Afternoon:
10°c
Exam targets fail to boost standards, admit ministers
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent3 Sep 2008
Gordon Brown's "burdensome" school targets have failed to improve the results of children who struggle most in class, the Government has admitted.
In some areas councils have been forced to set up to 170 different targets for lifting exam results among pupils from ethnic minority groups, thanks to government rules.
Now ministers are drawing up plans for a streamlined targets system.
However, under the proposals, white British children, Bangladeshis and pupils from some other Asian groups will no longer be priorities for improving-exam results. The move comes despite warnings from the Government's own researchers that white British boys - particularly from poor homes - lag far behind their classmates.
The Department for Children's proposals will now be put out for consultation. They state: "The current system is burdensome to local authorities and is not operating as an effective driver on standards. It produces extremely complex-data-sets which may actually mask the most important priorities." Some councils have taken the approach of setting blanket targets across all ethnic groups to cope with the requirement.
Schools have warned that targets imposed on teachers do not work. Central government targets are passed to councils, which then put pressure on schools, according to headteachers.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "It is good that there is a dawning realisation that top-down imposed targets are not the way to create-the environment for school improvement for any ethnic group."
Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb added: "This consultation is a startling but welcome admission that the target culture fostered by this Government is wasteful, ineffective and may even be counterproductive."
Currently there are 10 targets for 17 ethnic groups. The plans would cut this to nine targets for seven groups, including the poorest children who are eligible for free school meals.
Those who will be subject to targets under the plan are: pupils on free school meals; black Caribbean and white/black Caribbean; black African and white/black African; black other; Pakistani; white other; and gypsy, Roma and traveller of Irish heritage.
But Bangladeshi pupils, white British, Irish, white Asian, other mixed background, Indian, Chinese, and any other Asian background pupils are all being removed from the priority list.
Earlier this year, research commissioned by the Department for Children showed that white British boys from the poorest homes made the slowest progress at secondary school. The study by Steve Strand at Warwick University found these boys suffered from lack of ambition, low confidence in their own abilities and did not finish their homework.
Councils have had to set targets to improve GCSE and test results among different ethnic groups since 1998.
A spokeswoman for the Children's Department defended the plans to "refine" the targets. She argued that under the old rules there was not a target specifically aimed at working class white boys. The plan will focus attention on children from the poorest backgrounds, she added.
She said: "For the first time local authorities will be required to set targets for those children who are eligible for free school meals - these pupils are among the lowest income families and the weakest performers in the country.
"In addition, there is a trigger built into our proposals which will mean that if white British pupils are underachieving the local authority will still have to set targets for these children."
