Nick Clegg says that modern Britain expects too much from teachers

He argues in a speech that teachers cannot be responsible for all society’s problems following last month’s riots The deputy prime minister is to open up a new front in his disagreements with the education secretary, Michael Gove, criticising the recent decision by the Tories to heap responsibility for children’s development on to teachers. Nick Clegg’s aides believe the Conservatives have placed too much emphasis on teachers as arbiters of authority over children in the wake of last month’s riots. Gove is planning to fast-track former soldiers into school to provide children with more male role models. In a speech to teachers and pupils, Clegg will say: “We already expect our teachers to be social workers, child psychologists, nutritionists, child protection officers. We expect them to police the classroom, take care of our children’s health, counsel our sons and daughters, guide them, worry about them – and on top of that, educate them too. “Teachers are not surrogate mothers and fathers. They cannot do it all.” Clegg’s comments come as his party claimed to have reined in Gove’s desire to allow his free schools programme to become profit-making, and that any new wave of free schools had to be in deprived areas. In response to this Lib Dem assertion, Gove refused to rule out profit-making schools as a possibility in the future. Suggesting Clegg’s claim had more to do with positioning himself before his party conference meeting with his activist base than the real state of debate inside the government on free schools, a Gove source went on to rule out the idea that the next wave of free schools would be solely located in deprived areas. The source said the government would not rewrite the rules governing the location of free schools for Clegg and pointed out that half of those approved already were in the most deprived 30% of areas. Analysis conducted by the Guardian suggests this is not true. Clegg will talk about the experience of raising his own children. He will urge parents to take a more active role in supporting their children’s education and warn that he believes teachers cannot “do it all”. Giving children a proper breakfast, reading to them and ensuring the TV is switched off when it is time to do their homework must be the responsibility of families, Clegg says. Clegg, who shares the school run and other childcare duties equally with his wife, says that schools do not expect parents to cut down on their working hours. Instead, he will say: “They just want mothers and fathers to get into simple, commonsense, inexpensive routines.” These include an extra 15 minutes of reading at home and making sure children go to bed on time. Ruling out allowing free schools to be run for a profit, Clegg will say: “To anyone who is worried that, by expanding the mix of providers in our education system, we are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system, again, let me reassure you: yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents. But no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.” However, the Conservatives are declining to rule this out in future. On Sunday, Gove told the Andrew Marr programme on BBC1: “I’m a pragmatist, not an ideologue. We don’t need to have profit-making organisations involved at the moment.” Gove pointed out that the Conservative election manifesto said profit-making schools were not necessary “at the moment”. Allowing profit-making companies to get involved is one way to fund the building of schools without squeezing the Department for Education’s budget. Gove has already announced plans to build schools under private finance initiatives, which costs taxpayers more in the long term. Clegg is calling for all of the next wave of free schools to be in poorer neighbourhoods or areas in desperate need of extra classroom places. The first wave of 24 free schools is tilted towards middle-class neighbourhoods, according to analysis carried out for the Guardian. The analysis shows the 10-minute commuting areas around free school locations have 57% of better-off, educated and professional households compared with the English average of 42.8%. The government published its own analysis on Sunday which showed that the majority of the first crop of schools were located outside the most deprived neighbourhoods of the country. Just three schools – Nishkam free school, Rainbow primary school and Ark Atwood primary academy – are in the most deprived 10% of areas of England. Nine out of 24 are in the most deprived 20% of areas. The next wave of free schools, due to open next year, is expected to include more projects targeting the poorest parts of the country. A source close to Gove said: “[Profit-making] has been at the back of people’s minds but Cameron gave Clegg a veto and he’s exercised it. However on the idea that Clegg is insisting that the next wave of free schools have to be in areas of need, that is already the case. The process is set up already for the next wave and we’re not going to start it all over again and actually it will be the case that many of the next free schools are in areas of deprivation anyway.” Fifteen of the first 24 schools are oversubscribed, including the west London free school, where Toby Young is chair of governors. The school received more than 500 applications for 120 places. Another nine, including the Bristol free school, are either full or still trying to fill “the last few remaining places”, according to the Department for Education. Nick Clegg Michael Gove Liberal Democrats Free schools Schools Allegra Stratton Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk

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