BURNS: Securing better education standards

Addressing the annual Welsh Conservative Party Conference in Llangollen, Angela Burns AM, Shadow Minister for Education will announce measures to transform teacher training to secure better education standards.

 

Angela Burns is expected to say:

 

In order to deliver excellence in education the Welsh Conservatives will act to ensure that funding in education is not wasted but goes directly to schools, colleges, universities and students.

 

We will scrap the costly and indifferently performing regional consortia and expect headteachers to be responsible for their school improvement.

 

Welsh Labour’s rhetoric is all about criticism and challenge.

 

Ours is about training and support so heads and teachers can react to the aspirations of their communities.

 

In all my years of management the one crucial lesson I learnt was the sheer futility of giving someone a task to do then tying their hands behind their back.

 

I will not set our education system up to fail like Labour has.

 

I want to secure a real change for Wales. I want to see universal and consistent excellence in education

 

We will build on the current curriculum proposals to ensure an education fit for the 21^st century.

 

We recognise that at 14 some young people have begun to disengage with education as delivered at present.

 

We must make education relevant to student’s lives.

 

I’d rather keep a young person in education and reform the system to fit them than lose them.

 

Rescuing an adult is harder than saving a child.

 

We will enable and support the introduction of University Technical Colleges to help foster apprenticeships that lead to high quality sustainable jobs.

 

We will support Further Education colleges to deliver courses aimed at capturing and developing the potentially disenfranchised.

 

We will protect sixth forms and demand academic rigour throughout the system.

 

Centre for Education

In order to secure real change for Wales and achieve excellence in education we need to recognise one absolute truth put very clearly years ago by Sir Michael Barber.

 

“The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers” 

 

Therefore we will commit to establishing a higher education institution that will focus solely on initial teacher training and educational research.

 

This Centre for Education is crucial in progressing the development of education in Wales.

 

Professor John Furlong has just completed his extensive review into teacher training in Wales and he states:

 

“If the teaching profession itself is to make its proper contribution to the raising of standards in our schools in the way that has been set out in the Donaldson Review then what is needed is a form of initial teacher education that is expansive rather than restricted, one that gives teachers themselves the skills, knowledge and dispositions to lead the changes that are needed. At present, that form of initial teacher education is not available in Wales.” 

 

The Welsh Conservatives will make sure that form of teacher training is available in Wales.

 

We want to see close partnerships between schools and the Centre for Education, conducting research through studying classroom practice and gathering data to form pedagogies that would be passed on to students.

 

The Centre for Education would need to work in tandem with the government of the day to better understand their end objectives and in order to develop comprehensive and world leading programmes.

 

Given the new curriculum as proposed by Prof Graham Donaldson, student teachers would be taught with the curriculum reform in mind.

 

They would also be taught to recognise additional learning needs which are a barrier to so many of our young people staying in school and doing well.

 

We will consult extensively with the profession and providers to shape the Centre for Education as we want to build an alumnus that can deliver outstanding teaching to students and offer peer to peer and mentoring programmes within the profession.

 

 

College of Teaching

We will re-purpose the Education Workforce Council and create a College of Teaching.

 

The teaching profession deserves and needs the status that is accorded to doctors, lawyers and engineers.

 

The College will set the standards for teacher training, will focus on continuous professional development and will develop fellowships and Head Teacher programmes.

 

They will also be responsible for professional standards.

 

The College of Teaching will be funded in part by Government and in part by membership fees.

 

This re-enforces our commitment to making the College of Teaching independent of Government and make it truly teacher led.

 

This is the change that Wales needs.