Reforming our Schools

GIVING EVERY CHILD A GOOD EDUCATION

"Improving our schools' system is the most important thing we can do to make opportunity more equal and to address our declining social mobility."

From numerous discussions with parents across Amber Valley, I know how important the quality of schools available to children locally is - and the concerns over why the GCSE and A level results in Amber Valley are lower than both the Derbyshire and National averages.

We have detailed plans to improve our schools system. Full details are on the party's website but the plans can be summarised as follows:

BETTER TEACHERS AND TOUGHER DISCIPLINE

The single most important thing for a good education is for every child to have access to a good teacher. We will take steps to enhance the prestige of the teaching profession, provide more on the job training and attract the best people to the profession.

We will give head teachers the power to pay good teachers more, and introduce new programmes like Troops to Teachers to get experience, high quality people into the profession.

We will protect teachers from false accusations and make it easier to use reasonable force to deal with violent incidents and disruptive behaviour.

GIVING EVERY PARENT ACCESS TO A GOOD SCHOOL

We will break down barriers to entry so that any good education provider can set up a New academy school - free, non-selective, high-quality state schools that are open to all.

As part of our anti-poverty strategy we will establish new Academy schools in the most deprived areas of the country. These will be beacons of excellence in areas where standards are unacceptably low.

We will give every existing school the chance to achieve academy status and make sure Academies have the freedoms that helped make them successful in the first place.

We will not tolerate excuses for poor schools. We re-focus inspections on the core areas for teaching and learning. Good schools will be inspected less often - but failing schools will be inspected more often, and using more unannounced inspections.

A RIGOROUS CURRICULUM & EXAM SYSTEM

To ensure every child who is capable of reading is doing so after 2 years at primary school we will promote the teaching of synthetic phonics and introduce a simple reading test at age 6.

We will reform the National Curriculum so that it is more challenging and organised around subjects like Maths, Science and History, and encourage setting so those struggling get extra help.

We will make exams more robust and rigorous and measure our exam system against the most rigorous in the world.

We will reform school league tables so that schools can demonstrate they are stretching the most able and raising the attainment of the less able.