Over the past few months, we’ve run a series of pieces from contributors for our Reducing Demand for Government series. Here is a list of proposals made by various authors under the schools heading:
- “We must get more of the weakest schools into good [Multi-Academy Trusts], and quickly.” (Mark Lehain)
- “Push through the changes that are needed to fix the care and special education needs systems.” (Mark Lehain)
- “[Push] consistency over the policies which we know work for all children everywhere.” (Jonathan Simons)
- “We need a focus on more schools in [Multi-Academy Trusts].” (Jonathan Simons)
- “State schools should be privatized. If they were sold to profit-seekers competing for paying customers, education would benefit from the innovation and efficiency that characterise customers.” (Jamie Whyte)
- “Short of private funding solutions (such as borrowing against future income), the state need only give the poor enough money to buy an education from a private supplier.” (Jamie Whyte)
- “Restoring the number of teaching support staff to year 2000 levels would deliver savings of approximately £5bn annually.” (Iain Mansfield)
- “A 20 per cent pay rise for teachers would be a game-changer. It would cost £3.5 billion annually which, as we have shown, is eminently affordable within the existing school budget.” (Iain Mansfield)
- “Switching 10 per cent of remuneration from pension contributions to core salary would fund half the increase… The remaining 10 per cent would be funded by school efficiencies – particularly through a reduction in teaching support staff.” (Iain Mansfield)
- “Schools that made greater savings would be permitted, if desired, to recycle all or part of this into an even larger uplift”. (Iain Mansfield)
- “We need to boost participation in extracurricular activities.” (Adam Hawksbee)
- “We can unlock a reserve army of community groups to boost the provision of these activities through a new enrichment premium.” (Adam Hawksbee)
- “Oracy programmes, such as debating clubs or speechmaking competitions, should be a more central part of our approach to education.” (Adam Hawksbee)
- “We should get parents more involved with schools”. (Adam Hawksbee)
- “A new mass-participation national civic service scheme for young people.” (Adam Hawksbee)
- “A National Parental Participation Strategy that will create a new duty for all schools to truly make parents partners in education.” (Andy Cook)
- “Offer courses of combined financial and maths skills to every single low-skilled adult.” (Andy Cook)
- “Roll out attendance mentors to return the nation’s kids to the classroom.” (Andy Cook)
- “To raise standards we must empower “teachers to teach and pupils to learn”.” (Tim Clark)
- “An immediate willingness to take teachers’ concerns seriously – and that certainly did not require advocating the scrapping of inspections – would have gone a long way to making teachers feel valued and that their views were respected.” (Tim Clark)
- “More experienced personnel in one school mentoring a more junior colleague holding the same position in another school, or more opportunities to observe lessons outside one’s own school.” (William Prescott)
- “Struggling schools could be encouraged to develop more effective partnerships on school-to-school and community levels.” (William Prescott)
- “By ensuring an adequate gap between [Ofsted] inspections and carrying them out in a more consistent way, schools could gain more with the same, or potentially less, resources.” (William Prescott)
- “Independent schools choosing to convert to free schools should be allowed to retain existing selective admissions arrangements; at present, the law requires such schools to adopt comprehensive admissions when they stop charging fees.” (Graham Brady)
- “Propose some pilot new selective schools in areas of low educational attainment; this would provide more opportunity in communities where too much talent is wasted.” (Graham Brady)
- “We should scrap the 1998 ban on opening new grammar schools.” (Graham Brady)