The Schools Commissioner said the Combined Cadet Force (CCF), along with debating societies and music tuition, should no longer be the “province of the middle classes”.
Dr Elizabeth Sidwell also signalled that schools could face much tougher academic targets, with 80 per cent of children in all state primaries and secondaries expected to reach required scores in exams and tests, regardless of the intake. The new benchmark would mean far more schools being classed as inadequate and subject to intervention from the Department of Education.
Her comments come days after Mr Gove provoked controversy by branding opponents of academies and free schools as “enemies of promise”.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Dr Sidwell – a senior adviser to Mr Gove, and the official leading the expansion of the Government’s academy schools programme – said that many extra-curricular activities in the independent sector should be offered across the board.
“These wonderful extra-curriculum elements such as wellbeing and CCF did originate in the independent sector but for a number of years they have been there in City Technology Colleges, strong comprehensives and grammars. Good state schools have these things. We must not say we can’t afford it, we find a way,” she said.
“The all-round curriculum that children need, CCF, debating – that’s not the province of the middle classes, it’s the province of every child.”
The CCF was created in 1948 but its antecedents date back to 1859 when public schools and universities were asked to form volunteer corps.
Today, more than 200 independent schools but only around 60 state schools run CCF units, according to the Ministry of Defence, which sponsors the organisation. Members learn drill and are trained to fire weapons.
In 2008, the then-prime minister Gordon Brown backed a government-commissioned report which said more state schools should sign up to CCF. Although there has been no major rise, it is increasingly offered in academies.
Dr Sidwell, the former chief executive of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation, a cluster of academies in south-east London, said schools needed a balance of extra curricular activities and academic focus.
In comments that will provoke a debate across the state school sector, she suggested that Government performance targets were too low.
Currently, primary schools are considered to be underperforming if less than 60 per cent of pupils reach level 4 – the standard expected of the average 11-year-old – in the maths and English tests taken at age 11.
Some 1,300 primaries fall in to this category. The 200 with the most persistent poor performance have been told they must convert to academies within the year.
At secondary level, the “floor target” for underperformance is 35 per cent of teenagers gaining five good GCSEs including maths and English, rising to 40 per cent this year and 50 per cent by 2015.
But Dr Sidwell said schools should have even higher expectations.
“We need to get well above these floor targets that we fiddle about with. You want your child to do better than level 4. The floor at primary is 60 per cent, but let’s have it higher than that – because even at that you have 40 per cent, nearly half, who are not achieving.
“When you look at secondary, we are saying 35 per cent, rising to 50 per cent, but I believe that we could get to a point where 80 per cent can get GCSE grade C in English and maths and three others. After 11 years of schooling we should be able to do that.”
Many inner-city schools argue that it is impossible to match the standards reached in more affluent areas because they have more pupils from dysfunctional homes who struggle with the basics, disrupt lessons or have special educational needs.
But Dr Sidwell dismissed the link: “I don’t buy that. You can’t buy that can you?” she said. “The famous phrase we hear is 'These children can’t do it.’ But whether it is Deptford or Haringey or Grimsby, those children can do it.”
Dr Sidwell was appointed by Mr Gove last year to the role of Commissioner, which was created by Tony Blair in 2006 with a remit to “challenge schools and local authorities to improve”. The Commissioner, working with civil servants at the Department of Education, is charged with finding sponsors for academy schools and brokering arrangements with them. She is now trying to persuade sponsors of secondary schools to take on primaries.
Some 1,154 secondaries, more than a third of the total, have so far become independent, state-funded academies, free from local authority control. But the programme is in its infancy in the 20,000-school primary system, with just 335 having converted.
The CCF was created in 1948 but its antecedents date back to 1859 when public schools and universities were asked to form volunteer corps.
Today, more than 200 independent schools but only around 60 state schools run CCF units, according to the Ministry of Defence, which sponsors the organisation. Members learn drill and are trained to fire weapons.
In 2008, the then-prime minister Gordon Brown backed a government-commissioned report which said more state schools should sign up to CCF. Although there has been no major rise, it is increasingly offered in academies.
Dr Sidwell, the former chief executive of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation, a cluster of academies in south-east London, said schools needed a balance of extra curricular activities and academic focus.
In comments that will provoke a debate across the state school sector, she suggested that Government performance targets were too low.
Currently, primary schools are considered to be underperforming if less than 60 per cent of pupils reach level 4 – the standard expected of the average 11-year-old – in the maths and English tests taken at age 11.
Some 1,300 primaries fall in to this category. The 200 with the most persistent poor performance have been told they must convert to academies within the year.
At secondary level, the “floor target” for underperformance is 35 per cent of teenagers gaining five good GCSEs including maths and English, rising to 40 per cent this year and 50 per cent by 2015.
But Dr Sidwell said schools should have even higher expectations.
“We need to get well above these floor targets that we fiddle about with. You want your child to do better than level 4. The floor at primary is 60 per cent, but let’s have it higher than that – because even at that you have 40 per cent, nearly half, who are not achieving.
“When you look at secondary, we are saying 35 per cent, rising to 50 per cent, but I believe that we could get to a point where 80 per cent can get GCSE grade C in English and maths and three others. After 11 years of schooling we should be able to do that.”
Many inner-city schools argue that it is impossible to match the standards reached in more affluent areas because they have more pupils from dysfunctional homes who struggle with the basics, disrupt lessons or have special educational needs.
But Dr Sidwell dismissed the link: “I don’t buy that. You can’t buy that can you?” she said. “The famous phrase we hear is 'These children can’t do it.’ But whether it is Deptford or Haringey or Grimsby, those children can do it.”
Dr Sidwell was appointed by Mr Gove last year to the role of Commissioner, which was created by Tony Blair in 2006 with a remit to “challenge schools and local authorities to improve”. The Commissioner, working with civil servants at the Department of Education, is charged with finding sponsors for academy schools and brokering arrangements with them. She is now trying to persuade sponsors of secondary schools to take on primaries.
Some 1,154 secondaries, more than a third of the total, have so far become independent, state-funded academies, free from local authority control. But the programme is in its infancy in the 20,000-school primary system, with just 335 having converted.
By Julie Henry taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8999455/Military-cadet-forces-in-every-school-says-schools-commissioner.html
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