Education and Inspections Bill

I shall give way when I have finished this section of my speech. Be patient, please. The opportunity for radical reform lies not in trying to combine the oil of competition with the water of collaboration, but in marrying a different set of opposites: autonomy and collaboration. Autonomous schools should decide which teachers they employ and how they spend their budgets, and should have the one freedom that the Government have constantly failed to give them—matching the curriculum they can offer to the needs of the pupils they serve. Collaboration means local schools and colleges working together to share good practice to develop the expertise of staff and share facilities, delivering with other agencies, including the local authority, the five outcomes that we want for children.