Education initiatives 'misguided'

Programmes such as the controversial National Challenge have made little difference to pupils' achievement, according to Professor Alma Harris of the Institute of Education (IoE).

She said the gap between the achievement of the most disadvantaged pupils and their richer classmates was still widening, despite Government investment.

In the annual lecture of the IoE's London Centre for Leadership in Learning, she will say: "Most of these high-cost programmes have made no difference to performance. This is because they have failed to take account of the context of deprivation these schools are in and adopted one-size-fits-all approaches that end up fitting no one."

She said National Challenge was the "latest in a long line of heavily funded top-down approaches destined to be unsuccessful, because it is based on punitive approaches, constant scrutiny and the threat of school closures".

Schools Secretary Ed Balls announced the £400 million initiative in June to raise exam standards in 638 schools where fewer than 30% of pupils score five Cs in their GCSEs, including maths and English.

The schools were warned they faced closure or being turned into an Academy if their scores did not improve and told they would receive extra funding to help boost their scores. Some schools have now risen above this benchmark.

Prof Harris will also criticise the "blame culture" which sees schools "named and shamed". She will say: "Many schools in poverty-stricken areas are under excessive scrutiny. This type of policy punishes the disadvantaged young people they serve simply because they have a certain postcode."

Prof Harris will add: "We need to put resources into the hands of people who can make an immediate and lasting difference. The money is already there - it just needs to be redistributed to those who are best placed to tackle the underlying causes of failure."

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: "This Government has made significant progress in tackling one of the biggest challenges facing any education system in the world... But we hope to accelerate this improvement through new actions - like more one to one tuition to support individual pupils, and £400 million funding to turn around low-performing schools."