Welcome to Dean Associates' October update, highlighting the important stories in education in the UK.

University tuition fees - what future?

On 11th October, Lord Browne is due to release his independent review of higher education and student finance.

Sources close to the report state that he is likely to recommend that the cap on English university tuition fees rises to between £6000 and £7000 per year. These fees are currently capped at £3225, a figure that universities see as unsustainable if England wants to maintain the quality of its higher education facilities.

An alternative idea - and one pushed heavily by the Liberal Democrat members of the Coalition government - is for a graduate tax: those who benefit from a university education paying once they start receiving a pay packet. Lord Brown is said to be unconvinced by this.

Those against a rise in tuition fees say that poorer families will be unable to afford higher education.

The first "free schools"

The Coalition government has recently announced that 16 new, "free" schools have been given the go-ahead to open.

Free schools are central to Government policy, allowing parents, teachers, charities and other voluntary bodies to establish a school independent from the local education authority and with direct funding from central government.

The Coalition's hope is that this will provide greater choice for parents, quoting similar schemes in the US and Sweden as examples.

However, many commentators are concerned that half of the 16 free schools will be linked to a "faith" and may operate admissions policies based on religious affiliation, closing the door on families who are not religious.

Proper perspective will only come after a year, when it will be clearer if the concept of free schools are popular and whether the initial concerns are valid.

Surrey explores turning all secondary schools into academies

An update on our September newsletter regarding the Coalition's Academy programme.

Gaining an Academy status allows the school to operate in a similar way to a free school, independent of the local education authority and with direct funding. The government has recently invited all schools to become academies.

Surrey County Council is contemplating changing all 53 of its secondary schools into Academies in one move.

This could have positive consequences for many companies and families that operate in the Surrey area. State education in Surrey is broadly of good standard but it can be hard for relocating parents to obtain places in the better secondary schools. The change to Academies could lead to admission policies being less bureaucratic and more flexible to the needs of mobile families.

New admissions codes for primary and secondary schools

The Coalition has announced that state schools may be offered additional central funding if they allocate places in the admissions round to families eligible for free school meals.

Reformers hope that poorer families will gain the opportunity to land places in state schools that are situated in predominantly middle class areas and where affordable housing is not always available.

Not special needs. Better teaching

Ofsted has accused many schools of labelling children as having "special educational needs" (SEN) when the balance of fault lies with poor day-to-day teaching or parenting.

Ofsted’s report states that half of the 916,000 children on the “school action” register - the first stage of support - should not have been identified as having special needs. Inspectors say effective identification of SEN and good-quality extra help in schools is “not common” and this results in children developing needless problems.

The National Union of Teachers has accused Ofsted of being "insulting and wrong" saying that teachers are "scapegoats" for implementing government policy.

Currently 1 in 5 pupils in England - 1.7 million children in total - are diagnosed with some type of SEN.

New review of vocational qualifications

An independent review of vocational qualifications for 14 to 19 year-olds is to be undertaken by Professor Alison Wolf of King's College, London.

Current qualifications include BTECs and City and Guilds, as well as the new "Diplomas" that the Labour government founded.

However, there continues to a perception that vocational qualifications are "second best" to academic ones and that children who are not suited to academic learning are not being given effective options.