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Bridget Phillipson is deeply interested in education. That shouldn’t be remarkable for someone running the Department for Education, but it is: having been editor of Tes through five previous office holders, I can tell you that while some were highly capable individuals, from none did you get a sense they were fully engaged with their brief.
Phillipson’s interest is not as ideological as Nick Gibb’s (a schools minister who was perhaps the most engaged DfE appointee in history, as my interview with him recently demonstrated), but it is similar in that she gets into the weeds of the details and the tangles of research.
She is similar to Gibb, too, in seeking out expert opinions, but thus far she has sought a broader church than he did - for example, she listens as carefully to the curriculum revolutionaries as she does the Govian acolytes. For the moment, on most key topics, she is finely balanced.
So how might all this affect the way the DfE operates?
Labour approach to the DfE
If she had it all her own way, I suspect this would be a DfE that moved slowly, but purposefully.
It would be a DfE focused on finding the right long-term solution, not a short-term populist “patch” for the system.
It would be a DfE that put more effort into implementation than ideas.
And it would be a DfE that attempted to balance high support with high accountability: if all pupils come out of your school having studied a broad, rich curriculum and as better people than when they started - and you can prove it - the weight of government will support you and do so in, as Sir Kevan Collins stated last week at our Tes Trusts in Education event, a system-“agnostic” way. If you are too narrow, not inclusive enough, or do not deliver, Phillipson will be ruthless.
But she may not have it all her own way.
Political pressures on education
Early in her time as shadow education secretary, a number of influential figures in the Labour Party were briefing against her heavily as they (unfairly) felt she was not radical enough, not political enough, and did not generate enough momentum. She will be mindful of that group and need to manage them: that may mean quicker, more populist policy patches on occasion, and some political management of promised consultations on areas such as curriculum.
She won’t have the money she needs to force the full, rigorous, every-base-covered implementation of policy she seems to seek: compromises will have to be made; leaps will have to be broken down into a number of carefully curated steps.
And finally, circumstance has a horrible way of upending your best-laid plans. Her ability to be reactive while keeping to her principles will be an interesting test.
Considering all of this, the sector should be hopeful, but it needs to be patient. It needs to give Phillipson the space to find her feet and trust her instincts. It needs to encourage the long-term thinking it so badly needs. Because education needs the right responses to the challenges it faces, not the quickest.
Jon Severs is the editor of Tes. He writes a briefing every Monday in the Tes Daily newsletter, which is free. You can find out how to sign up here.
