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Education Debate

Education debate

Those in favour of the recommendations have argued that:

If the change of structure is agreed by the Council’s Executive, Primary schools would be age range 4/5-11 and existing High Schools would be 11-18. This has the following advantages:

Primary and Secondary schools would become completely responsible for Key Stages and, therefore, completely accountable for the outcomes, unlike the current shared situation.
A two-tier system should make recruitment easier since it conforms to the prevailing national pattern. Potential applicants would not be under any disadvantage if they wanted to further their careers elsewhere.
The Island would not be increasingly isolated as the few remaining three-tier authorities (LEAs) disappear.
Primary schools would have two years more to achieve the best possible results at the end of the primary phase and secondary schools would have two years longer to prepare students for their post-16 choices.
Those children most affected by change of school would experience only one transition rather than two.
Once established a new system would make better use of resources releasing money for developing services and classroom teaching.
Some reorganisation will be inevitable anyway because of falling rolls, so it is better to make one coherent change now rather than a series of ad-hoc decisions over a number of years.