New Education Bill

The new Education Bill is expected to be published on 20th January.

The Government has said that the Bill will:

• provide schools with the freedoms to deliver an excellent education in the way they see fit.
• reform Ofsted and other accountability frameworks to ensure that head teachers are held properly accountable for the core educational goals of attainment and closing the gap between rich and poor.
• introduce a slimmer curriculum giving more space for teachers to decide how to teach.
• introduce a reading test for 6 year olds to make sure that young children are learning and to identify problems early.
• give teachers and head teachers the powers to improve behaviour and tackle bullying.
• expect standards across the education sector to rise through the creation of more Academies and giving more freedom to head teachers and teachers. We will also ensure that money follows pupils, and introduce a ‘pupil premium’ so that more money follows the poorest pupils.

The National Autistic Society will be particularly looking at any sections of the Bill on behaviour and will be arguing that any changes to legislation or policy on behaviour needs to take into account the specific needs of children with autism.

We also believe that the reading test at age 6 needs to be reconsidered and a different test introduced so that special educational needs including autism can be identified at an earlier stage.

We will report on more details of the Bill when it is published.

Let us know in the box below what you think of the expected reforms.