The Labour party must look to education as a way of winning arguments and changing lives. It shows our commitment to communities; education is where the future is built. It is also vital to our fiscal credibility that we find the middle ground between overspending and starving our schools of funds.
The party should make clear a commitment to supporting free schools. The policy is a sensitive one for the left of the Labour party, but who can credibly suggest that a successful free school is somehow worse for schoolchildren than one crippled by outdated authority? Our message to local authorities should be simple; if you continue to run schools as they were run 10 or 20 years ago, there are others willing to modernise them. There is no one better placed to run a school than the parents and teachers already involved.
Putting teachers at the heart of education. Changeover at the Department for Education is disruptive to policy and the interests of pupils, so we must focus our efforts on those who really lead education reform – teachers. Teachers are too often treated unfairly; Labour must encourage further cooperation between teaching staff and local authorities so that pay or treatment disputes don’t disrupt schools. We also need relax the impression that teachers have to follow certain methods of teaching; what works for one may not work for another. Instead of being caught in the bureaucracy of teaching methods, why don’t we let our teachers teach?
A radical overhaul of qualifications would benefit the relationship between employment and education. Naturally, we must aim to see every pupil leave school with GCSEs, but they must not be the definitive in education. We see vocational courses vilified in the rightwing press because they aren’t the ‘classic’ subjects, but which employer ever asks whether a candidate can divide fractions or note the difference between metaphor and simile? We have to ask more of our qualifications system so that students become employees equipped with real life skills, a positive attitude to a working life and a sense of achievement. What does it do to a hardworking student’s morale when they hear the rubbish from the generation who will employ them that their qualifications don’t mean much?
The link between universities and schools must be strengthened. A levels – where a student can choose four or five subjects – are too similar to GCSEs and too dissimilar to degree level work. Do we really expect our A Level students to just wake up as university students? More of a realistic academic challenge at A level is required, which means putting pressure on exam boards and colleges to help narrow the gap.
The coalition government has scrapped one of our finest achievements in office: education maintenance allowance. We must accept that the Tory narrative is now believed in large parts of the electorate – that it was free money for nothing. We know it wasn’t, the Tories know it wasn’t, but the electorate is who matters in pushing policy through. I propose the Labour party commits to a new form of EMA, a scheme to help those on low incomes afford books and travel. This does not have to be weekly payments; instead that £10, £20 or £30 a week can be turned into travel or book vouchers to help our children build their future.
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Alex White is a member of Progress, writes for the Young Progressives column, and tweets @AlexWhiteUK
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Photo: UK Parliament
“A successful free school is somehow worse for schoolchildren than one crippled by outdated authority” – so, no editorialising there, all free schools are by your definition successful, and LEAs and LEA schools outdated.
” There is no one better placed to run a school than the parents and teachers already involved” – you mean the parents and the staff who are already in a majority on most governing bodies ? The whole reason you have LEAs is to support and sustain schools. If you seriously believe that LEAs run schools, you really should read up more on the subject.
I slightly part with Alex on free schools for the reason that the free schools programme can open the door to negative, free-market input in the education system which could lead to a two-tier system. Also, we do need local accountability. Labour should be extending and support co-operative trust schools and academies as an alternative to free schools and allow parents, teachers and communities to set up trust schools if standards are low, if there is a high demand and if it will not damage other schools.
Academies are no more or less accountable to the electorate or local population than free schools. I do agree the risk is already there – I’m already working with a school where the Academy Head has refused to countenance taking on a vocational stream as “this is an academic school where we send our children to university”. Free schools and academies will become grammar schools in all but name. Did you know, for instance, that, post the implementation, the LEA will no longer be able to object to academy or free school admissions policies ?
Oh come on you don’t genuinely believe that. The problem with local accountability over free schools, is that they can actually have a negative impact on some exsting state schools. Academies are comprehensives but they use their autonomy in order to help education. I think you suffer from “ideology before interest” syndrome.
I *do* seriously believe that.
I i) work in education
ii) have been a governor for many years
iii) have trained as a teacher
iv) spoken to many, many centre Labour Party members who seem to yearn for a return for partial or full selection, sadly
Yes, this is the risk of a free for all with academies and free schools, and given Gove’s obsession, I think the quality control over sponsors and providers means that almost any old ‘Uncle Tom Cobley’ can open a school, and the DfE will support it, irrespective of the merits of the case, and/or the deleterious effect it may have on local schools.
Academies are now looking at a variety of admission amendments, including banding, catchment areas, and even creating mini-grammar schools on site that destroy the comprehensive principle. Look at Toby Young’s free school and the trials and tribulations around admissions there.
No offence, but you definately are from a different world.
i agree with large parts of alex’s post but i have to say that while the ema was one of labour’s more well-intended policies in office, it was staggeringly badly targeted. i say this as a recipient. the coalition’s replacement also leaves somewhat to be desired. any replacement must be income-assessed as well expenditure-assessed and be sensitive to other factors. in simple terms, every payment must be targeted at the individual student that it sets out to help.