Education Report from Labour Conference
Blog 13 October 2023. James Whiting, SEA delegate to Labour Conference 2023, paints a picture of apprehension and insecurity in education policy.
Labour Conference Blog
What more do we know about Labour education policy after the recent conference and what remains to be fleshed out?
Labour Aims in Education Policy
These three catch phrases are used repeatedly to encapsulate the aims behind Labour policy.
1. Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity
One of the five missions Starmer has set out, this refrain appears to be applied to education rather than other policy areas. If applied to Labour policy as a whole it is a worthy aim. With 170,000 children living in temporary accommodation and food bank use on the rise, the school system on its own can’t compensate for child poverty and disadvantage. Education policy should be seen, in this regard, as part of a strategy to tackle and end child poverty. Labour has set out vague pledges on the living wage and social housing but the refusal to reverse the Tories’ two child benefit cut will further entrench child poverty for larger families. Brigid Phillipson points to breakfast clubs as a means by which schools can contribute to tackling poverty. This welcome initiative though, is more about freeing up parents for work. An opportunity to announce free school meals for all primary school children or even extend provision to all those on universal credit has been missed. The Child Poverty Action Group and other campaigners champion this as the most effective way schools could contribute to tackling child poverty.
2. Smashing the Class Ceiling
This laudable aim raises expectations. Labour can easily be held to account, by reference to social mobility data, as to how far it delivers on this. Brigid Phillipson justifiably attacked the Tories for trying to limit working class ambition by restricting access to some degree courses, but places in elite universities for example are limited. To achieve this aim Labour either has to massively increase access to higher education at all levels or make it more difficult for the privately educated to take up places at the top universities through quotas for example. Trying to raise the profile of technical and vocational qualifications plus apprenticeships is another way of partially achieving this aim. The ‘colleges of technical excellence’ may be a step in this direction. If the class ceiling is ‘smashed’ then some currently being held up by it will fall through. Though the tax on private school fees is welcome, Labour will need a more robust strategy to tackle the privileges of the few if this aim is to be realised.
3. Driving Up Standards
This phrase really needs to be dropped from Labour’s education lexicon. There is a constant fear possibly reinforced by focus groups, that Labour will be seen as ‘soft’ on ‘standards’. My brief survey of the right-wing press suggests that the VAT on private school fees is preoccupying them at the moment so this is an ideal opportunity to change the way the left talks about education. Sally Tomlinson in her book ‘Ignorance’ reminds us of the origins of the term ‘raising standards’. In Victorian Church primary schools classes, were labelled Standard 1, Standard 2 etc. At the end of each year pupils had to pass a test to move up to the next ‘standard’. Teachers were paid by results i.e. how many children they could get to pass the test. ‘Raising standards’ still usually refers to test results or that which can be measured, in spite of many of our exams being to some degree norm referenced. And thereby lies the nub. This obsession with ‘driving up standards’ leads to a curriculum narrowed by what is tested, schools targeting borderline pupils to improve their position in performance tables and to labelling mainly working-class children as failures as they fail to reach the ‘standard’. Can we replace ‘driving up standards’ with ‘improving the quality of education’? Ignoring OFSTED’s narrow definition, improving quality could be about staffing ratios, quality of buildings and resources, curriculum breadth, respect for the learner, the enjoyment of learning, promoting critical/creative thinking, as well as developing skills necessary for life in the modern world.
Funding
Beyond the 1.7 billion which will be raised by taxes on private schools, Labour has so far not committed to raising the 20 plus billion the NEU estimate is needed to take education funding back to 2010 levels. Rather than a specific amount, the SEA has asked for a commitment to return to Labour levels, under Blair, of proportion of GDP i.e. from around 4 per cent now to around 6 per cent (it reached 5.8 under Blair/Brown). This would establish education as a top priority for the government.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention
Natalie Perera from the Education Policy Institute has questioned Labour’s keenness to reverse the crisis in recruitment and retention. Recruitment is 42 percent below target and 40,000 left last year with 75% thinking of leaving. It is not clear whether the extra 6,500 teachers promised is based on numbers now or what they should be now. There are 9.700 fewer teachers than there should be at the moment. Bridget Phillipson has recognised the need to make teaching more attractive and Labour has promised to pay £2500 to teachers completing the core content framework. Putting increased pay aside, which is desperately needed, Labour needs to find out for themselves why teachers are leaving or they will fail to solve the crisis. The core content framework, micro-management, off the shelf lessons, workload, OFSTED and teaching to the test (in other words deprofessionalisation) are all factors. Labour can’t have it both ways; pat teachers on the back one minute and then the next, put even more pressure on them to ‘drive up standards’. Unless they make a strong commitment to tackling this crisis in all its facets, teaching will become what Sam Freedman describes as a ‘visa profession’, where like the NHS, half of all teachers will come from outside the EU.
The Curriculum
In her speech Bridget Phillipson showed genuine enthusiasm for a revamped curriculum (including her primary Maths initiative, which is really about numeracy) and was keen to stress an enhanced role for the arts. All will depend on who is chosen to work on it and whether the knowledge rich approach will be dropped. Starmer seemed to imply so when he called the current national curriculum outdated. We welcome this though would want to see a commitment to the climate crisis being clearly signposted in a new curriculum.
Labour will encounter two further problems in implementing a new curriculum unless it addresses them as part of its implementation. The first is the assessment and testing regime. We would argue for the abolition of the primary SATS in their current form to be replaced by moderated teacher assessment and possibly standardised tests. Unless this happens, primary teachers will spend much of years 5 and 6 training pupils for the SATS and teaching the narrow curriculum they encompass. Further more at secondary level GCSE specifications outline the curriculum to be followed in years 10 and 11. The Tories have made these linear and in the main written exams. Science practicals are written about rather than actually executed. Written exams have replaced practical ones in some Arts subjects and speaking and listening assessments no longer contribute to English grades. A review of GCSE will have to be a consequence of a new curriculum framework. To broaden the curriculum at Key Stage 4 the EBACC and associated performance measures would need abolishing or reforming. Furthermore, the current curriculum is being driven by OFSTED and its reviews, and implemented in a large part by MATS who have been flag wavers for the knowledge rich approach. To be successful in ‘modernising’ the curriculum the new education establishment built by Gove and Gibb will need to be replaced.
Schools at the Heart of Their Communities
This topic, highlighted in the NPF report carried at conference, only featured at the conference by its glaring omission. Insourcing comes up in the NPF report and in motions passed at conference but never in relation to education. The United Learning Trust runs schools across the country from Poole to Carlisle. Our last blog featured an article by John Bolt which proposed a range of actions, short of bringing academies back under LA control, to make academies more accountable to local communities, reduce the influence of the market in schools and hand more regulatory powers to local authorities. None of these were mentioned, neither was the excellent report by Warwick Mansell for CASE showing how MATS spaffed their funds on officer salaries rather than the classroom. Instead, Labour has a policy of OFSTED inspecting MATS which given the close links between the two, (current and next HMCI are former MATS officers) is analogous to MATS marking their own homework.
OFSTED
The EPI fringe meeting on OFSTED was invitation only, perhaps representing the sensitivity of policy in this area. The report card idea is better than the grades which drive the market in schools, but OFSTED is surely not the organisation to deliver the new policy and take on school Improvement as well. Currently any improvements OFSTED would recommend to schools would be based on their published subject reviews. These set out an ideological approach to the teaching of subjects sometimes misquoting or misusing back up research (See Warwick Mansell on the Maths review). Exemplary practice is out there in schools. It just needs identifying and sharing. The competitive nature of the current schools market means such sharing is rare or carries a price tag. OFSTED behaves as if it is the only repository of strong practice and judges everyone else against criteria it has laid down. The HMCI is appointed not by parliament but by the privy council meaning she has no direct accountability to anyone. Whilst OFSTED is expected to report regularly to the education select committee, it cannot be held to account by them. Putting aside the heavy-handed way OFSTED operates, in one case leading to head teacher suicide, it is for the above reasons, the wrong organisation to conduct school reviews in a new milieu. It hands down its thinking as tablets of stone when education theory and practice has always been subject to lively debate. To label aspects of it right or wrong as OFSTED does in its reviews, prevents new thinking emerging from the bottom up and stifles innovation- exactly the opposite of what our system needs. Bite the bullet Labour. Abolish it.
Other topics
Labour reaffirmed its commitment to mental health workers in every school. This was also referenced by Wes Streeting, Shadow Health Secretary, in his speech. It will be funded of course by taxes on private school fees.
No commitments were made to address the RACC crisis in school buildings
An anodyne motion on skills was carried. This called for a re working of the apprenticeship levy, decent training opportunities and a proper career structure for school support staff. The phrase ‘Technical Colleges of Excellence’ was bandied about without explanation as to what this means. A boost to the neglected FE sector is welcome. The phrase though suggests colleges will have to jump through hoops to achieve the title.
Very little was said about higher education though Bridget Phillipson robustly attacked the Tories for trying to shut down routes to university for working class students. There was a recognition that high fees and loans were becoming unsustainable but no policy has emerged yet to tackle this.
Nothing was said about the crisis in initial teacher training. Labour appears to be accepting the core content framework, the market review and the complex range of providers led by the new Institute of Teaching.
Again there was a blank space when it came to Sunak’s British Baccalaureate proposal with Labour left defending T levels and A levels by default and at the same time arguing for the retention of BTECs.
There were no new policy announcements on SEND and inclusion, with Labour committed to going with ‘what works’ to try and reign in the huge deficits being built up by many councils. This looks like guarded support for the Tories’ safety valve initiative.
No new developments in Early Years were discussed. A fringe meeting run by NESTA featured an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the now virtually defunct Sure Start initiative. This would be an excellent platform from which to restart a national family support service. Labour’s adopted fiscal rules will prevent such spending for the time being.
Conclusion
Schools Week concluded Labour’s policies on schools lacked ‘sparkle’. There are two reasons for this, the first being their own self-imposed fiscal rules which will prevent a
rapid renewal of the service.
The second is around the lack of a coherent vision for education in England which distinguishes Labour’s policies from those of the Tories. Either they do not understand the nature of the profound ideological changes the Tories have made since 2010 and the mechanisms they have developed to deliver them, or they have accepted that radical change in a different direction is not desirable or necessary.
It all may well be to do with a lack of confidence. The right-wing press have often ridiculed progressive ideas. As the world changes at a rapid pace the Tories have anchored our education service in a bygone age and has recruited a new education establishment to keep it that way. There are signs Labour is aware of this. The next election is an opportunity to turn this around. Labour though will need a radical programme of reform to achieve its aims, the conviction to win over stakeholders and the confidence to take on the opposition which will inevitably arise.