Government cuts millions from 14 to 19 reform funding
		
18 June 2010 Funding for 14 to 19 reforms has been cut by £13.2m as the government has revealed the full extent of cuts within the Department for Education.
Education Secretary Michael Gove wrote to all local authorities this week with further details on departmental savings. This included plans to reduce the 14 to 19 local delivery support grant by £13.2m. The grant exists to support local authorities in delivering the 14 to 19 reforms.

Gove revealed that the £25,000 specialist schools capital grant — to help schools improve facilities to specialise in a specific curriculum area — has been scrapped. Grants from the Teaching and Development Agency for workforce modernisation and training for support staff will also be "significantly reduced".
		
Other reductions include cutting extended services capital funding by £25m, leaving £21m. In addition, the letter confirmed the scrapping of free school meal pilots due to start in September, 0-7 Partnership and Buddying pilots, and £5m of cuts to the play strategy.
Revenue funding for the 122 playbuilder authorities tasked with building or redeveloping 22 play areas, has been scrapped. Revenue funding for the 30 pathfinder authorities tasked with building or developing 28 play areas and building an adventure playground has been halved. Gove said that there are no longer set expectations on how many play facilities are delivered locally, while Play England's role in monitoring and reporting on progress has been reduced.
He called on pathfinders to make the staffing of adventure playgrounds a priority for remaining funding and offered a final meeting of regional play networks organised by Play England, welcoming views on where the government can best focus future efforts in the "new financial climate".
"My priority for this year has to be to invest any savings available within my department's budget, after our contribution to deficit reduction, in measures that most directly affect attainment for the poorest pupils," Gove wrote. "I recognise that these changes will mean difficult decisions being taken at a local level, as we are having to do nationally."
		

				
By Ross Watson
Children & Young People Now

		

				Which is more important: what children learn or the type of school they attend?
		
		
The question arises because, so far, the new coalition government has devoted most of its energies to the latter. We have heard much about the creation of new academies and "free schools". 
But there has been precious little about the curriculum. Schools in England have been left in a vacuum. Where we have had announcements, they have been mainly to say what schools will not be doing. 
		
So the planned reform of the primary curriculum in England, based on last year's review led by Sir Jim Rose, has been scrapped. 
Primary schools are still completely stunned by this. Teachers had been working hard, absorbing the Rose Review into their planning, and were gearing up to deliver it. 
Then, at a stroke, all those months of preparation were rendered pointless. So, for now, schools have been told to carry on teaching the current primary national curriculum until at least July 2012. 
		
This means two important elements from Rose have now been put on hold. First, there was the requirement for children to learn a foreign language from the age of seven. And second, was the plan to make ICT a "core" part of the curriculum alongside numeracy and literacy. 
Continue reading the main story Ministers have not actually said they want the diplomas to end, but nor have they said anything enthusiastic about them
Mike Baker Remember that the Rose Review was the first fundamental review of the primary curriculum for more than a decade. It had spent over a year gathering evidence. 
Then, because it was associated with the previous government, it was simply discarded. 
		
Another area in which schools have been left in a vacuum is over the future of the diplomas for 14 to 19 year-olds. 
So far, 10 diploma subjects have been introduced in England. A further four start in September. 
However, the government has said the final three diplomas, planned for 2011, will not now happen. While there have been relatively few tears over the scrapping of these final diplomas, which covered academic rather than vocational subjects, there is deep anxiety about what will happen to the remaining 14 subjects. 
What exactly is the government planning for these? Parents, students and teachers need to know. Ministers have not actually said they want the diplomas to end, but nor have they said anything enthusiastic about them. Their position seems to be to leave it to the market to decide whether they have a future. 
		

				
However, their actions seem to send out a different message. Financial support for diplomas has been one of the hardest hit areas in the spending cuts announced so far. 
So, for example, in a letter to local councils this week, the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, revealed that he was cutting £13.2m from support funding for delivering the 14-19 reforms. 
The Education Secretary had already announced the abolition of the role of 14-19 regional advisers and a whole range of other "efficiency savings" in the reforms affecting students in this age range. 
Diplomas are more expensive to teach than other subjects. Removing financial support could cause them to wither on the vine. 
		
If that is the government's intention, it should say so. 

		

				Labour's planned new curriculum will be dropped as part of a £359m programme of education cuts
				
The government will scrap Labour's new primary curriculum and its flagship "academic" diplomas, ministers said today as they detailed a £359m programme of education cuts. 
Michael Gove, the education secretary, also said he would drop a proposed extension of pilot schemes offering free school meals to all primary pupils, although three existing schemes will continue to assess the case for increasing eligibility. 
Ministers will also take £47m of unspent cash back from one-to-one tuition programmes for pupils falling behind in English and maths. 
		

				
The new primary curriculum, which was due to start in September next year, would have split primary teaching into six new "areas of learning", with information and communication technology (ICT) a core skill. Stopping it, and cutting initiatives in personal, social and health education, citizenship and RE, will save £7m. 
The government will save £22.2m by pulling the plug on the academic diplomas being developed in humanities, science and languages and scaling back promotion and support for existing vocational diplomas in other subjects. The move is part of a drive towards a more traditional exam system that will also see state schools allowed for the first time to teach the international GCSEs (iGCSEs) favoured by many in the independent sector for their supposed greater rigour. 
		

				
Gove, said iGCSEs, which will be available in core subjects such as English and maths from September, would allow pupils at state secondaries to compete on a level playing field with their privately educated peers. 
Schools minister Nick Gibb said: "Schools must be given greater freedom to offer the qualifications employers and universities demand, and that properly prepare pupils for life, work and further study. For too long, children in state maintained schools have been unfairly denied the right to study for qualifications like the iGCSE, which has only served to widen the already vast divide between state and independent schools." 
But John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said iGCSEs did not meet the rigorous standards of normal GCSEs. 
The cuts are part of savings of £670m from the education department ordered by the chancellor, George Osborne. Local authorities also face cuts of £311m. 
Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, accused Gove of glossing over how cuts to council budgets will affect services for looked after children, disabled children, youth clubs and action to reduce teenage pregnancy. 
"He has knowingly shifted the burden to bigger and more damaging cuts for essential children's services financed by local government," said Balls. 
 

		
The summer term issue of the 14-19 PDC newsletter is now available to download. 
		
Visit the download section of this website, under Newsletter to find your copy. 
		
 

		
The teachers’ regulator was scrapped yesterday in a surprise announcement by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary. The General Teaching Council for England did not earn its keep and was a “bureaucratic siphon” of money away from teaching, he said.
		
Teachers had long complained about the compulsory £36.50 that they had to pay each year to the council, which held professional conduct hearings. Last week Mr Gove abolished two other quangos: Becta, which advised schools on buying computer equipment, and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority.
		
He told the Commons: “It [the teaching council] doesn’t improve classroom practice, it doesn’t help children, it doesn’t earn its keep, so it must go. Teachers say it gives them nothing.”
		
He referred to the case of Adam Walker, a teacher who belonged to the British National Party, who described immigrants as animals and filth on a website. “The GTCE concluded his description wasn’t racist so he couldn’t be struck off,” he said.
		
Mr Gove also revealed that more than 1,000 schools — including hundreds of primaries — had applied to become academies in the past week. The semi-independent state schools are free from local authority control. He said a week ago that the coalition wanted to expand the programme extensively. Any school rated outstanding by Ofsted would automatically qualify for academy status, he said, and yesterday revealed that more than half of outstanding schools had applied. He announced that 1,114 schools had sought to become academies, of which 626 were outstanding schools. Of the top-rated schools, 273 were primaries, which did not qualify to become academies under the previous regime.
		
Mr Gove said: “I believe that head teachers and teachers know best how to run schools, not local bureaucrats or politicians. That’s why last week I wrote to every school in the country inviting them to take up academy freedoms if they wished to do so. The response has been overwhelming.”
		
Academies were created by Tony Blair, and the first of the schools opened in September 2002, replacing failing institutions in deprived areas.
		
Their leaders were given freedoms from local authorities, including being able to vary the pay and conditions of teachers, and the length of the school day. But some academy heads complained that their powers were constrained under the last Government.
		
Before the election the Tories attracted much attention for their “free” schools policy, based on the Swedish model. This will make it easier for parents concerned about the lack of good schools in their areas to set up their own education establishments, run by not-for-profit organisations.
		
Mr Gove paid tribute to David Laws, who was the Liberal Democrat education spokesman when he was in opposition, describing him as unfailingly honest, fair, decent and principled.
		
He also praised his predecessor, Ed Balls, for his work on child protection, and for staying firm in the face of lobbying from teachers for the abolition of Key Stage 2 tests. These are taken at the end of primary school and were formerly known as SATs.
		
Some teachers are opposed to the tests, which they claim dominate Year 6 and squeeze any spontaneity from the curriculum. The tests are used to produce data for school league tables. Mr Gove said that the tests were a vital accountability measure.He was criticised by the Opposition for failing to guarantee that Building Schools for the Future, a £55 billion programme, would proceed in full. But Mr Gove said that the scheme was not necessarily allocating resources to the front line in the most effective way.
		
Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, said: “I have absolutely no doubt that the Secretary of State’s decision will be warmly welcomed by teachers across the country. I frequently said if the GTCE was abolished tomorrow few would notice and even less would care.”
		
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Any replacement for the GTCE needs to distance itself from the belief that a watchdog can also reserve the right to make intrusive judgments on teachers’ personal lives.”