Teachers claim 'initiative overload'

Teachers say they face too many new initiatives

Schools are struggling under an "initiative overload", says a teachers' union.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers says that secondary schools are in danger of "systems fatigue", with the implementation of too many changes at once.

The union's vice-president, Julie Grant, has warned the Department for Education against "flooding the system" with too many revisions of the curriculum and structural changes.

"The introduction of curriculum 2000, the revised national curriculum and new GCSE syllabuses, coupled with performance management and plans to "transform" key stage 3 (11 to 14 year olds), means that secondary schools are at serious risk of systems fatigue," she said.

The government has made the improvement of secondary schools a priority of its education policy.

Earlier this month, the government published a green paper on raising standards in secondary education, which as well as the expansion of specialist schools, proposed more testing at age 12, early GCSEs for gifted pupils and new targets for 11 and 14 year olds.

Teachers and head teachers have protested that they have been overburdened by the number of reforms and the accompanying administration facing schools.

But the government has insisted that it has cut down on the red-tape faced by schools, claiming that year-on-year comparisons showed that paperwork sent to schools had fallen by 40% in primary schools and 66% in secondary schools.