The Children's Plan sets out that by 2020 at least 90 per cent of children will achieve the equivalent of five higher level GCSEs by age 19.
National Challenge is important step on the way towards this - to meet the goal that in every secondary school, at least 30 per cent of its pupils will achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths by 2011.
In 1997 there were 1,610 schools below this 30 per cent minimum standard; today there are 638 - the National Challenge sets out how we will reduce this number to zero.
Ed Balls announced that he would double the £200m previously announced in the budget to £400m to help local authorities and schools.
The extra funding could mean that up to 70 National Challenge schools could be converted into Academies over and above existing plans, and that up to 120 new Trust schools could be created. This 120 could include 70 National Challenge Trusts where a school links with another high performing school as well as an external partner such as a university or business.
To kick-start the National Challenge, Ed Balls asked local authorities to set out by the end of the school summer term, individual action plans for how they will transform results in each National Challenge school from now until 2011.
The plans must contain realistic expectations of how school exam results will improve in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and assessments of whether their schools are high, medium or low risk of meeting the 2011 goal. He also asked governing bodies to hold meetings as soon as possible to review how they would need to support their Heads and teachers in improving results.
The key aspects of the National Challenge plans are:
- £400m available to support National Challenge schools over the next three years - £200m announced in the Budget - plus a further £200m allocated from existing resources and re-prioritised towards National Challenge schools;
- More one-to-one tuition and study support in English and maths for children in National Challenge schools; plus extra support from National Strategies' experts for weak English and maths departments;
- Additional support for senior leaders in schools to support maths and science departments;
- Highly respected education expert Sir Mike Tomlinson will chair a new National Challenge Panel of Expert Advisers to support low attaining schools. The panel will consist of heads who have successfully turned around underperforming schools, City Challenge Advisers and Directors of Children's Services;
- Each National Challenge school will be allocated a National Challenge Adviser, who will work with the school leadership to develop a tailored package of support;
- By 2011 150 more National Leaders of Education - outstanding super-heads with past experience of turning schools around - will work alongside Heads to help solve problems at the schools;
- The new Masters in Teaching and Learning will be made available in National Challenge Schools;
- As well as Academies, where a school is completely unable to raise their exam results, the Government will encourage local authorities to close the school and replace it with a National Challenge Trust, providing that they forge new improvement partnerships led by a successful school and a business or university partner. The aim would be to give the school and the community a fresh beginning and a break with previous underachievement;
- Encouragement to use tried and tested school improvement models, such as partnerships with successful schools (federations) or partnerships with business or universities (Trusts), so that National Challenge schools benefit from new governance arrangements and best practice;
- The Government will legislate to take new powers to direct local authorities to issue a warning notice where there is clear cause for concern - such as exam results getting worse; to appoint Interim Executive Boards where the school is under a warning notice; and to require a local authority to take on advisory services where there are large numbers of schools with unacceptably low standards.
- National Challenge documents are available at the link below.
