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Teachers face five-year licensing Teachers facing 5-year 'MOT test'
(about 2 hours later)
Teachers in England will need licences to practise which will have to be renewed every five years, under government plans. Teachers in England will need licences to work in the classroom which will have to be renewed every five years, under government plans.
The idea, to weed out weak teachers, is among plans in an education White Paper that will form the basis of new laws. The proposal, intended to weed out weak teachers, is included in an education White Paper announced by Children's Secretary Ed Balls.
These will also give children a right to personalised tuition if they falter in their learning. There is also a guarantee of personalised tuition for all pupils who have fallen behind in English or maths.
There will also be "report cards" summarising schools' performances - an American idea, like renewable licences. Mr Balls said there was a "moral imperative" to support every child.
The package of measures was announced by the Children's Secretary Ed Balls as he published a White Paper entitled Your Child, Your Schools, Our Future: Building a 21st Century Schools System. The children's secretary said the White Paper, Building a 21st Century Schools System, was based on three principles - "new guarantees for pupils and parents, a significant devolution of power to school leaders ... and an uncompromising approach to school improvement".
'Not a problem' 'MOT test'
The renewable licence will be introduced from September 2010 for newly-qualified teachers and those who have been out of the classroom for some time. The licence to teach, to be introduced for newly-qualified teachers from September 2010, is intended to "boost the status of the profession".
WHITE PAPER: KEY POINTS Licence to teachTougher home-school agreementsSchool report cardsAccredited school groupsNew progress check in Year 7WHITE PAPER: KEY POINTS Licence to teachTougher home-school agreementsSchool report cardsAccredited school groupsNew progress check in Year 7
To remain licensed, teachers will have to demonstrate that they have "up-to-date skills and learning to be effective in the classroom". Without a licence, teachers will be unable to teach - but Mr Balls said he did not have any indication of how many teachers would fail the five-yearly assessment, which will be carried out by head teachers.
The assessments would be carried out by head teachers in conjunction with the General Teaching Council for Teachers, with which all teachers already have to register. "It would be foolish to speculate about numbers," said Mr Balls.
Mr Balls told reporters: "This is not a problem we are addressing, although it may be that we will discover some teachers who do not make the grade and some who aren't re-licensed." Teachers' union leaders were divided over the plan.
The general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, Chris Keates, said licensing could give qualified teacher status "the long overdue recognition that it is a high status qualification" like those in medicine and law. National Union of Teachers leader Christine Blower was against the check: "We don't think this is necessary at all."
"As for the five-year 'MOT', it is already NASUWT policy that head teachers who do not have regular contact with the classroom have to renew their qualified teacher status every five years. But Chris Keates of the NASUWT said the licensing scheme would give teachers "the long overdue recognition that it is a high status qualification".
"The priority for the first phase of the rollout of the licence should be those who have been out of touch with the classroom for some time."
School 'brands'School 'brands'
It also calls for high performing schools and education providers to take over their less successful neighbours, creating chains of schools with a shared "brand" identity. The proposals also included details of how the school report card, which gives parents information about how well schools are performing, will be introduced.
Ed Balls: "We will introduce a licence to teach, similar to other high status professions"
Mr Balls said that schools would be given a single grade - A to D - based on a series of measures ranging from test results and the social background of the intake, pupils' views, attendance and pupils' "well-being".
These report cards, to be piloted from this autumn, will be published nationally for all England's schools - alongside the test result league tables.
The White Paper also stresses the concept of parents' having legally-enforceable guarantees in school provision, such as the amount of sport available each week.
Mr Balls said this would be similar to the way that school admissions codes had become statutory.
Michael Gove: "The prime minister promised these things and failed to deliver"
Among the services that will become a legal right will be access to one-to-one and small group teaching for children who have failed to reach the expected levels in English and maths.
The success of this scheme will be monitored by sampling the ability of these pupils in the first year of secondary school who have received the extra catch-up lessons.
The White Paper also calls for high performing schools and education providers to take over their less successful neighbours, creating chains of schools with a shared "brand" identity.
There will be a list of successful schools and organisations accredited to set up such chains - which would mean groups of primary and secondary schools with similar uniforms and brand names under a single executive head teacher.There will be a list of successful schools and organisations accredited to set up such chains - which would mean groups of primary and secondary schools with similar uniforms and brand names under a single executive head teacher.
The report cards for schools are seen as a future alternative to school league tables as a way for parents to judge schools. They will be piloted from September. 'Gimmicks'
In a move that will dismay head teachers, the cards will bear a single overall grade. Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said: "Ed Balls has refused to give teachers the powers they need to deal with violence and disruption, such as removing the restrictions on teachers removing disruptive pupils.
They will rate schools in the context of their social intake and on measures of behaviour and attendance, as well as on test results. "He rejected our plan to give teachers the power to search for banned items. He rejected our plan to let schools make parent contracts compulsory."
There will also be plans to allow parents of unruly pupils to be taken to court by schools. Dismissing the proposals as "new gimmicks", he added: "Instead, he has opted for a one-to-one tuition programme that was ineffective - and over budget - when piloted, and a 'September Guarantee' for which the funding doesn't stack up."
This will support existing home-school agreements, which set out what is expected of parents and their children in the education system. Mr Balls also announced that his department was going to intervene to improve children's services in Milton Keynes. He also spoke of concerns over progress in Leicester, Gloucestershire and Blackpool.
Progress checks
There will also be guarantees for pupils and parents over what schools provide, in areas such as access to individual tuition, a weekly quota of sports lessons and education and training places for 16-year-olds.
A "progress check" will be introduced in Year 7, the first year of secondary school, for those starting below expectations.
A national sample of teachers' judgements of how pupils are doing will measure the overall progress of the year group.
The idea of renewable licences for teachers and supply teachers is the most radical proposal, and the one which had not been trailed in advance in some form.
It is the way teachers and "substitutes" are regulated in the United States, though as with most things in the US school system the requirements vary from state to state.
Mr Balls visited New York and New Jersey last March, primarily to see how report cards were being used to grade schools.