All posts tagged: Labours

Labour’s academy direction powers rehashed from Tory bill

Labour’s academy direction powers rehashed from Tory bill

Published by skeptic

Opposition has been critical of proposed power for the education secretary to direct academies to fulfil their duties Opposition has been critical of proposed power for the education secretary to direct academies to fulfil their duties More from this theme Recent articles New laws handing the secretary of state wide-ranging powers to issue academy compliance orders are a rehash of a similar policy in the Conservatives’ schools bill three years ago. The opposition has been highly critical of section 43 of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which would give the education secretary the power to give trusts whatever “directions” she “considers appropriate”. These could be issued when a trust has “breached or is likely to breach a relevant duty, or otherwise has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably with respect to the performance of a relevant duty”, the bill states. Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, this week described the power as “untrammelled” and “a sort of general power to direct academies on a range of subjects”. He suggested the bill should be …

Labour’s ‘act of vandalism’ bill ‘risks teacher pay cuts’

Labour’s ‘act of vandalism’ bill ‘risks teacher pay cuts’

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More from this theme Recent articles Labour’s plan to water down academy freedoms is an “act of vandalism” that could cut 20,000 teachers’ pay, Conservatives have warned amid growing criticism of the schools bill to be debated by MPs today. Sir Nick Gibb, the former schools minister, this week urged Labour to abandon plans “driven by ideological hostility to academies” While the Tory veteran’s criticism is not unexpected, he is just the latest to publicly raise concerns over proposals set out in the children’s wellbeing and schools bill. The bill will make all academies follow the national curriculum, allow councils to open schools again and end the automatic academisation of failing schools. Trust bosses have already voiced their misgivings, with national newspapers also starting to criticise the government’s academy plans. For instance, the Economist ran a piece headlined: ‘Labour lacks good ideas for improving Britain’s schools’. The criticism comes as the bill is due to be debated in parliament this afternoon. Reforms risk league table progress, says Gibb England’s pupils have risen up international league …

Labour’s lack of vision for education is a disappointment

Labour’s lack of vision for education is a disappointment

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More from this theme Recent articles When the current government and education secretary took office, they carried with them a sense of hope – for stability, clarity and a bold vision to address the growing pressures in our education system. So far, they have fallen short. There has been a lot of action, as Bridget Phillipson was keen to point out on social media yesterday as she signed off for the holidays. But it’s hard to see coherent strategy tying all that action together. If we want to stabilise the system and provide assurance to all stakeholders – teachers, leaders, parents and, most importantly, pupils – then this is what we need. The government’s claim to be “agnostic about structure” is a revealing example of what I’m talking about. This isn’t neutrality; it’s a lack of direction. Without a clear commitment to any approach, this agnosticism risks perpetuating fragmentation and inequality. The new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill reinforces this concern. It appears to prioritise appeasing unions and a nostalgic return to an idealised era …

Labour’s plans show it gets trusts’ vital improvement role

Labour’s plans show it gets trusts’ vital improvement role

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles Over the past decade, the Labour Party has often appeared hesitant to champion one of Tony Blair’s most transformative legacies: the academies programme. This initiative sparked an education reform movement that reshaped outcomes for thousands of children. While this reluctance has sometimes clouded the extraordinary progress enabled by school trusts, there are promising signs of change under Bridget Phillipson’s leadership including in this week’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. As education secretary, Phillipson has signalled a nuanced understanding of the role that multi-academy trusts play in our education system. At their best, trusts are engines of innovation in curriculum, behaviour, and pedagogy, transforming life chances for children in some of the most disadvantaged communities. Each year, trusts achieve what was once thought impossible, providing families in some of the country’s most deprived communities with schools of a quality unimaginable a generation ago. As a trust CEO, we have seen first-hand the power of this model. High-performing trusts succeed not because of bureaucratic oversight but because they are driven by …

Labour’s policy is managed decline for specialist provision

Labour’s policy is managed decline for specialist provision

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More from this theme Recent articles The government announcement of an additional £740 million to increase specialist provision and inclusion in mainstream should be celebrated. After all, it’s an enabler of a more inclusive education system. Or is it? It could be argued that it is simply throwing good money after bad. At a time when we’re consistently reminded about the hostility of the fiscal environment, when we know the SEND system is broken and getting worse, and when the school estate is crumbling from years of low investment,  do we have the evidence base to invest three-quarters of a billion pounds in this way? State of the specialist estate Special schools are beyond saturation point. Up and down the country, numbers on roll have crept up every year since 2015 and continue to do so, with virtually no capital investment. Many of the special schools in our trust are subject to tens of tribunal directions each year, and every year the cycle repeats. Class sizes are growing, and we’re on the knife edge of …

Labour’s breakfast club delay is the right policy decision

Labour’s breakfast club delay is the right policy decision

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More from this theme Recent articles They called it the great catch-up. The government’s £1.12 billion National Tutoring Programme was meant to be the answer to children’s lost learning after Covid lockdowns closed the classroom doors. Yet what followed offers a sobering lesson for the new government as it prepares to launch its own flagship education policy: a £365 million-a-year programme of universal breakfast clubs in England’s primary schools. The National Tutoring Programme’s failures were as expensive as they were comprehensive. It fell short of its 6 million hours tutoring target. The disadvantaged pupils it was meant to help largely missed out, with less than half of the children receiving support coming from poorer backgrounds. Delivery descended into chaos. MPs denounced the funding system as “spaghetti junction“. Tutoring groups branded the management by global outsourcing firm Randstad as “shambolic“. When the programme ended in 2024, barely one in six school leaders said they would continue offering tutoring without government money. All this while the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils has grown to its widest since 2011. Our analysis at The New …

Primary Ofsted reports show Labour’s plans are at risk

Primary Ofsted reports show Labour’s plans are at risk

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More from this theme Recent articles School accountability reform and the planned introduction of report cards in 2025 are keeping Ofsted and the DfE busy. But while progress might feel pacey in Whitehall, my analysis of the first 200 primary reports published this term shows there’s still a lot to do to meet this ambition – and meet it well. Sadly, it’s clear that removing the overall effectiveness grades has made no real difference due to the retention of the four subcategory grades. Schools formerly judged to be ’Outstanding’ overall are still instantly recognisable, because the section in the report on what a school needs to do to improve is omitted. Meanwhile, the 80 per cent of schools which are clearly ‘Good’ overall mainly have that same grade for all sub-categories. The few schools requiring overall improvement are also self-evident, and none have yet been given the lowest grade. Moreover, the widespread criticisms that ultimately led to these reforms extended well beyond the grades and into the realms of dissatisfaction with the substance of the …

The keys to success for Labour’s RISE teams

The keys to success for Labour’s RISE teams

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More from this theme Recent articles In setting up its new regional improvement (RISE) teams, government should draw on lessons from previous experiences. In particular, they should be guided by the success of London Challenge and the follow-up interventions in Greater Manchester and Wales. A central strategy in all these developments was the creation of teams of challenge advisers whose role was to support schools facing challenging circumstances. Employed on part-time contracts, these expert school leaders were directly accountable to a minister. This provided the political mandate that is essential to improvement strategies that mainly emphasise bottom-up action.  The schools supported by the challenge advisers were defined as the ‘Keys to Success’, a phrase introduced by Sir Tim Brighouse. His idea was that rapid improvements in these schools would create a ripple effect across the local education system. Initially schools tended to be reluctant to join what was seen as a ‘club for failing schools’. However, as success stories started to spread this changed. Indeed, the title Keys to Success became a badge of honour, …

What does Labour’s first budget mean for education?

What does Labour’s first budget mean for education?

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More from this theme Recent articles The government pledged extra cash for schools and SEND at last week’s budget. Now the dust has settled, here’s what we know… £2.3bn budget boost means return to 2010 levels (but difficult decisions ahead) The chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the core schools budget would increase by £2.3 billion next year. However, £1 billion is specifically for high-needs. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said the increase represents a 1.4 per cent real-terms increase in total spending, or 1.6 per cent in spending per pupil. Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow, said the growth in core school spending would lift spending per pupil, after adjusting for inflation, to about £8,100 – just above its “high point of £8,000 in 2010”. The Conservatives promised for years that funding rises would restore budgets to 2010 levels in real terms, but inflation and cost rises kept setting the pledge back. The government has also said the £1.3 billion would “continue to fully fund this summer’s 5.5 per cent pay award for teachers, …

Mapping the minefield to Labour’s ‘balanced report card’

Mapping the minefield to Labour’s ‘balanced report card’

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More from this theme Recent articles In many ways the abolition of one-or two-word judgments of schools’ overall effectiveness was an easy win for the secretary of state. The so-called ‘balanced report card’ may prove much more difficult to deliver. The abolition of grades is cited as a major feature of the new government’s plans for Ofsted reform and involves replacing those problematic overall judgments with report cards offering parents “a much clearer, much broader picture of how schools are performing”. But after that easy win, the development of such cards is going to be beset with difficulties, as yet unacknowledged by either Ofsted or the DfE. A key issue in the design of report cards is likely to be the number and nature of any assessment grades they profile. It seems very likely that the current four-point grades will remain for the quality of education, personal development, leadership and management, and behaviour and attitudes judgments. But what if a new framework results in different groupings including possibly the restoration of teaching quality? It’s also …