Clause 5 - School improvement partners
Education and Inspections Bill
3:30 pm
Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)
Clause 5 establishes the requirement that each LEA in England appoint a nationally accredited school improvement partner to each of the schools that it maintains. That is to ensure that school improvement partners are introduced universally and that they are trained and accredited to a national standard, in order that they can undertake their role credibly and effectively.
In moving the amendment, the hon. Member for Brent, East invited me to describe how we envisage the role of school improvement partners. SIPs are a key part of what we describe as our new relationship with schools. That relationship is designed to improve the way schools are held to account and supported, to sharpen and simplify schools’ external accountability and to facilitate their access to better support, matched to their needs. That is why we expect local authorities to engage SIPs and deploy them to their schools. SIPs will advise—I am surprised that the hon. Lady thinks that advising is a scary thing—and work with the governing body and the school head, as she said, as a critical friend, to help the school to identify and implement improved outcomes for pupils.
On amendments Nos. 61 and 63, I share the wish to make appropriate assistance and support available to all members of a school committee and the wish for the determination of assistance and support to be made by schools themselves. However, it is worth clarifying the remit of the SIP, which has elements both of challenge and of support. The challenge part of the SIP’s remit is the key process by which schools are held accountable to their maintaining authorities, and therefore needs to be determined by the local authority.
The hon. Lady asked whether a school could reject a school improvement partner. If a school objects to its SIP or to the nominee for that role, the authority must consider the objection and talk to the school. However, the SIP is part of the formal external accountability mechanism of a school to its maintaining authority, so the decision on appointment rightly rests with that authority. The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that a school could not reject a school improvement partner.