LIB DEMS CALL FOR REFORMS IN SCHOOL INSPECTION AND PUPIL TESTING
EDUCATION POLICY - Working Party reports to Spring Conference
"Empowering each individual child to be the best they can and want to be."
Liberal Democrats have announced plans that would abolish Ofsted and create widespread reform in how school and pupil performance is judged.
Under proposals developed by the Party's Education Working party and debated at the Spring Conference at Southport, Regional Schools Commissioners would be abolished and local authorities with responsibility for education, would be given the task of promoting high standards across the state sector. Councils would also be able to open new community schools where there was a need.
The new policy approved by Conference would replace Ofsted with a new Inspector of Schools who will report on a broad array of qualities including pupil welfare, the promotion of equality of opportunity and teacher workload, sickness and retention, as well as attainment measures.
The new body would have jurisdiction over both state and independent schools, grading each school either 'good', 'requires improvement' or 'requires support' every three years.
Plans put forward by members at Spring Conference would also see the abolition of SATS at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, to reduce stress to teachers and pupils. A new system of examination would focus on moderated teacher assessment and lighter touch testing.
Liberal Democrat Local Government Education Spokesperson Lucy Nethsingha, said:
"This motion restores a clear role to local government in promoting high standards across the state sector, as well as giving them back the power to open a new community school where needed".
Chair of the Education Working Group and Cambridge City Councillor Lucy added "For far too long we have put up with a school system that fails both children and the wider economy. Students are taught to think like second rate robots, when to compete in an AI world they need not just parrot content, but use that content creatively and in a way that can be adapted.
Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson, Layla Moran MP, said:
"These reforms represent a culture change in the way we run our schools. The current over-emphasis on high-stakes testing has led to a system which overlooks many important elements of the development of a child. Ofsted only encourages this and is in our view too broken to be fixed.
"Parents want to know their children's well-being is being looked after and that they are receiving a broad education, which equips them for adult life, including creativity and the arts, SRE, financial literacy and first aid skills.
"We need an inspectorate and measure of success which recognises these values, empowering each individual child to be the best they can and want to be."
Addressing the Conference in his keynote speech, Party Leader Vince Cable spoke of the party's education proposals, "We would reverse Conservative cuts to schools … and democratise education once again, by returning control to local authorities over places planning, exclusions and special needs.
Locally, many of us see the chaotic and wasteful consequences of having free schools and academies engaged in dog-eat-dog competition.
We see wasted time too, as teachers are forced to keep a look out for the traffic wardens of the education system - Ofsted - waiting around the corner ready to slap a ticket on those who haven't ticked the right boxes.
Liberal Democrats will bring in a new independent inspection regime, which values the overall wellbeing of individual children and the culture of learning in the school. We want a wider curriculum reversing the current exclusion of performing arts and languages, and introducing life skills like first aid and personal finance.
A Liberal Democrat education system will prepare our children for the future, and consign tickbox testing to the past.
By making ourselves, once again, the party of education we commit to redressing the imbalance between generations…"
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