The immediate backlash for the recent government white paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, has focused on the removal of all schools from local authority control. But Labour’s first education policy announcement since the white paper’s publication is not simply a reversal of the plans, and instead focuses on making personal, social and health education compulsory. It is easy when in opposition to simply oppose; Lucy Powell has instead made the right decision to identify a positive policy commitment, setting out a vision of how education might look if we are returned to power in 2020.

PSHE actually does quite well from the white paper. There will be a new programme of work planned with the Behavioural Insights team looking at what approaches are the most successful, and reforms to the teacher training syllabus will incorporate best practice on character development. A new advisory board will look at the quality of PSHE education, building on evidence from the first round of the Department for Education’s Character Grants. Nicky Morgan clearly believes in the value of character education and PSHE, but ideological spite stops the government from pursuing the PSHE agenda in a meaningful way.

Throughout the last parliament the Department for Education, under both Gove and Morgan, refused to commit to making PSHE a statutory requirement, arguing that school autonomy should take precedence. The illogical argument that statutory PSHE would also undermine the quality of existing good practice was also floated and unchallenged too many times. Yet the subject matter taught in PSHE can affect every child, in every community across the United Kingdom. Creating a lottery of provision, and a lottery of resilience against life’s challenges is deeply irresponsible. The Conservative ideal may be individualism, but when it comes to protecting children from sexual abuse, the Department for Education should not run from its responsibilities.

The PSHE curriculum of course goes beyond the subject of sex and relationship education and can also incorporate vital lifesaving skills, financial literacy – all subject matters that are self-evidently good. When writing to Nicky Morgan earlier this year the chairs of the education, health, home affairs, and business, innovation and skills select committees emphasised that:

PSHE… can provide (young people) with the knowledge and confidence to make decisions which will affect their health, wellbeing and relationships, now and in the future.

The last parliamentary debate on one of the topics typically considered as part of the PSHE agenda was the compulsory first aid bill, a private members bill from Labour’s Teresa Pearce, which was filibustered by the usual crowd. One of the arguments flagged at second reading was that there was no way of measuring the effectiveness of first aid, because Pearce’s bill did not contain provisions for a test of what had been taught. Get your head around that, it is only a worthwhile exercise to learn to save a life if you can be tested on it. First aid is just one example of something that by virtue of its existence can save lives, but you hope you never have to use it. Likewise with the rest of the PSHE agenda. We have a duty to teach our children to recognise signs of emotional or physical abuse, and hope they never have to suffer it themselves. PSHE is more than a tick on a page, and Labour’s plans recognise that we need to secure quality PSHE provision at the same rate as new challenges emerge for the generation of tomorrow.

The backlash against Conservative education policy in recent days has been that it is so clearly driven by ideology – rather than looking at what is working in schools. The government has once again identified an imaginary enemy whose power needs to be curtailed. Count the number of new policies in the paper. Those that focus on reorganisations of schools? 18. Those that focus on what pupils will be learning? 2. The Conservatives have placed more importance on waging war on local education authorities above the needs of the children going through our education system. We are right to be angry, but that alone is not enough.

Nearly a year into this parliament and with the current Conservative disarray, Labour should be setting out an alternative, positive future, in all of our shadow teams. Labour’s vision for education should offer more than lengthy tomes on governance or league tables. To offer a vision of hope to voters, we need to spell out explicitly how a Labour education policy will positively impact on children’s lives, rather than the alternative of a Tory government so blinded by ideology that they are prepared to leave children behind. It has often been said that one of our movement’s foibles is that we assume the moral high ground – when it comes to education policy and particularly PSHE, we have the chance to earn it.

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Becca Wright is a member of Progress

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