Case of 'initiative overload'
A series of Government initiatives for teachers and schools led to "overload" which harmed their potential effectiveness, according to an official review published today.
National Strategies were introduced by New Labour in 1998 to improve education standards, ranging from numeracy and literacy to pupil behaviour, and brought in centralised methods of achieving them. They will be phased out next year and schools will be given greater responsibility for improving their own results.
Ofsted found that almost all school officials surveyed considered the strategies had helped improve the quality of teaching and learning. But the frequent introduction of new initiatives diminished their effectiveness.