In their 2010 manifesto the Tories wanted ‘every child to benefit’ from their education reforms. As this is not in the 2015 manifesto (no wonder considering the number of young people who took their exams during the exam board kerfuffle, as just one example), I am left wondering just how many children will benefit from their planned reforms and what their reforms mean.
The Tory Manifesto claims that they ‘know what works in education’ but do I agree?
- The Schools
- We believe that parents and teachers should be empowered to run their schools independently. There are over 250 new free schools – set up and run by local people – delivering better education for the children who need it most.
- We will turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy, and deliver free schools if parents in your area want them.
- And we will introduce new powers to force coasting schools to accept new leadership.
- We will not allow state schools to make a profit.
More privatisation but don’t worry the few state schools left will be no-profit.
- The Teachers
- We believe that teaching is a highly skilled profession, and that we need to attract the best graduates into it.
- This generation of teachers is already the best-qualified ever.
- In future, we will recruit and keep the best teachers by reducing the time they spend on paperwork, paying good teachers more…
But have you not spent the last five years bashing the teachers and freezing wages?
Ah, but many schools now have Performance Related Pay – that is what you mean then..?
- Secondary School Students
- We will require secondary school pupils to take GCSEs in English, maths, science, a language and history or geography, with Ofsted unable to award its highest ratings to schools that refuse to teach these core subjects.
- We will increase the number of teachers able to teach Mandarin in schools in England, so we can compete in the global race.
- We will lead the world in maths and science. We aim to make Britain the best place in the world to study maths, science and engineering.
So that’s the plan for the most able students, watch and wait world.
I hope these bright students aren’t interested in the arts at all – that would be a waste. And I wonder why economics and politics aren’t on their list? And of course, vocational qualifications are already a no-no.
Oh, and schools, DO NOT feel the need to give students a broad choice of subjects – the government will not tolerate too many students having the freedom to make their own choices.
- Primary School Pupils
- We will start by introducing tough new standards for literacy and numeracy in primary schools. We will expect every 11-year-old to know their times tables off by heart and be able to perform long division and complex multiplication. They should be able to read a book and write a short story with accurate punctuation, spelling and grammar.
- If children do not reach the required standards in their exams at the end of primary school, they will resit them.
- We will ensure there is a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance of failure.
But hold on, is this really possible? Oh yes, I see you have written a more ‘challenging’ curriculum and you have designed a new 11+ style SATs exam to match that curriculum. So now you’ve written it down just wait for it to work.
I notice that there is no mention of cutting class sizes from the average 30 pupils per teacher, and did you say you planned on cutting the teacher workload..?
But that’s OK, fear will spur those children on – good tactic, after all fear was the basis of your election campaign.
So after reading the manifesto I am still left wondering just how many children will benefit from their planned reforms. And what do their reforms mean? More privatisation, more pressure on performance of teachers and students, more testing and less creativity.
And do I believe their claim that they ‘know what works in education’?
Does anyone?
Thinking Outloud 