It’s over. Although the results are not all in, it’s clear that Labour will have a majority and, after 14 years, a team of Labour ministers will again be sitting in Sanctuary Buildings.
Bridget Phillipson is now likely to have the best job in government as education secretary. I’m delighted for her personally. I know that she is driven by a total commitment to improving opportunities for young people and I wish her and her ministers nothing but great success.
All new governments bring fresh thinking and have new priorities. They are not weighed down by the need to defend their record and can think afresh.
Labour education policy
There are real challenges: high absence rates that are a legacy of Covid, the need to recruit more teachers in a tight jobs market and the constant pressure to raise standards in an ever-more competitive and challenging world.
I have never taken the view that the drive for higher standards in schools is the exclusive preserve of Conservative politicians. Far from it. Some of the most passionate advocates of a knowledge-rich curriculum, strong discipline and the relentless pursuit of ever-improving standards see themselves as being firmly on the centre left of politics.
During my time as a minister, I worked alongside Labour MPs who were as determined as I was to turn around struggling schools. And why wouldn’t they be? The evidence is clear: if you want to help the most disadvantaged children, a school education that puts the transfer of knowledge at its core is key. It is the type of education, including the study of a foreign language and science, that the wealthiest families take for granted for their children.
We know from academics such as Professor Daniel Willingham that knowledge retained in the long-term memory enables the working memory (which can only handle half a dozen new pieces of information at one time) to perform higher-level functions such as critical thinking or solving complex problems.
Labour manifesto
In its manifesto, Labour promised stability in the management of the economy. Tony Blair has talked about the need for “a backbone of consistency in policies and attitudes” between successive administrations and over the years.
In 1997 his government stuck to the outgoing Conservative government’s spending plans for the following two years. In education new Labour continued to roll out the Sats tests for 7-, 11- and 13-year-olds introduced by the Conservatives.
Similarly, when the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, we continued with Sats tests and built on the academies programme introduced by Labour’s reforming education minister Andrew Adonis. Academies themselves were based on grant maintained schools and city technology colleges that started under the Conservatives in the 1990s.
Education performance metrics
There are signs that Labour will follow the same principle in government this time. Given England’s successful recent progress in international surveys, such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls), where England’s nine-year-olds are fourth in the world in reading, and in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), where England has risen from 17th to 11th in maths, this would be welcome. A sharp change in direction would jeopardise the significant rise in standards and behaviour delivered by teachers over the past 20 years.
Labour’s manifesto promises “knowledge-rich syllabuses”, support for phonics and a commitment to examinations. Its clear statement that “accountability is non-negotiable, which is why Labour supports school inspection” is a far cry from Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to abolish Ofsted.
I’m optimistic, therefore, that this new government won’t uproot the phonics screening check, so vital to improving reading, or the multiplication tables check, which ensures that children know their times tables by heart.
Curriculum and assessment review
But I worry about some of Labour’s manifesto. An expert-led review of the curriculum and assessment is promised. The last thing teachers need is a wholesale review of the national curriculum or major changes to the subject content of GCSEs or A levels.
There’s always a case for tweaks to the curriculum, ironing out identified problems or introducing new concepts such as artificial intelligence. But these should enhance the curriculum, not water it down.
The new secretary of state should resist the siren voices that call for less content in the curriculum or who clamour for less accountability. What the most disadvantaged pupils need is not “less” but more.
She will be helped by the government’s new standards tsar, Sir Kevan Collins, who brings a wealth of experience and has a passion for high standards. I hope he will be able to ensure that the lessons we’ve learned over the past 20 years about how to raise standards can be spread more widely, particularly in schools with the most disadvantaged children.
Breakfast clubs in schools
I love the idea of free breakfast clubs for all primary school pupils - ensuring that hunger doesn’t impede a child’s ability to concentrate is important, as is the convenience for working families of being able to drop off their young children at school at 8am on the way to work. But it will probably cost more than the £315 million cited in the manifesto.
I fully support the plan to recruit 6,500 more teachers by 2028-29. Between 2010 and 2024 we recruited 27,000 more teachers, but we also created 1 million more school places to teach a growing population.
In a strong economy, where the demand for graduates is insatiable, it was a constant struggle to recruit sufficient numbers of teachers. However, we did increase the quality as we now have a higher proportion of teachers with a post-A level qualification in the subject they teach than we did in 2010.
Labour says that the 6,500 extra teachers will cost £450 million a year, but the challenge will be recruiting them, and pay will always be an issue, even in a profession driven by a strong sense of vocation.
Teacher pay rise
Last year’s pay rise was 6.5 per cent. For every 1 percentage point rise in pay, the Exchequer has to find £250 million. With national debt approaching 100 per cent of GDP and a strict (and sensible) set of Treasury rules promised by Rachel Reeves, education ministers will find it a challenge to secure the funding for the pay hikes she will need to recruit so many more teachers.
If she succeeds, the Treasury will demand cuts elsewhere. She should resist the pressure to cut vital programmes such as the Mandarin Excellence Programme, maths hubs or behaviour hubs.
Music and PE in schools
As well as these big issues, I hope that the new schools minister will take forward some of the initiatives that I started but was not able to complete.
The Model Music Curriculum, for example, ensures that primary school children are introduced to the wide canon of Western classical music and to music, both modern and old, from around the world while also teaching them the technical skills and musical notation to compose and perform. Thousands of primary schools have taken up the curriculum but there is more to do to spread it across the country.
Similarly, while PE and sport is a key part of the school day in many of the best schools, in too many others it plays too small a part in ensuring the fitness and health of young people.
I would have preferred a Conservative government committed to the continuation of our reforms to have won yesterday. But change renews our democracy and will bring new thinking. My party has lessons to learn and a great deal of thinking of its own to do.
Labour’s manifesto commitment to “driving up standards” in schools can give parents and teachers hope at least that the most disadvantaged pupils and students will continue to benefit from an education system built on what the evidence says works.
It will require ministers to be on top of their briefs and challenging every day; refusing to give in to pressure from the sector to pursue the line of least resistance. I’ll be watching carefully.
Nick Gibb is a former schools minister and former Conservative MP
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