Freedom for schools; Power for parents

What is in the White Paper?
BBC, Monday, 24 October 2005, 11:21 GMT 12:21 UK

"Self-governing, independent state schools" have been announced as the future model for schools in England by the Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The White Paper, Higher Standards, Better Schools For All, means that schools "will finally be opened up to real parent power", promised Mr Blair.

The Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has said that the key themes of the reforms are "freedom for schools and power for parents".

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Instead it proposes ways of introducing a greater number of desirable school places - through the setting up of new schools and encouraging successful schools to expand.

A new type of self-governing school authority, a "trust", will be created, which can oversee individual schools or a mini-chain of schools. These can be run by successful schools or outside providers, such as universities, businesses, faith groups or community groups.

In particular, parents are being encouraged to consider setting up schools - with funding promised to help them put their ambitions into bricks and mortar.

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In advance of the White Paper, the government promised to challenge the dominance of middle-class families over successful schools.

But the proposals are about encouragement rather than enforcement.

There will be free school transport, up to a distance of six miles, for children from low-income families. And there will advisers to help parents make sense of the admissions maze.

But the admissions system will only be altered when the school itself wants to change.

An alternative proposed in the White Paper is "banding" , in which schools take pupils across a range of different abilities.

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There will be a re-definition of the role of local authorities - with talk of councils becoming "champions" of parents and pupils, acting as a mediator between schools and their consumers, rather than being seen as the provider.

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Under the "personalisation" heading, Ruth Kelly has announced that struggling pupils and the most gifted will receive customised classes - either to help them catch-up or to stretch further ahead.

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Although less headline-grabbing, but with longer-term significance, have been the repeated suggestions that assessment of education has to be about individual pupils, rather than looking at the performance of institutions.

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