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Issue 5.05

Leadership

Comprehensive Spending Review

The Department of Education is being asked for savings of just one per cent over the four years of the spending review. This includes reductions of a third in the back office administration, sharp cuts in building works, and the abolition of education quangos - the General Teaching Council for England, Becta, and the Qualifications and Development Agency. However, the schools budget is actually being increased from £35 billion to £39 billion a year. But universities in England are to face a 40% cut to their teaching budgets and colleges a 25% cut. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Pupil Absence Figures For Autumn 2009 & Spring 2010

This document by the Department for Education reports on pupil absence in maintained primary and secondary schools, city technology colleges and academies across autumn term 2009 and spring term 2010. It is based on pupil level absence data collected via the School Census for the two terms combined. The release provides information on the levels of absence (authorised, unauthorised and overall) by type of school, absence by reason and summary statistics on persistent absentees. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Young People and Community Cohesion

If policy is to promote a cohesive society it needs to know what factors explain variations in cohesion. This report by the Department for Education helps fill this gap in understanding by presenting findings from analysis of data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). Using multi-level statistical modelling, it examines the demographic, experiential and attitudinal predictors of community cohesion at the individual, school and district level. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Funding Undergraduates

This report by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) proposes that students should no longer take out loans or pay upfront for their tuition, and instead proposes a radical new funding system for financing undergraduate degrees at universities. This new model claims to take the best of two existing proposals – tuition fees and a graduate tax – to build a system that creates a fair market to students and universities alike. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Learning From Serious Case Reviews

Every case of fatal child abuse or neglect in England is subject to a multi-agency Serious Case Review (SCR). The purpose of these reviews is to establish whether there are lessons to be learned about the way in which local professionals and organisations work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. This report by the Universities of Warwick and East Anglia looks at the analyses used and their validity and usefulness in order propose any appropriate amendments to the ways in which SCRs are conducted and lessons learnt. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

World Of Work Survey

This report by Randstad Education highlights the challenges facing leadership in schools. Focusing on staff management, the report identifies the recruitment and retention of talented teachers and a looming shortage of future school leaders as major concerns at a time when budgets are coming under growing pressure. However, the report finds cause for optimism in the determination and creativity with which current education leaders are addressing the challenges in front of them. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Secondary School Admissions & Pupil Composition

In England, as in a number of other developed countries children from more affluent families tend to be educated separately from those less affluent. In England the historic division is between the maintained and private sectors, but state maintained schools of all types also differ markedly in terms of the social and economic status of their intake. This social segregation of English schools is due to unevenness in social background of the parents. This Department for Education research investigates whether changes to the School Admissions Code in 2003 and 2007, concerning school admission arrangements, appear to have had direct effects on the published admissions policies and the social composition of particular schools. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins
Leadership

Securing A Sustainable Future For Higher Education

This report by Lord Browne is a review of England's higher education system, which recommends sweeping changes to the university funding system. It calls for an unlimited level of tuition fees for students. The blueprint for universities in England set out by Lord Browne would see a new emphasis on competition. It calls for the current £3,290 cap on fees to be scrapped and replaced by a free market, in which universities set their own charges for different courses. Much of the cost of a degree would be transferred from the taxpayer to the student. Leadership Briefing 5.05 (53)

  • 24mins