I was a teacher for 11 years before I went into parliament in 1997. In Worcestershire, we had the dubious distinction in those Tory years of having the worst nursery education provision in the United Kingdom, which made us the worst in Europe. A Labour government changed that.
I was fortunate to teach in one of the highest performing secondary schools in the country but, nevertheless, I delivered many of my economics and business studies lessons in a portakabin. It was a real honour to return to the school as home secretary to open a major new development. My portakabin had gone thanks to Labour investment.
My oldest son started primary school just before I was elected, in a system where classes of over 30 with one teacher and no classroom assistants were commonplace. There were many parliamentary votes which gave me a thrill in my time as a member of parliament, but passing through the division lobbies to deliver our election pledge to cut class sizes for five-, six- and seven-year-olds felt particularly special. We ended the assisted places scheme which had used public money to place a few pupils into private education to fund the class size pledge – don’t tell me that we failed to redistribute as a Labour government.
Being in government made a difference – and this week, Labour’s front bench team have uncovered how being out of government is taking us backwards. There are now more than 500,000 primary age children being taught in classes of more than 30, with over 38,000 in classes of more than 36 and nearly 15,000 in classes of over 40 children. Coupled to this, tight budgets are also meaning that schools are cutting the classroom assistants and other support which helps teachers and pupils.
Nicky Morgan – I agree with you that children need to know their times tables securely by the age of 11, and I also want them to develop a range of other numeracy and literacy skills. Do you think controlling and organising and then teaching more than 30 five-year-olds on your own would make that more or less likely to happen? Being education secretary is about more than recycled announcements. It is also about protecting education investment and supporting teachers to teach – on that this government is failing.
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Jacqui Smith is a former home secretary and former chief whip, she writes the Monday Politics column for Progress, and tweets @Jacqui_Smith1
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All very true. But it won’t interest the teenage Trotskyists in Momemtum.
All very true, indeed…….but what wouldn’t go amiss is some acceptance of where we went wrong in education between 1997 and 2010. Most obvious is how we treated teachers as if they were a problem. I and my colleagues got sick of hearing every damn Labour Minister chucking in their contribution to the “INCOMPETENT TEACHERS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED” Dalek-Mantra. Damnation,it wasn’t as if we actually did anything about getting shot of poor teachers…but we narked the rest of them, who’d hoped the cheap headlines would end once we got rid of the Tories. Most of the teachers I’d recruited into the Party resigned in disgust. Mrs Smith was as bad as the rest of them. I still have the proof of that. Is there any chance at all that FINALLY someone will accept we threw away teachers’ trust, all for the sake of Daily Mail-friendly headlines? Bob Vant
OK. It looks like we’re in Tumbleweed Territory as far as getting a reply goes? Shame, that. Maybe I’ll have to make do with backing up what I said about Mrs Smith’s teacher-bashing-cheap-headline-bandwagon-jumping? As she wrote to me when I’d asked why there was this unhealthy, vindictive-seeming obsession, “I make no apologies for this government’s attitude to incompetent teaching. It will not be tolerated, and bad teachers will be removed quickly.”
Now, “we” did nowt about getting shot of these evil teachers, quickly or slowly…..but we didn’t half waste the free chance to get hundreds of thousands of teachers on our side. “We” gave them no choice but to respond defensively, in a way which David Blunkett cynically interpreted as being……..er……. “cynical.” No, David……teachers didn’t expect miracles from “us,” but they did think that the cheap negatives would stop. You threw away the last chance to really reinvigorate the teaching profession in your pursuit of Daily-Mail-Friendly headlines….much good THOSE did you, eh?
I keep an open mind…..will read any reply…….
Although it was one small example of being in government, I found the contribution was just one small narrow example of the public sector of the economy about which Labour just spent time on experiments. Surely we should expect more of an analysis from a former shadow/cabinet member. Very poor level on contribution that appears to me to be fuelled by this individual’s wish to keep a prominent profile on Progress that any valuable points we gave her the chance to improve on in the years and opportunities given to her.