Memorandum submitted by the General Teaching
Council for England (GTCE)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The GTCE's work on accountability in
teaching suggests the importance of a number of key themes for
consideration: accountability needs to make a stronger
contribution to practice improvement; the concept of professional
accountability to the public interest needs to be strengthened;
as schools build further capacity and
provide opportunities for children and young people, and their
parents to be more active partners in learning, there may be more
scope for schools to pursue locally determined outcomes, and
there needs to be some rebalancing of
the different spheres of accountability.
The proposal that satisfactory schools
are inspected every three years is reasonable. The GTCE does not
support unannounced inspections.
The more adept schools are at self-evaluation,
the greater case they will make for setting their own priorities
on the basis of sound evidence and the perspectives of their stakeholders.
The Government should give schools greater
responsibility for accounting to parents via the school profile
(and its successors) on individual and collective pupil progress.
School self-evaluation could have a stronger
focus on well-being, and tackling inequalities. The proposed changes
to the relationship between children's trusts, children and young
people's plans and schools provide an impetus for a clearer focus
at the local level on school's contribution to wider shared
goals for children and young people.
The limitations of contextual value added
(CVA) scores need to be recognised if they are not to have an
unfairly negative impact on schools working with some of the most
disadvantaged children and young people.
It is unlikely that a single tool can
meet the necessarily diverse accountability needs of all stakeholders.
However, the GTCE supports the focus in the School Report Card
on the school's contribution to narrowing achievement gaps and
the desire to encapsulate schools' impact on learning and wider
outcomes for children and young people.
INTRODUCTION
1. The General Teaching Council for England
(GTCE) is the independent professional body for the teaching profession.
Its main duties are to register and regulate the teaching profession
and to advise the Secretary of State on a range of issues that
concern teachers, teaching and learning. The Council acts in the
public interest to contribute to raising standards of teaching
and learning and the standing of the teaching profession.
2. Through its register of teachers, its code
of conduct and practice and its responsibilities for safeguarding
competence and conduct, the Council is itself a player in the
accountability framework.
3. The Select Committee's focus is the accountability
of schools. The GTCE has contributed to the public debate about
school accountability, has submitted advice in this area to the
Secretary of State and gave written and oral evidence to a previous
Select Committee inquiry on the related subject of assessment.
We draw on this material to answer some of the key questions of
this inquiry. The primary focus of this evidence document is accountability
for teaching, for teachers' and schools' contributions to wider
outcomes for children and young people, and on the relationships
between "account-givers" and service users in education.
GTCE WORK ON
ACCOUNTABILITY IN
TEACHING
4. The GTCE is currently undertaking a project
on the future of accountability. It is drawing on research and
testimony about the existing framework, evidence from other professions,
and developments in local accountability for children's services,
as well as material associated with the Government's wider agenda
for the reform of public services. We will keep the Select Committee
informed of its outcomes. We expect our initial thinking to have
been developed by the end of 2009 after a broad consultation
with service users (children and young people and parents), teachers
and wider stakeholders.
5. On the basis of work undertaken to date, the
following themes are emerging as issues that the Council will
wish to explore and which the Select Committee may wish to consider.
5.1 The public interest requires an effective
framework of accountability but meeting accountability requirements
inevitably places demands on resources. It is desirable therefore
that accountability should make a stronger contribution to practice
improvement, as well as to scrutiny. This might be achieved if
scrutiny of teaching practicewhether via external school
inspection or other meansbecame less of a sporadic, stand
alone intervention. A continuing relationship between teachers/schools
and an external source of challenge and support and which focuses
on improvement might achieve this rebalancing. There is a parallel
here with the need to ensure that assessment is primarily concerned
with supporting pupil learning rather than passing judgements
on schools.
5.2 Teachers need greater clarity about their
role in a time of change. To this end the GTCE is consulting on
a revised code of conduct and practice which is intended to be
more widely used and understood not only by teachers but also
by children and young people, parents and other stakeholders in
teaching. It will set out the expectations that the public can
legitimately have of teachers and that teachers have of themselves.
In this way the concept of professional accountability to the
public interest can be strengthened. The GTCE is also looking
at options for active registration (sometimes referred to in other
professions as revalidation, continuing registration or licence
to practise) as a possible means by which the currency of teachers'
good standing and professional development can be assured and
outcomes for pupils enhanced.
5.3 Parental engagement has a positive impact
on children's educational outcomes, and pupils benefit from opportunities
to shape their own learning. Schools are already developing their
capacity to provide opportunities for children and young people,
and their parents to be more active partners in learning. Accountability
may need to reflect this change in emphasis, with more scope for
schools to pursue locally determined outcomes and to give an account
of variance through self evaluation or by other means. Ownership
and engagement of users in services is likely to be stronger if
their views about what matters in the provision of services are
reflected in the accountability framework. The GTCE welcomes recent
developments in school accountability such as proportionate inspection,
the use of contextual value added (CVA) data, and the use of school
self-evaluation as a starting point for external evaluation. We
will look at whether it is feasible or desirable for accountability
to be more responsive to specific local circumstances.
5.4 There is a case for rebalancing the different
spheres of accountability. The emphasis on institutional accountability
at the school level is at variance with the Government's vision
for 21st century schools that work towards shared outcomes in
partnerships. Schools need to be held to account for their "core
business" and for their collaborative contribution to children's
well-beingbut not in a way that implies that they are responsible
for outcomes beyond their control. As the relationship between
schools and children's trusts and of schools to the formulation
of the children and young people's plan becomes stronger, this
may provide the means by which schools can give an account of
their contribution to wider outcomes within their locality.
GTCE SURVEY
OF TEACHERS
2009
6. The GTCE has commissioned a survey seeking
teachers' views on the current systems that hold teachers and
schools to account. The survey will explore teachers' opinions
on the purpose of accountability; what they feel most accountable
for; how effective the current systems for accountability are;
and how a reformed system might look. The GTCE is happy to share
the outcomes of this work with the Select Committee in July 2009.
7. In addition, the GTCE has commissioned some
qualitative research on related themes with teachers across the
country. The focus of these discussions will be teachers' day-to-day
experience of accountability; their perspectives on the balance
between local and national level accountability; their views on
the impact that current systems have on both teaching standards
and pupil learning; and their ideas for reforming the system.
8. The groups will also explore teachers'
perceptions of "professional accountability" and the
relationship between professional development and being a registered
teacher. Teachers will discuss the implications and potential
benefits for pupil learning of introducing a requirement for teachers
to "re-validate" their skills and expertise as part
of their professional registration.
THE SELECT
COMMITTEE'S
INQUIRY QUESTIONS
Inspection
Proportionate inspection
9. The Council has consistently supported
the proportionate approach to inspection developed since 2004 as
part of the wider New Relationship with Schools (NRwS)
framework. It is more effective and more cost-effective than what
preceded it. The proportionate inspection model depends crucially
on the ability to place schools into categories. The proposed
clarification from Ofsted on grading criteria for all categories
is critical to better public understanding of inspection judgments.
For grade 3 schools, it is vital to have clarity about their
performance and what the capacity to improve actually means for
them.
Frequency of inspections
10. The GTCE supports the proposition that
good and outstanding schools should be subject to less frequent
inspection so that Ofsted can focus resources on the inspection
of schools deemed less than satisfactory, including those in special
measures or with a notice to improve.
11. The proposal that satisfactory schools are
inspected every three years is reasonable. Ofsted could usefully
do more to clarify its perspectives on "satisfactory"
schools as head teachers report continuing perceptions of sub-divisions
within the category. Schools would also welcome transparency about
which "satisfactory" schools will receive a follow up
visit. School improvement partners are well placed to contribute
evidence about schools at risk of falling below the "satisfactory"
category.
Notice of inspections
12. The GTCE does not support unannounced
inspections and cautions that if Ofsted goes ahead with this proposition
careful impact assessment will be essential.
Training of inspectors
13. The GTCE's recent advice on the implementation
of the race equality duty says that schools need more support
to promote equality and meet the equality duties. It advocates
mandatory training and development for all Ofsted inspectors on
inspecting race equality. This should be refreshed on a regular
basis, and clearer guidance provided to head teachers and governors
on the expected evidence and areas of questioning during inspection.
School self-evaluation
14. The Council's 2004 policy advice to
the Secretary of State on school self-evaluation (SSE) recommended
that for the majority of schools, institutional improvement should,
over time, rely less on external inspections and more on self-evaluative
processes which could be quality assured with a lighter external
touch than the Section 10 inspection framework. The Council
welcomes the developments that have taken place in this direction.
15. The GTCE welcomes Ofsted's acknowledgement
that schools have "increasing confidence in the ways in
which (they) use performance data to establish their priorities
and evaluate their progress". This is a finding of the
2006 NFER evaluation of Section 5 inspections, commissioned
by Ofsted, in which participants identified an improvement in
school self-evaluation and the role of the self-evaluation framework
in contributing to that improvement. It is confirmed by HMCI in
her annual report (2007-08). The 2008 York Consulting evaluation
report on the New Relationship with Schools (NRwS) commissioned
by the DCSF found that where it is done well, school self-evaluation
has led to more focused accountability for improvement in performance
among middle managers and teaching staff.
16. The same evaluation also reports that the
self evaluation form (SEF) is still often completed in a descriptive
rather than an evaluative way. Schools may benefit from greater
exposure, in an appropriate form, to some of the work on resultsor
outcomes-based accountability that is now being widely used in
local authorities. It is thought to have focused attention on
outcomes as distinct from inputs and activities, and on user perspectives
of success.
17. The more adept schools are at self-evaluation,
the greater case they will make for setting their own priorities
on the basis of sound evidence and the perspectives of their stakeholders.
This will need to be reflected in school accountability and more
generally in the ways in which local and national government and
agencies offer support and challenge to schools.
National Tests
18. The GTCE welcomes the removal of Key
Stage 3 testing and hopes that it will lead to further reforms
to the assessment system, because of the impact on children's
learning, well being and their access to a broad and balanced
curriculum.
19. As part of the school's accountability to
its stakeholders, parents and pupils should be entitled to be
fully and regularly informed about progress and attainment, with
information being wider than a report of levels and grades. Information
must be provided in a timely way so that it can be used as the
basis for any improvement strategy.
20. As part of the New Relationship with
Schools (NRwS), the GTCE believes that the Government should give
schools with greater responsibility for accounting to parents
via the school profile (and its successors) on individual and
collective pupil progress. This would include assessment information
and draw on school self-evaluation and inspection findings. The
GTCE is committed to this school-derived model of accountability
and believes that it will be of more value to parents than the
de-contextualised and incomplete comparisons between schools that
are published in performance tables.
21. The increased investment in assessment
for learning, the use of an increasing range of assessment tests/tasks
by teachers, and the development of moderation processes in schools
would provide the means for teachers to develop a relationship
with parents based on a richer and better informed dialogue.
Schools' contribution to wider well-being among
children and young people
22. The GTCE welcomes Government recognition
of the role of effective teaching and learning in influencing
ECM outcomes, such as increasing resilience, raising expectations
and reducing disaffection among children and young people. It
also welcomes the acknowledgement[1]
that schools cannot be held singularly accountable for outcomes
over which they have limited or only indirect influence; for example
child obesity or teenage pregnancy rates.
23. The GTCE is concerned that the well-being
indicators proposed will make it difficult to factor out other
influences in order to evaluate the contribution of the school.
As it stands, it is not clear that the indicators could adequately
capture the multiplicity of factors affecting outcomes. National
benchmarking based on these indicators would therefore serve little
positive purpose and could lead to invalid comparisons between
schools. An over-reliance on what is quantifiable could devalue
the more nuanced and insightful analysis based on qualitative
data that many schools currently undertake via the School Evaluation
Form (SEF).
24. The GTCE commends two approaches to
the Select Committee. First, school self-evaluation could have
a stronger focus on well-being, and tackling inequalities. In
this regard it should be for schools to determine which data they
need to collect as well as the use to which they put it. Ofsted's
role would be to judge whether data is being put to effective
use by each school. Second, the proposed changes to the relationship
between children's trusts, children and young people's plans and
schools provide an impetus for a clearer focus at the local
level on schools' contribution to wider shared goals for children
and young people.
The school's contextual value added scores
25. CVA data are widely regarded as preferable
to raw data but their limitations need to be recognised. Otherwise
they can have an unfairly negative impact on schools working with
some of the most disadvantaged children and young people, such
as highly mobile populations and others with disrupted school
attendance.
The School Report Card
26. The GTCE has responded to the DCSF/Ofsted
consultation on the school report card proposal and its response
is appended for the Committee's information.
27. In brief, the Council doubts that a single
tool can meet the necessarily diverse accountability needs of
stakeholders such as parents, inspectors and local and national
government. There are matters for which schools should be publicly
accountable that are of little interest to parents, and it is
important that the areas in which parents are interested are not
reported in such a way as to give an over-simplistic or partial
picture.
28. There is a contradiction between the
vision set out in the DCSF document 21st century schools, which
sees schools as pivotal to early intervention; acting as a hub
for communities and involved in diverse networks and partnerships
to realise wider outcomes for children and young people, and the
notion of a school report card that might or might not provide
a description of partnerships in which the school is involved.
29. Notwithstanding these concerns, the
Council welcomed some features of the report card proposals, including:
The inclusion of parents' and pupils'
viewswhich the GTCE believes should be separately reported.
The focus on the school's contribution
to narrowing achievement gaps.
The notion of parental access to more
up to date information on a school than sporadic inspection can
provide.
The desire better to encapsulate the
school impact on learning and wider outcomes for children and
young people.
30. The GTCE would be disappointed if the
School Report Card was used to compare schools in a proxy league
table with the primary focus on attainment at the expense of wider
outcomes. The use of an overall grade, representing a summative
assessment of the school's performance, could be misleading.
CONCLUSION
31. The Select Committee's focus on accountability
is welcome. It is important to acknowledge the significant changes
in accountability that have already been made, at the same time
as the Committee asks searching questions about the fitness for
purpose of the current accountability framework. Notwithstanding
the emphasis placed on schools, the GTCE encourages the Committee
to give some attention more particularly to the accountability
of teachers and for teaching. The GTCE further hopes that the
Committee's work will help develop thinking on appropriate forms
of collective accountability of schools and others for wider outcomes
for children and young people.
APPENDICES
1. A note on evidence collected by the GTCE
on parents' perspectives on school accountability to parents
and school responsiveness to parents.
2. GTCE response to the DCSF/OFSTED consultationa
school report card.[2]
APPENDIX 1
A NOTE ON EVIDENCE COLLECTED BY THE GTC ON
PARENTS' PERSPECTIVES ON SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY TO PARENTS
AND SCHOOL RESPONSIVENESS TO PARENTS
[A] PARENTS'
ASPIRATIONS OF
ENGAGEMENT WITH
SCHOOLS
1. Parents in a study commissioned by the
GTC[3]
said that they wanted communication with their child's school,
particularly to alert them when problems may be arising. They
were critical of the information they received, saying that test
results were inadequately explained and that end of term reports
contained too many generic phrases.
2. There was, in parents' opinion, no substitute
for face to face dialogue with their child's teacher, and written
progress reports provided they were personalised to the child
were also popular.
3. Primary school teachers were thought to be
in a much better position to provide rounded information compared
with secondary school teachers, essentially because of the amount
of contact time that a teacher had with any one child at primary
school.
4. Parents wanted more than the end of key
stage tests are able to offer. As well as information on their
child's academic abilities parents were keen to have a holistic
picture of their child's progress that took into account the physical,
social and creative aspects of development.
5. Parents recognised the need for a national
benchmark against which individual pupil and teacher performance
could be judged, but they did not consider that Ofsted reports
and national league tables gave them the information they need
to make a judgement about the quality of teaching at their child's
school. The most recent survey of parental views on assessment
for accountability purposes by the NAHT[4]
found that 75% of parents surveyed thought league table status
was not a real measure of the education provided for their children
and over 70% wanted league tables abolished. More than 90% thought
that teacher assessment should be used instead.
6. Parents in the GTC study wanted specific
information about their child's development including that which:
Reflected the school as a whole, not
just its academic performance;
Provided an assessment of the quality
of teaching in their child's school;
Took into account any factors that might
affect the school's performance, such as the use of supply teachers,
and
Was set in a localised context, drawing
on similar assessments of local comparator schools and reflected
the school's relationship with the local community.
[B] SCHOOL RESPONSIVENESS
TO PARENTS'
NEEDS IN
SUPPORTING THEIR
CHILDREN'S
LEARNING
1. In January 2008 the GTC commissioned
a report on Engaging Parents in their Children's Learning.[5]
It was a qualitative research study involving 72 parents'
attending six workshops.
2. The report found that, while many parents
think it is important to be involved in their child's learning,
they often do not think they have the range of knowledge and skills
needed to engage fully with their child's education.
3. In a separate survey the GTC[6]
found that teachers strongly agreed that parents have a positive
impact on pupil achievement and thought that teachers should work
in partnership with parents. However a significant minority of
teachers reported that they had limited experience of engaging
parents in some of the ways that teachers value most, for instance
in enabling parents to learn about learning.
4. Although many parents spoke about the
importance of supporting their child's learning there were mixed
opinions about how they wanted to, or could be, engaged.
"Well, to be honest, I think it is for
me to bring up my children correctly but it is for the school
to teach them the things they need to know. Not me."
5. The majority were happy to be involved
by helping with homework and attending parents' evenings but they
felt there was a range of barriers preventing them from being
fully engaged. These include practical issues such as time constraint,
possible negative reactions from their child (particularly secondary
school pupils) and concerns about having the skills to support
their child.
6. Parents and carers felt that schools
expected them to support their child's learning and though schools
assumed they would know how to do this, although this was not
necessarily the case.
"I have never been told by my daughter's
school what they expect from me. I've never been given a list
or a brief. I don't know if anybody else has."
7. Many parents and carers from all social
backgrounds found it difficult to understand some of their children's
school work. Parents and carers of primary school children, for
instance, found methods to teach maths unfamiliar, while parents
and carers of secondary school pupils felt it was difficult to
keep up with their child's learning.
"I have fights because I tell him, 'No,
it's this way' and he'll go 'But we don't learn it like that,
we learn it like this' and I'm like 'Well I can't help you then
because I don't know how to do it that way.'"
8. Parents and carers were interested in
the idea of sessions run by teachers that would help them understand
the curriculum, teaching methods and how children learn.
"Her form teacher just chose small groups
of parents to go through everything that they're learning. It
was videos and explaining the way that they teach now, as opposed
to the way they used to."
9. Whilst the majority of teachers thought
that parents and carers supporting their child's learning would
have a positive effect of that child's achievement, some teachers
had no experience of certain ways of engaging parents in their
children's learning. For instance, although many teachers said
they valued "learning to learn" skills, one in five
teachers said they had no experience of providing opportunities
for parents to learn about learning. Over a third of teacher respondents
said they had no experience of supporting parents in improving
their own subject knowledge.
10. More primary school teachers than secondary
school teachers were positive about how to support parents in
children's learning. More secondary school teachers than primary
had no experience of supporting parents and carers. Parents and
carers with children at primary school thought that the relationship
they had with school benefited from "open door" policies
and more opportunities to speak to teachers, whereas once a child
was at secondary school contact with teachers was reduced to formal
times of consultation.
February 2009
1 DCSF/Ofsted: Indicators of a school's contribution
to well-being consultation. Back
2
Not printed. Back
3
BMRB Report: GTC Parental Engagement-Pupil Assessment. Back
4
NAHT Parental Survey February 2009. Back
5
BMRB: Engaging Parents in their Children's Learning: January
2008. Back
6
GTC Annual Survey of Teachers 2007. Back
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