Question: What do you think are the priorities for the new secretary of state for education?

Mike Tomlinson: Well probably top of the list would be the whole issue of teacher recruitment and retention. Perhaps of the two, more importantly will be retention over the coming years. I think the second issue then will be the need to raise standards at Key Stage Three and within that to have a more effective transfer from primary to secondary. I think the third area will most definitely be what happens for 14 to 19 year olds. That is both in relation to where provision is made and the nature of that provision.

Question: You talked about retention there. How do you think the government could retain teachers?

Mike Tomlinson: I think there are a number of factors. In talking recently to teachers, for example in London, the problem is that while they can manage upon the starting salaries, they certainly can't contemplate remaining in those schools in the city and becoming house owners. They simply could not survive, so their choice is either to move out of inner city schools, or schools in high price housing areas, or to seek alternative employment. So there is a retention problem there.

We also have a big problem with retention more generally. Overall, between recruitment into initial teacher training and two years of teaching, we lose something like 40 per cent of teachers. It is not a pattern that is shared by the majority of other professions. We really need to look more carefully at why that has happened.

Question: Why do you think that is?

Mike Tomlinson: Well some of it is obviously tied up with salaries, not just starting salaries, but importantly, the progression that can be made in salaries. The recent threshold payments are a help. Secondly there is the concern with workload, bureaucracy and the demands on teachers. And I think thirdly, there is the general perception of teachers within society at large.

Question: Looking at a couple of those points. Bureaucracy, do you think there is too much red tape?

Mike Tomlinson: I think everyone is agreed that there is too much by way of paperwork required of teachers and that that needs to be reduced. I don't think there is any doubt about it, the trick will be to get the right balance. Some bureaucracy and paperwork is inevitably required of any profession. But we must make sure that these are at a minimal level and that we don't have a system whereby different parts of the education system are demanding different forms at different times. I think we can do an awful lot to get rid of problems which infuriate teachers.

Question: You have talked about status. Why is the teacher's status in society undervalued?

Mike Tomlinson: I think for a whole host of reasons. I think that a number of parents of children today didn't have a particularly good time at school themselves, and that is reflected in part I think by the increasing number of parents who think nothing of taking the law into their own hands. They often had a bad time themselves, and are determined that their children are not going to suffer similarly. There is certainly that. I think also there is amongst some a perception that the image of teaching, at least portrayed by association conferences, doesn't give a particularly good impression of the profession as a whole. Society at large does judge the profession, whether the teachers unions like it or not, by those public images.

Question: So do you think the Easter conferences should all be crammed together?

Mike Tomlinson: I think that is a question for the teacher associations, but I do think that they do have a big problem about the image that is portrayed of them. Whether they would argue it is a real image or not, there is a media image that affects the views of the general public about teaching as a profession.

I think also we have to face up to the fact that a lot of people at various times believed that our schools are not good enough, that standards were not high enough. Certainly OFSTED has held the view that things could be much better. It is good to see that things are now getting better.

Question: How big a problem is misbehaviour, is it getting worse. You were talking about parents and their attitudes, has that made the situation more of a problem?

Mike Tomlinson: I think parents, whether knowingly or otherwise, have contributed. We recorded in the last year's annual report a small increase in the number of schools where behaviour was judged less than satisfactory. That was the first time that we had such an increase. It occurred in secondary schools and was particularly associated with the younger age range - 12,13 year olds. It took various forms. In its worst form of course, it was violence of pupils towards teachers or towards other pupils. In many cases it was just the sort of low level disruptive behaviour that many of us recall from time to time in our education. But in many instances it was sustained not just in one lesson but in all of them, day in, day out. I think that it is a worry. It is a worry to the rest of the children who want an education, who want to have good, effective lessons. It is also a worry that the children who are misbehaving may continue to do so, and we know that their attainment will be effected. And of course, the continuity of their education might be affected as well, and then you enter into another cycle of people emerging into the community at large with a poor level of education, and we know where that can lead to.

Question: So what can be done to instil greater discipline in the classroom?

Mike Tomlinson: Well I think it has to start in society at large. I think it does have to rest first and foremost with parents. There has to be a greater willingness on the part of all parents to seek to have a greater code of discipline with their own children. Schools for their part need to discuss with parents their code of discipline and have parents sign up to it.

Question: Does there need to be a more formal contract between parent and teacher perhaps?

Mike Tomlinson: Well there have been attempts to introduce home-school contracts. I wouldn't go so far as contracts. I think that what we have found in inspection, is that where a school actively seeks to discuss it's behaviour policies and the sanctions against children with parents, and gain their support, then that is more effective. Then, important for the school is that those codes of behaviour and discipline are consistently applied across the school. What children react against is inconsistency, and what they regard as unfairness. Where codes are applied consistently across the school, then schools are able to improve behaviour. I think the other thing which is necessary is that teachers need and deserve training in managing behaviour.

Question: So they need more power?

Mike Tomlinson: I don't think power, but schools that I have been visiting recently in difficult circumstances have been using trainers to work with individual teachers who are having problems, and these have brought about considerable improvement. It gives a different view of the situation, a way perhaps of even avoiding confrontations. That is not suggesting that teachers get softer, but there are ways of dealing with poor behaviour, and the training certainly appears to have helped in a number of the schools that I have visited. I think there is the whole issue of how we keep people in school, which is a hot potato in general, and of course the disproportionate numbers of students from ethnic minorities who are excluded. I think we have to have within schools a more open discussion of why this is so, and what the response is to this situation.

Question: You said that there have been improvements in teaching standards - saying that 30 per cent of teaching was less that satisfactory - but that figure is now five per cent, what should we do about this five cent?

Mike Tomlinson: I think the first thing to do is be very pleased about the reduction which is too often ignored. I think the five per cent represents a very small number of lessons taken in the context of the total number delivered annually. It becomes a problem, a serious problem, if that five per cent is concentrated in a small number of schools, and the children are consistently getting poor teaching. I think the policies in these schools where we have special measures are having an impact.

I suspect this five per cent is increasingly more and more to be found in a small group of schools that are experiencing specific problems. Some of the problems they are experiencing of course are beyond the control of the school.

Question: And you think five per cent is a manageable figure?

Mike Tomlinson: I think five per cent is manageable. I'm pretty sure that the profession would want to see it smaller. We would certainly share their wish to have that per centage come down, but I think realistically we ought to be able to manage that five per cent in a way that doesn't adversely affect any specific group of people.

Question: You're consulting the profession to find a new method of inspecting schools - why the need for this?

Mike Tomlinson: Inspection, right from the first day in 1993 has evolved and changed as circumstances have changed. By 2003 we will have done two complete cycles where every school has been inspected at least twice, in some cases three or four times, so we now have a considerable database on all the schools. We also have better data on the performance of schools and by 2003 we will have value added data as well. Performance management has come into play such that schools themselves have much greater professional development within their systems and information about performance. More and more schools are moving to adopt rigorous, objective self-evaluation. So it's against that background that one says we are looking for a system of inspection which needs to take account of that environment, which needs to come into play by 2003 and last for at least six years. We're moving into a new era, so to speak, therefore I think it's proper to ask questions about the inspection system.

Question: It's a consultation and it's very early days but what sort of ideas do you have in mind in changing the way schools are inspected. You mentioned self-evaluation - will that be a dominant theme?

Mike Tomlinson: I want to wait until the document is issued otherwise it's hardly the consultation I want. I do think it is important that a school has for itself an improvement cycle which includes some elements of self-evaluation. That improvement in a school is an on-going activity, on a day in, day out, week in, week out basis. It shouldn't be something which is a reaction to an external inspection. The improvement should be something that is ongoing and continuous. And the external inspection of it, whenever it occurs, brings an outside objective view on where the school is and where it might be heading and this will complement the school's own efforts to improve. School self-evaluation is there in the present system, we do take account of it, and it is a major factor in our short inspection of schools - the inspection of our most effective schools. I would like to see it playing a big role for all schools because inspection shouldn't be, as some perceive it, the impetus for doing all sorts of things which ought to have been done as part of an improvement cycle which any organisation would have

Question: Should inspections be seen more positively rather than something to be feared?

Mike Tomlinson: Yes, I would want the inspection to be seen as something which confirmed or otherwise, the school's information about itself. It may shed light on particular topics, it may highlight ones which haven't got the prominence before, and where the school says this inspection hasn't actually told us anything we didn't already know. Rather than that being negative, I would regard that as a hugely positive outcome because what it is saying to the school is 'your views about how your school is doing are spot on and can be really trusted' - that can then be used as a way of reducing some of the other burdens on schools , for example, you could say that if this is the case then that school doesn't have to go through all the procedures of a threshold assessment.

Question: Do you accept that previous inspection regimes may have added to the stress and demoralisation of teachers - there's certainly been reports that this is the case?

Mike Tomlinson: There are reports of that. I have to start off with the principle that inspection by its very nature is one of those things in life which will raise levels of anxiety and stress - I put it alongside taking a driving test, doing your examinations, getting married, getting divorced, you name it, there are occasions in our life where there is stress. Inspection certainly does add to that stress. I think some of the requirements we had to begin with provided more stressful situations than were necessary. We have sought to reduce these over time and have done so, for example, reducing the paperwork requirements, giving teachers feedback rather than staying silent and we've also shortened the notice of inspections. So there are a number of things we've done and I would always be looking at ways of reducing further those levels of stress and anxiety, but I can't eliminate it altogether because someone sat at the back of a room observing what you do will always raise levels of stress. I think also the profession itself needs to play its part. I think in the past OFSTED has been used as a stick to get things done in schools which have failed to persuade themselves to do them previously. I think the profession itself has got to stop doing that so that all round we make a concerted effort to reduce stress.

Question: Some people argue that OFSTED needs to be more accountable - do you accept this argument?

Mike Tomlinson: No I don't. I do accept the principle of accountability very much and it would be foolish of an organisation like OFSTED to deny that we ought to be accountable. We are accountable through a number of mechanisms. Every school after inspection is required to complete forms saying what it thought about its inspections, so we get a lot of information that way from individual schools and individual teachers. We're accountable to Parliament about what we do and for our funding and the way we carry out our inspections. We are accountable to the Education Select Committee for what we do. They can ask us to see us at any time. There is the normal financial accountability through the National Audit Office and Her Majesty's Chief Inspector is accountable through parliamentary questions to the Secretary of State for Education. I'm not sure what other accountability we could add to that. Accountability I agree with, but I don't see how we could be more accountable than we actually are.

Question: David Puttnam argues that standards of education in Britain are sliding in international comparisons. Do you go along with that assessment?

Mike Tomlinson: Not without a lot of reservations. I think some of the international comparisons that have been carried out raise doubts about their validity. It is very difficult for example, to devise tests or test items which can be put to all these children given the very different social and cultural backgrounds that exist.

What is clear is that we in this country do not do as well with our middle group of students. We do quite well at the top and I don't think we compare that badly at the bottom but our problem is that we have too long a tail below that best which we really do need to eliminate quite quickly.

Question: Why is that?

Mike Tomlinson: I think we have a certain amount of under-expectation within our system at the teacher and parent levels. It is very disappointing to go to some schools which are trying very hard to encourage people to go to further and higher education when they come from families where nobody has ever been into that part of the education system and where parents simply do not see any value in their children going there. Similarly some teachers have under-estimated the ability of pupils.

Question: You said earlier, 14-19 year olds need to be more of a focus for the Government - why has that age group been neglected in the past?

Mike Tomlinson: There needed to be a focus to begin with and it was rightly primary schools and particularly literacy and numeracy skills. Now that is beginning to bear fruit we now need to look at that movement from Key Stage Two to Key Stage Three and push ahead on Key Stage Three by ensuring that those children who haven't quite made the standard for literacy and numeracy are helped to do so quickly in secondary school. The secondary schools must build much quicker on the attainment of pupils. The more children who find in those early secondary years, that their literacy and numeracy levels are holding them back from the rest of the curriculum, then the more likely they are to misbehave, the more likely they are to play truant from school and the more likely their overall levels of achievement are to be below what they are capable of. None of the teacher associations and none of the teachers I've spoken to argue against that focus on Key Stage Three. I think it is a question of them managing it and it raises the issue of training the teachers for these new requirements. You have problems with how to release teachers for this training, and who fills in for them while they are having this training? I think the Government has to be strong in its wish to remove the poor performance of Key Stage Three but at the same time understand the circumstances which schools find themselves in. There has got to be some flexibility in the implementation of the Key Stage Three changes.