The WolF Report - Review of Vocational Education - was published on Friday 4 March and immediately welcomed by Michale Gove as a 'brilliant and ground-breaking' report. It makes 27 recommendations for reform of vocational education so that the life chances of young people are transformed. The Report estimates that around 350000 young people are on vocational courses that lead nowhere and that this sad truth results from 'perverse incentives' that militate against putting young people's interests first. The recommendations could have profound impacts for schools and colleges in seking to have even more profound ones for young people. You can read a summary in the FEdS briefing on the EGN website. The key questions for governors will be how to respond to the recommendations accepted and acted on by the Secretary of State.

The Education Bill was introduced to Parliament on 26 January, and was given its second reading on 8 February. It will implement most of the proposals set out in November’s Education White Paper - a curriculum bill is expected to follow later in the year. A special EGN ‘hot topics’ paper highlights the provisions of most interest to governors. They apply mainly to England, although some also apply in Wales.
The Bill will now go to ‘committee stage’, where it will be closely scrutinised and amended, and evidence from experts will be considered. It will then return to the House of Commons for further discussion (‘report stage’) and third reading, from where it will go on to the House of Lords. Only after a similar process there can it receive Royal Assent.

What are you hoping this Bill will deliver?

By the end of this year, we will have the first recommendations from the review of the National Curriculum for 5-16 year-olds in England, launched by Education Secretary Michael Gove at the end of January.
Of course, it was only comparatively recently that Sir Jim Rose published the results of his review of the primary curriculum, which was due to be introduced in schools from September 2011. However, the new government did not approve of his theme-based approach, and it was shelved.
This will be the first such review to be undertaken by the Department for Education rather than an arms-length quango.
What would you like to see in the new national curriculum for 5 -16 year-olds?