My primary school, halfway through my time there, seemed to adopt a rather pithy motto. I think it was in Latin, but having been brought up before the great liberator Michael Gove launched his attack on the oppressive, anti-Latin language programmes in schools, I can’t give you the full translation, but it was essentially ‘always try your best’.

Gove think he is trying his best. Education – like all public services – deserves constant reform, but Gove is stumbling through this parliament shouting ‘reform’ while pointing at the wrong things.

Reform of public services is never without grief, but this week shone a light on some of Labour’s recent achievements in education. The news that London’s state schools are now outperforming schools in other parts of England has justified New Labour’s reforms of our education system.

Programmes which have flourished in London are products of the reform driven through by Andrew Adonis and others. Writing in the Evening Standard, Adonis claims ‘the face of London schools has changed for the better’. He was instrumental in that change.

For all the controversy over the initial legislation, academies are working. Ark Schools, an often praised chain of schools across England with academy status, have a considerable presence in London. These are schools now benefitting hugely from New Labour’s education legislation; an 11 per cent increase in the GCSE pass rate is something to be celebrated no matter what your politics are.

We know too of Mossbourne Community Academy, praised more than others but a real champion of a modern education system. 1,500 prospective pupils have applied for just 200 places this September. 30 per cent of last year’s A Level students received offers for places at universities within the Russell Group.

Free schools are Gove stumbling blindly after New Labour. Where Labour targeted schools most in danger of social and economic crisis, the coalition is pursuing a model perilously close to a market-led schools-for-profit exercise (which doesn’t work). They are dependent on central government for funding, leaving the Department for Education struggling to cope with the necessary levels of scrutiny.

Changes in education went further than the flagship academies legislation, of course. TeachFirst, celebrating its tenth birthday this year, has placed over 2,000 teachers in what it calls ‘challenging circumstances’. Many of these were in London, now a city of world-class schools.

TeachFirst has cross-party support – always a sure sign of good reform – of the sort which Gove could only dream of. It has expanded from just 11 employees in 2002 to a nationwide support network.

The third factor in London’s revival as an education system to be proud of, London Challenge, goes relatively unnoticed. A ‘school improvement programme’ established in 2003, it sent education experts – ‘London Challenge advisers’ – to the weakest schools.

You need not look elsewhere for real Labour values in action. A 2010 report by Ofsted noted that London Challenge has ‘motivated London teachers to think beyond their own school and to extend that commitment to all London pupils’.

This is the real value of modern education. It need not be about markets in the way Michael Gove pursues competition. Instead, London Challenge has been about implementing fair values through an ethos of serving every school rather than just your own.

Where Gove is focused on centralisation, this programme has been about localised planning and implementation. Schools fund their own share in the London Challenge movement, ensuring that the DfE remains free of the bureaucratic burden of managing every school it helps.

London Challenge is a programme which should receive continued cross-party support. In building centres of teaching excellence, we are now able to see schools become what Ofsted describe as ‘engine rooms of improvement’ – where one teacher is trained to a world-class standard, so too can their fellow teachers.  What more embodies Labour values than that?

London now shines as a record of Labour’s education intervention. Cooperation and support, entwined with a clear focus on excellence and success, has become the defining product of New Labour’s reform.

Labour’s education policy between 1997 and 2010 was so much more than simply trying our best. Two years on from leaving office, Labour’s great reformers can say they delivered the best.

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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: Colt Group