The education secretary has treated teachers as a “problem” rather than an “invaluable ally” throughout the pandemic, Labour will claim today.
Speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) annual conference this afternoon, shadow education secretary Kate Green will say that the profession has “risen to the exceptional challenges of the past year in a way that is nothing short of remarkable”.
But she will argue that, even as teachers have been working “flat out”, Gavin Williamson has chosen to treat them as a “problem to be confronted”.
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Ms Green will say: “Making your premises Covid secure. Coping with periods of school closures. Setting up testing facilities in school over Christmas, only for Gavin Williamson to wait until the first day of term to close schools.
“Receiving complex and often contradictory new guidance late at night, or on the Friday before half-term or a bank holiday. Exams cancelled twice and a last minute decision to rely on centre-assessed grades, months after you and Labour called for a Plan B if exams couldn’t take place fairly. Pupils left without the devices and resources they need in order to learn remotely.
“Yet, even as you have been working flat out in these exceptional circumstances, and despite a catalogue of government failings, the secretary of state has chosen to treat teachers, their associations and their unions as a problem to be confronted rather than an invaluable ally in keeping children safe and learning.”
Ms Green will also argue that the system “cannot simply go back to business as usual” in the wake of the Covid crisis.
“The pandemic has simply made clearer and even more urgent the need for reform to address challenges and inequities that already existed,” she will say.
“As we begin to emerge from the crisis, we cannot simply go back to business as usual. We need to ensure we have an education system that is fit for the future our children will grow up in.”
The Department for Education has been approached for comment.
