Sir Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools in England, has called for the school leaving age to be reduced to 14. Sir Woodhead has claimed that this would provide less academic students with a greater chance of learning a trade. He claimed that forcing teenagers to study the core subjects up until the age of 18 would be a “recipe for disaster”. He said that if a child had managed to master basic literacy and numeracy by the age of 14, he would be happy for that child to enter into a combination of apprenticeship and further education training that leads into employment.
Sir Woodhead has backed Government's plans to adopt synthetic phonics teaching to improve reading in primary schools. He has voiced his desired to see the proportion of children reaching the literacy target at the age of 11 to increase from just over 80 per cent to 95 per cent. However, he has announced his disproval at Prime Minister David Cameron's call for independent schools to sponsor academies. He claims that the more that a school’s facilities are utilised by non-fee-paying children, the less they are available for fee-paying children. Sir Woodhead stated that if a head of science taught half a day a week at a comprehensive school, this may be of benefit to the comprehensive school but he did not consider it beneficial to children of private schools.
Duncan Lewis’ employment law solicitors are able to offer advice on the age at which an individual can be employed and the minimum wage they must be paid. The team can provide advise both employers and employees.