1. 6 updates

Teachers to 'face sack sooner'

Schools are to be given tough new powers to weed out incompetent teachers under Government plans to drive up education standards.

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Teacher: New plans to sack poor teachers can be open to manipulation

Anyone who works in a school knows the persistent offenders - those who miss the morning briefing, fails to show up for their duty, misses report writing deadlines, moans about new initiatives, has a couple of days off a term, does little planning and leaves school on the stroke of 3:30pm.

Up until today it has been very difficult to get rid of these types of teacher and it's bad for the profession having people like this in teaching.

I do have some concerns about the plans - that it is open to manipulation. It gives headteachers another way to get rid of someone they don't like.

– Mike Britland, head of ICT at a secondary school in Bournemouth

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Gove: Schools should have power to axe poor teachers

For far too long schools have been tangled up in complex red tape when dealing with teachers who are struggling.

That is why these reforms focus on giving schools the responsibility to deal with this issue fairly and quickly.

Schools need to be able to dismiss more quickly those teachers who, despite best efforts, do not perform to the expected standard.

Future employers also need to know more about the strengths and weaknesses of teachers they are potentially employing.

Nobody benefits when poor teaching is tolerated. It puts pressure on other teachers and undermines children's education.

– Education Secretary Michael Gove

How are poor teachers dealt with?

  • 740 teachers were accused of inadequacy over the past 18 months according to a survey of 82 Local Education Authorities.
  • The figure that would equate to almost 1,600 if repeated across England and Wales.
  • During the same period heads sacked just 154 teachers in the 82 LEAs surveyed, equal to 327 across the country or about four a week over the last year and a half.
  • The figures, released in December 2011, were obtained through an FOI request
  • Education experts said excessive red tape and the strength of teaching unions mean it is too hard to sack underperforming staff.
  • Instead many schools encourage poor teachers to move to other schools, ensuring they remain in the classroom "year after year", it was claimed.

Poor teachers face tougher system under shake-up

  • Schools will be given more freedom to manage their teachers through simpler, less prescriptive appraisal regulations.
  • The three-hour limit on observing a teacher in the classroom so that schools have the flexibility to decide what is appropriate will be removed.
  • Yearly assessments will be introduced under the new Teachers Standards - the key skills that teachers need; scrap more than 50 pages of unnecessary guidance.
  • The Government plan to stop bad teachers leaving one school and then resurfacing in another school.
  • Old schools will have to pass on information to prospective employers, on request, about whether a teacher is incompetent.

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