Monitoring these pupils’ performance is what is needed.So, the PM’s speech contained no eye-catching new initiative, but maybe we should not be too critical. What is needed now is a period of stability while reforms are bedded down. But there is no need for talks: the Government has already instructed local education authorities to provide enough places for those expelled from school to receive full-time education. No mention, however, was made of what kind of provision it would be – whether it would be education, play or day care.He also promised talks with the heads about how to teach disruptive pupils outside school to ensure that struggling inner-city schools did not become a dumping-ground for unwanted youngsters There was much applause for this.

In the corridors outside the conference hall, the PM’s speech was billed as the start of universal provision for all two-year-olds. This had already been trailed in Chancellor Gordon Brown’s budget. They won’t know that until they see the size of their budgets.Blair promised universal education and social services provision for the under-fives, beginning with the confirmation of a pilot early-years learning scheme for two-year-olds in deprived areas. This is a welcome move, but it does not tell head teachers whether their concerns over financing the workload agreement have been met. The Prime Minister promised, for example, to give schools three-year budgets so that they could have more stability. Tony Blair’s address to the National Association of Head Teachers’ conference last Sunday, billed beforehand as a major education speech, left those who listened to it a little disappointed.
It posed more questions than it answered. That is the way to genuine equality of opportunity, not gerrymandering the university admissions process.The writer is director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Liverpooleducation independent.co.uk.

The lessons learnt should be applied to maintained schools so that they offer opportunities that allow talents to flourish to the fullest. Instead of trying to cut independent schools down to size, it should be seeking to understand how it is that they are able to produce such good results, not only in this country but worldwide. The OECD has largely ignored results because they do not fit in with the narrative that it is keen to develop. When the permanent secretary of the DfES was asked by a Commons select committee about the contribution of the independent schools to the UK’s Pisa results, he said: “I think they are in there.”The present government has been anxious to promote itself as developing evidence-based policies. What is it about independent education? Is it the abilities of the pupils they attract, parental support, the quality of the teaching, the money they receive, their freedom from state meddling or some other factor?Pisa has produced a rich vein of evidence that is not being tapped. Indeed, I feel that so long as the state compels pupils to attend school it must take responsibility for ensuring that all have access to the best possible education But these international results are striking. Furthermore, in those countries with private schools that receive more than half their core funding from the state, and which do not need to not charge fees, the results were the same: they too did better than fully maintained schools.I hold no brief for private schools.

The gap between the independent and maintained schools was also the biggest in the world.Interestingly, the UK was not alone. Independent schools did better than their state counterparts in all 16 participating countries that have them, except Japan. Tucked away in an appendix, and hardly discussed, is a table showing that, on the main measure of educated ability, independent schools in the UK scored best in the world. If the results and the policy do not fit, it could be that the policy is wrong. Encouraging universities to give preference to lower-scoring applicants would only be justified if the exams did not accurately reflect achievement.But there is some telling validation from a recent international study of 15-year-olds – the OECD’s Programme for International Assessment (Pisa). This cuts right across the Government’s policy of putting pressure on the universities to be proportionate in their intakes from independent and maintained schools.The result may be inconvenient, but it is no reason to block a necessary change.