Coalition plan to slash school bureaucracy

Controversial rules forcing schools to rate pupils and teachers are being scrapped under Government plans to cut red tape.

The Coalition said self-evaluation forms – documents often stretching to more than 100 pages – will be axed to allow schools to concentrate on teaching.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, insisted that the Government had to "trust teachers to get on with their job".

The move comes just months after the Coalition scrapped the General Teaching Council for England - the teaching profession's regulatory body.

Self-evaluation forms were introduced by Labour in 2005. Head teachers must update the documents every year in a move designed to aid the Ofsted inspection process.

Currently, schools must answer around 100 separate questions and show how they meet dozens of other legal requirements.

On a four-point scale they are forced to rate "the extent to which pupils adopt healthy lifestyles", how safe pupils feel, the effectiveness of the school's "engagement with parents" and how well the school "promotes community cohesion".

In another question, schools are told to rate their ability to promote equal opportunities and tackle discrimination.

Other sections of the form order schools to count the number of computers in classrooms, list the number of technicians and teaching assistants and confirm that they abide by health and safety, race relations and gender equality legislation.

Mr Gove has now written to Ofsted ordering the watchdog to ditch the form.

He said: "The Coalition government trusts teachers to get on with their job. That's why we are taking steps to reduce the bureaucracy they face and giving them the powers they need to do a good job. We believe that teachers – not bureaucrats and politicians – should run schools."

The move was welcomed by teachers.

Kate Dethridge, head of Churchend Primary School in Reading, said: "Removing the SEF will free up huge amounts of time – many heads spend most of their summer holidays updating the SEF, then you would need at least two or three senior management meetings to discuss it."

Amanda Whittingham, assistant head of Wensley Fold School, Blackburn, said: "Just to update the SEF took up two full days of work for the head, deputy and a paid external consultant brought in as an expert on filling in the SEF."

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said "This is good news. It will result in more self evaluation and more meaningful self evaluation, a process which is at the heart of school improvement.

"NAHT welcomes the removal of the bureaucratic, form filling one-size-fits-all approach. It is now up to schools and groups of schools to develop their own models of self evaluation, which suit their own needs and context; models which stimulate the deep reflection, challenge and learning which the profession is longing for."

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor Telegraph http://bit.ly/bSZIDH