Labour's Plan for Education
Today is the second reading of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill... and the repercussions are heart breaking for disadvantaged children across the UK
Exactly one year ago, I wrote an article on this platform detailing why you could not trust Labour on Education. The premise for getting stuck in to the debate then was clear, as a former official in the Department for Education and someone who believed deeply in the profoundly positive impact of Conservative education reforms, I was nervous that Labour were going to unwind a lot of what we had done in Government. The English education system has, after all, improved hugely in the last 14 years - more children passing the year 2 phonics check, our PISA rankings climbing dramatically, and more disadvantaged students completing education and going on to university. The (then) Shadow Education Spokesperson, Bridget Phillipson, however talked of a system on its knees, with low levels of ‘happiness’ and declining morale across the profession. Kier Starmer has already talked of dumbing down the curriculum. Their rhetoric smacked of old-age progressive education-types who believe children aren’t in school to learn, teachers should not expect to be held accountable, and exams/testing is futile and bad for one’s mental health. I was deeply worried therefore, for what they would do if they got in to power.
Fast forward one year, and the new Labour Government (with Bridget Phillipson as Secretary of State for Education) have brought forward their landmark piece of education legislation in the form of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is due to be debated today in the Commons. My colleague and Shadow Education Minister Neil O’Brien MP has written a superb blog on the bill and the fallacies that underpin it which I highly recommend reading.
I cannot top Neil’s forensic analysis. But what I can do is draw out one particular aspect of the bill and explain why I think this is such as disastrous idea. Because this bill, as Neil says, is in part an all-out assault on the freedoms that the previous Government offered Academy Schools in the hope that it would foster innovation, ingenuity and success in the classroom. Labour plans to strip schools of their freedom to deviate from the National Curriculum, to pay more to retain top quality teachers, and for poor performing schools to join Academy Trusts as part of their school improvement journey.
In my experience these freedoms are CRITICALLY important for schools who want to deliver a first rate education for students in our state system. Why?
As a school governor and a husband to a primary school teacher, I saw first hand the frustration a Head Teacher feels when bound by strict regulations on what you can and cannot teach. Freedom to deviate from the National Curriculum, doesn’t mean you can escape teaching children about the Tudors, or their prime numbers, or even the forming of ox-bow lakes… because those children will still sit SATs and GCSEs at the end of the year. It allows teachers to think creatively about how to teach content according to the child and children in front of them.
Worse than strict rules around the National Curriculum, I watched how Local Authorities would repeatedly trash plans for school improvement, clog a Head Teachers day up with unnecessary meetings and accountability checks, failing to provide real support for teachers in the classroom, who may be struggling with poor discipline or a high percentage of SEN students. Local Authorities, in my experience, have completely checked out of school improvement work (which is exactly what they need to do for maintained schools). Many have moved in to a quasi-regulatory function, outside of OFSTED of course (an actual regulator) with bundles of well paid bureaucrats, many with little experience of teaching or governance, who waste the time of actual Governors and teachers. As a school governor, working with failing schools, I realised the only hope struggling schools have to improve was to join a Multi Academy Trust that wanted to work with a school to turn it around, as opposed to the Local Authority who rarely had any ideas and a plan on what to do.
Lastly pay… any organisation’s long term success relies on their ability to find talented people, who love their job and are loyal for the long term. Great schools need great teachers (especially great Head Teachers). Paying Head Teachers more competitive salaries (some can earn as much as inner-city lawyers and professionals) was a big part of driving top quality talent in to the profession. Giving them the freedom to pay teachers more to retain them has been a massive help in retaining good teachers in the profession. It is utterly idiotic therefore to strip schools of this freedom. In schools I have been involved in, attracting and retaining teaching talent was hard. Rural schools have a smaller pool to work from. Despite our beautiful countryside surroundings, getting people to move to Suffolk to teach was not easy. The offer of more pay, would have made a huge difference.
What is clear now, and proves some of my thesis from 12 months ago, is that Labour’s education plan is a ‘hat tip’ to the hinterland of progressive education. The only plan they have is to please Union and retrograde ideologues married to the idea of cookie-cutter state comprehensives. There has been no original thinking on schools policy, no honest reflection on the success of their political opponents, and no deep analysis of what works for children.
Because, after all, what works for children should be at the heart of education policy. Not what works for teachers, the Unions, or indeed for politicians. Thanks to changes introduced by Michael Gove and Nick Gobb, for the first time in a generation, children from disadvantaged homes in London, Liverpool, Doncaster and Ipswich were able to attend schools run by inspiring head teachers, learn in classrooms with motivated and incentivised teachers, being taught a knowledge heavy curriculum that prepared them for the outside world, and in a classroom that was quiet and disciplined. These are the components of a good education. These are the components of the success that has seen a state school in Wembley rise to become the best performing school in the country. And yet, the Labour education team refuse to accept it. Just watch the clip below, when Nick Timothy asked Bridget Phillipson to congratulate Katharine Birbalsingh, she could not manage it. And he blatant failure to do so will only make children across England poorer for it.
