Head Teachers
Half the country鈥檚 head teachers will be approaching retirement by the end of the decade and more than a thousand schools are currently operating without a full time head. Yet research by the independent think tank Policy Exchange found that heads make little difference to a school for the first five years. So is it time to change the job of head teachers 鈥 or to look at what they are being asked to do? Joining Liz Barclay to discuss the role of head teachers are Mick Brookes, General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers and Sue Mosco, retired primary school head, and Kerry Callaghan, Business Manager at Cowley Language College in St. Helens.
The Learning Gap
Despite an oft-quoted commitment to 鈥渆ducation education, education,鈥 this government has been criticised for not providing poorer children with the opportunities to improve their quality of life. The education charity the Sutton Trust wants better provision of early years鈥 education to prevent children falling behind by the age of three. The Institute of Education reports that by the age of three, children from disadvantaged homes are as much as a year behind those from more privileged backgrounds in their grasp of letters, numbers, colours and shapes.
What can be done to narrow the learning gap?
Liz Barclay is joined by Professor Edward Melhuish, of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birckbeck College, and Janice Saunders, national trainer for Parents as First Teachers.
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