The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has welcomed proposals by Shadow Education Secretary, Stephen Twigg, to introduce a politically-neutral Office for Educational Improvement to focus on standards and practice.
Mr Twigg is due to give details of Labour’s plans for educational reform in a speech this evening but he has already outlined his ideas in an article in The Times today (Tuesday 21 February).
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: “Stephen Twigg's discussion of Labour's priorities for education makes a refreshing change from the current barrage of criticism. Engaging the profession in change is always the best strategy and much more likely to succeed than top-down edicts.
“It is right to focus on the quality of the workforce rather than the distractions of structure and it is right to find a middle ground between the extremes of fashionable and conservative approaches. Our children need a combination of skills and knowledge as well as opportunities to develop resilience, initiative, empathy and curiosity.
“It is also right to seek more creative approaches to the school day and term: a good example of evidence in action. A genuinely progressive approach to education insists on both community and ambition, challenges vested interests and keeps what is best for children, not politicians, at the centre of the debate.”
Read more on the BBC website.
Page Published: 21/02/2012
