Watchdog takes its paws out of lunch boxes

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the schools inspectorate should concentrate on key areas like achievement and behaviour, rather than "peripheral" issues.

The new Bill focuses on boosting standards and improving behaviour in schools.

If passed, it will grant the Secretary of State powers to order a local council to close schools that are judged to be in special measures, require significant improvement or have failed to comply with a warning notice.

And academy sponsors will be stripped of their involvement in a school if that school were to under-perform.

Changes to Ofsted will mean schools will be judged by the watchdog on four key areas – quality of teaching, leadership, pupils' behaviour and achievement.

Publishing the Bill yesterday, Mr Gove said: "There are areas of Ofsted inspections, such as community cohesion or regulations governing what students bring in in their lunch boxes at lunch time, which are entirely peripheral.

"One of the problems with Ofsted inspections is that they are asked to inspect and measure for things which, by definition, are hard to judge and not central to what schools are about."

The reforms will also mean Ofsted has more powers to intervene in failing schools.

The Bill hands more control to the Education Secretary to intervene and the Minister insisted that under-achieving academies would not be exempt from this.

"There is absolutely no reluctance on our part to deal with any academy that's failing," he said.

"Every school that under-performs will be held up to high standards.

"If sponsors are not doing the appropriate job then we will demand change.

"If necessary we will take the school out of that sponsor's hands and into someone's who can turn it around."

The reforms mean that any school finding itself in special measures – effectively failing – would be closed or taken over quickly.

Two-thirds of local authorities have never issued a warning notice to a school, telling them they must improve, Mr Gove said.

There are also proposals to give schools the final say in expelling violent pupils, without their decision being overruled.

But Mr Gove also said that facilities for expelled pupils need to be improved.

"Most local authority-run pupil referral units are not up to snuff," he said.

Proposals first put forward under the Labour government to raise the school leaving age to 18 have also made it in to the Bill, but appear to have been watered down.

Whereas Labour proposed that pupils could face criminal sanctions if they did not stay in school or training, this was left out of yesterday's Bill.

Mr Gove said the Tories had opposed the proposal while in Opposition because it could mean troubled young people appearing in court for failing to stay in full-time studies.

The Bill also set out measures to give teachers extra powers to search pupils for anything which could disrupt the classroom, including pornography and video cameras.

School staff facing allegations from pupils will also remain anonymous until charged with an offence, and rules which mean schools must give parents 24 hours' notice of a detention will be scrapped.

Other measures include the axing of a number of education quangos, such as the General Teaching Council for England and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, and removing bureaucratic "form filling".

The plans were first outlined in a White Paper published in November.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "We are pleased to see any measure that frees teachers from form-filling and allows them to focus on teaching."

The association was pleased with the increased authority for teachers to tackle bad behaviour but the Government must not forget that most schools were orderly and calm places, with standards of behaviour that were a model to many other areas of society.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said the Bill represented an unprecedented, massive centralisation of power.

'Stealth tax' tacked on

Ministers were accused of "hiding" student loan reforms in the new Education Bill.

A clause in the newly-published Bill will make higher-earning graduates pay back their university loans at a higher rate of interest.

It emerged yesterday that the measure had been tacked on to the Education Bill, which focuses mainly on school reforms.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "The general public will see this for what it is – a stealth tax on learning and achievement – and it doesn't matter what piece of legislation the Government tries to hide it in.

"Sneaking these plans into a schools Bill is yet another indication that the Government has lost the argument on student funding and is terrified of further scrutiny of such a punitive policy."