League tables loom for EYFS Profile results
Catherine Gaunt
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results are to be published by school for the first time, under proposals in the Department for Education's five-year business plan.
Children will be assessed with new 'readiness for school' measures at the age of five, linked to the EYFS profile, and at age 11 they will be assessed to ensure they have basic command of the 'three Rs'.
The measures are intended to ensure that children have the required skills to move on to the next stage of school.
The coalition Government also plans to promote the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics.
A new reading test will be piloted for one year from June 2011 to check children's progress at the age of six, and if successful will be rolled out throughout England.
Universal services in Sure Start Children's Centres are to be retained, with a focus on offering early intervention services for families in greatest need.
From April 2011, local authorities will be given funding through a new Early Intervention Grant.
Between January and March 2011 the DfE will be working with local authorities on a plan to increase the role of the voluntary and community sector in children's centres, improve accountability, increase the use of evidence-based interventions, and introduce greater payment by results.
But teaching unions hit out at the Government's plan to publish details of teachers' qualifications, earnings and absence levels.
Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said, 'The proposals contained in the plan to list the qualifications of teachers appears to run counter to the Government's plan to let anyone teach in free schools despite not having a relevant pedagogical qualification.
'Parents are interested in a school's ability to provide a good education and there is already an abundance of measurements by which a school's success is judged.'
