Government will “trust school leaders to get on with the job”, says Damian Hinds

Speaking at the National Association of Head Teachers’ (NAHT) annual conference in Liverpool on Friday 4 May, Education Secretary Damian Hinds said that schools themselves know how to improve their performance, and has launched a consultation for a clearer system of accountability.

Hinds said he intends to make the system free from multiple inspections and he will be consulting on a system that replaces the “confusing” system of measuring school performance, with a single measure to trigger support for schools. This will be backed by a clear statement on when schools convert to academy status to drive improvement.

Hinds said: "I trust that you know better than us – better than me, better than the Department for Education – how to improve your schools. You don’t need government getting in your way.

"We will, of course, take action where a school is failing – on those rare occasions where, frankly, the leadership isn’t there to make the improvements needed then we must act decisively and make structural change where it’s necessary.

"But these are the measures of last resort – and I believe every school must be absolutely clear on the rare circumstances when this would happen – and when it wouldn’t.

"Ofsted is the body that can provide an independent, rounded judgement of a school’s performance – data alone can’t tell the whole story.

"So I want to move to a system where, when it comes to educational underperformance, we only enforce academy conversion, leadership change or changing the trust a school is part of when there has been an Ofsted Inadequate judgement.

"So that means we will not be forcibly turning schools into academies unless there is that judgement."

To build on this, the Education Secretary set out plans to improve early career support and development.

Working with school leaders, new high-quality training opportunities will be developed to boost career progression and support the record number of teachers in our schools to become leaders in their field, including:extending on-the-job training and support for trainee and new teachers to two years, so they get the best possible start to their career; and creating early career development opportunities for teachers through a new framework that schools will follow, developed in partnership with teachers, school leaders and education experts.