is the government telling schools who draw from incredibly deprived and challenged catchments to do even more and they must now get 35%+ of their pupils through a set of incredibly challenging tests at 16. These pupils desperately need success and vocational qualifications can give them that. If we remove the chance to do many of those, by restricting the curriculum and if we force very low ability pupils to effectively fail at difficult GCSEs that are irrelevant to many of them, where are we leaving them in terms of their futures?
Sometimes I almost despair, but the schools that I know are amazingly clever and resilient and they will find a way through!