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<p>This Government has introduced an ambitious, coherent programme of reforms to ensure
greater consistency in educational outcomes across all stages and regions in England.</p><p>We
are reforming assessment and the curriculum across the primary and secondary phases
and general and vocational qualifications to ensure we have a system that prepares
young people for life in modern Britain. We are reforming GCSEs and A levels to be
robust and rigorous, to match the best education systems in the world and to keep
pace with universities’ and employers’ demands. The new national curriculum, introduced
from this school year, also sets out expectations for children at all four key stages
that match the curricula used in the world’s most successful school systems.</p><p>We
are improving the accountability framework to improve standards across the country.
In addition, Ofsted has implemented a more rigorous inspection framework, with performance
data being used to target inspections on the weakest schools and a recognition that
any school rated less than ‘good' is not performing well enough.</p><p>Some schools
are still not performing well enough. We issued revised statutory guidance[1] to local
authorities in May that makes very clear our expectations that they should take swift
and robust action when maintained schools are performing poorly. This includes our
expectation that their assessment should include the achievement of disadvantaged
pupils and that poorly performing schools should become sponsored academies.</p><p>In
addition, the academies and free schools programmes are shifting power and responsibility
to leaders of education, giving schools greater autonomy to drive improvements, within
a strong framework of accountability. The growth in sponsored academies is raising
standards by turning around some of the most disadvantaged and worst performing schools
in the country. Increasingly, high performing schools are taking the lead as sponsors,
sharing their expertise and experience to benefit others.</p><p>Regional Schools Commissioners
(RSCs) are responsible for overseeing the performance of academies, free schools,
university technical colleges and studio schools in their region. RSCs, along with
their headteacher boards, are helping to build the capacity of the Department for
Education to pick up local and regional soft intelligence which will contribute to
the ability of the Department to oversee academies and free schools and hold them
to account. The RSCs will be able to take decisions on academy issues whilst being
immersed in the local context. This will enable them to make decisions based on the
circumstances of the school(s) and sponsor(s) in question.</p><p>All of these reforms
will also help raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap with
their peers at every phase and in every region in England. In particular, the Government
introduced the pupil premium in April 2011 – worth a total of £6.25 billion to date
– to give schools the resources to raise the attainment of mainly economically disadvantaged
pupils and those in care.</p><p>[1] <a href="http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-causing-concern--2"
target="_blank">www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-causing-concern--2</a></p>
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