Member News
By Baroness Perry of Southwark - 4th August 2011
The quality of teaching is "the most important factor" in providing excellent education, Baroness Perry of Southwark writes.
'Every school a good school' has been the holy grail in education for every government for decades, but we have not succeeded. The gap between the best- and worst-performing schools is huge and unacceptable. We're not meeting the needs of bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds; we aren't offering appropriate choices to young people who are not academically motivated, and we're not doing enough to develop the talents of our most gifted young people.
More than any other factor, where you live determines your access to good education. League tables just tell you where rich people live. The Academies programme, together with the pupil premium, offers therefore the best hope for lifting the chances of children from our most deprived areas.
The expansion of apprenticeships is welcome, but employers will have to put in their support for placements. Schools must be given freedom to offer inspiring challenges to the most gifted, forgetting the trend to equality of outcomes which has stifled their achievement in recent years.
The most important factor in excellence is the quality of teachers. I welcome the coalition government's commitment to trusting teachers, and to giving heads and schools greater autonomy to meet the needs of their own pupils, not meeting some centrally determined regulation.
Autonomy, however, must be matched by accountability. Inspection is key to improving quality, not league-tables, nor Ofsted's box-ticking approach, but expert and successful professionals, working with schools to ensure that success is celebrated and failure dealt with by working with those struggling, so as to ensure that the needs of all children are met.
A former lecturer and teacher, Baroness Perry of Southwark was raised to the peerage in 1991.
Throughout recess, ePolitix.com will be focusing on a different policy theme each week. This week we are featuring Peer articles with a focus on education.
This article was first featured on October 28th 2010 ahead of Baroness Perry's debate on providing excellence in education for all pupils.
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