GOVERNMENT league tables of school performance should be changed to show the improvement in pupils' abilities not just test results, the Bishop of Blackburn told Ministers.

The Rt Rev Alan Chesters said schools where many children did not speak English as a first language automatically suffered in the current crude system.

In the House of Lords, the Bishop highlighted his Millennium initiative to appeal for people to enter the teaching profession because of its crucial importance to Britain's children and the nation's future.

As a former teacher himself who had started the day in a numeracy hour in Darwen, the Rt Rev Chesters said one problem was that there were "too few teachers."

He said that there too many pressures on teachers in terms of paperwork, the Ofsted schools inspectorate system, league tables, and pressure to train young people for jobs rather than educate them.

He went on: "It is entirely proper that parents, taxpayers and others know how things are going on in our schools and that weak and ineffective staff are weeded out. We do not want them. However, like the rest of us, the inspectors are not always right. Some do not have much clue about the pressures in particular areas in which the schools are situated.

"Some seem more interested in the number of policy statements that a schools can collect than in the pastoral care of the pupils. Some do not listen. There is evidence to suggest that they come with their own specific agenda.

"My question to ministers is whether all that needs to be so public. There are newspaper articles in local papers which target individuals, who have little opportunity to reply. "That is set alongside league tables which fail to show the value-added achievement of schools in Blackburn, Preston and inner cities, where for many pupils English is not their first language. Such matters put unnecessary pressures on some of our best head teachers and their staff.

"The clergy tell me that they spend a good deal of time pre-Ofsted and post-Ofsted giving pastoral help to teachers who feel less than valued by the process."

Another former teacher, Baroness Massey of Darwen, said it was the teachers in her schools in the town that inspired her to go to university and said the commitment and vision of heads and their staff was the key to good education.

Education Minister Baroness Blackstone, said the Government was determined to both support teachers and raise standards. In a Commons debate, her colleague, Jacqui Smith, promised urgent action to introduce value added school performance tables along the lines suggested Bishop Chesters.

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