The Labour Party made major announcements focused on early years and primary schools as the final week of party conference season came to a close.
Labour’s education policy focus was in marked contrast to the Conservatives’ gathering last week, which targeted post-16 reforms through the creation of a new qualification, the Advanced British Standard.
Labour delegates in Liverpool today heard the main education announcements from shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, who announced a review of early years education and a new focus on maths teaching in primary schools if Labour is elected into power at an expected general election next year.
Both Ms Phillipson and new shadow schools minister Catherine McKinnell also spoke at a series of events during the conference, which featured panel debates on the future of education policy.
Here is everything teachers and school staff need to know about Labour’s education policy:
The main announcement from the shadow education secretary was that a former chief inspector of schools, Sir David Bell, has been appointed to lead a Labour review of early years provision.
The review will look at ways to increase the amount of primary school-based nursery provision amid falling birth rates, and how to remove restrictions on local authorities opening early years settings.
Ms Phillipson’s speech also included plans to “upskill” maths teaching in primary schools to include more “real world” applications for the subject, including budgeting, recipes and understanding sports league tables.
She told the conference that this upskilling of non-maths specialists would be delivered through a proposed Teacher Training Entitlement - which Labour would fund using money raised by ending tax breaks for private schools.
Leading figures in the Labour Party, including shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and leader Sir Keir Starmer, reaffirmed its commitment to changing the tax status of private schools.
Conservatives had criticised the plan last week, saying that it showed that Labour failed to understand the aspirations of parents. In response, Ms Reeves highlighted the government’s handling of the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) crisis in schools.
She added: “If Rishi Sunak wants a fight on this, if the party that has herded our children into [temporary bulidings] as school roofs crumble wants a fight about who has the most aspiration for our children, I say, ‘Bring it on.’”
Ofsted inspections are not just “dreaded” by schools but also fail to provide useful information to parents, Ms McKinnell told a conference panel discussing how the party should implement its planned inspection reforms if it comes to power.
Labour has previously said it would replace headline single-word inspection grades with a report card and also introduce annual safeguarding reviews.
Labour has admitted that it is still “working on” how to fulfil its plan to recruit 6,500 more teachers to England’s schools.
The commitment is one of the major announcements Labour made earlier this year. When asked by Tes how the party would achieve this, Ms Phillipson said this was still being worked on.
Former Department for Education adviser Sam Freedman warned the conference that he did not think an incoming Labour government would be able to “fix” teacher recruitment because it was “fundamentally broken”. He predicted that teaching would become a “visa profession”, similar to healthcare.
But Ms McKinnell said at a separate event that she did not feel pessimistic about Labour’s potential to “really turn around some of these issues”.
The shadow education secretary told another event at the conference that she wants to turn around the tutoring “disaster” rolled out under this Conservative government, as part of a bid to tackle the “long shadow” created by Covid.
Referring to the Conservatives’ flagship Covid catch-up scheme, the National Tutoring Programme, Ms Phillipson said the benefits of tutoring risked being “undermined” because of the way the programme was delivered by the government. But she added that she wanted to explore how tailored support can help children recover from lost learning.
A former Labour education secretary spoke at the conference about the challenges an incoming government would face.
Lord Blunkett, who was education and employment secretary under former prime minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 2001, said the DfE has developed a “mindset” driven by schools minister Nick Gibb that has “got to be changed” under a new Labour government.
Teachers need to be protected “from any unnecessary pendulum swings” in education workforce policy, the chief executive of the National Institute of Teaching (NIoT) warned.
Melanie Renowden also told a fringe event at the Labour conference that it was important to ensure that “we’re not reinventing the wheel” with the future government’s education policy plans.
