HAVING spent my entire career almost working under Tory rule the idea of a change of government should be a welcome relief.

The right-wing press is attempting to whip up hysteria talking about curriculum changes turning schools into sites of social engineering while tax “raids” on private schools are being compared to 1980s pit closures in the Telegraph.

This sounds to me like the Labour Party is upsetting the right people. Can the Labour Party, should it win, be trusted to make real change, though?

Curriculum/pedagogy

The Labour Party manifesto says that it will “build on the hard work of teachers who have brought their subjects alive with knowledge-rich syllabuses, to deliver a curriculum which is broad, inclusive, and innovative.”

Knowledge is of course not a negative thing in and of itself, but we should always question what knowledge? Who chooses?

What matters is the ability not simply to be able to recall it but to also be able to understand and critique what we are told. The purpose of education is to teach young people to be able to think, not simply to recall what others think.

Like many progressive educators, I often turn to the theorist Paulo Freire, who was of course known for his criticisms of what he called the banking model of education, in which the student’s mind is viewed as an empty vessel to be filled by the teacher’s knowledge.

Freire argued that the banking model simply “transforms students into receiving objects.” The purpose of which he went on is to attempt to “control thinking and action” which then “leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power.”

If we have an education system simply centred around the concept of recall and on rote learning — even if well-intentioned — it can create a “culture of silence” that could lead to students simply accepting everything they hear without really thinking about it.

It is important then to foster a classroom culture where the default mode of pupils is questioning.

Therefore, for Freire, the learner must develop a critical consciousness in order to recognise their self-worth and potential. This should be the basis of our curriculum.

Recruitment and retention

Labour has correctly identified that the education system is in crisis and have said that its first step will be to recruit 6,500 more teachers.

This is welcome of course, but it has not said how it plans to actually do this. There is some talk of payments to early career teachers, as usual front-loading payments which will upset experienced teachers.

Other options include paying retention bonuses to teachers of some subjects but not others. There seems to be no discussion about how this will affect morale when two people doing the same job are paid significantly differently.

Surveys done by the NEU show that one in six teachers plan to quit the education sector within the next two years; two-fifths plan to quit within five years. A quarter of school support staff plan to quit within two years, and half intend to leave within five years.

The main reason they give is workload and pay. We need to see a fully funded pay restoration and serious action to reduce workload. A good start might be to abolish Ofsted.   

Ofsted

Labour has made some positive noises about reforming Ofsted with the removal of one-word grades and the introduction of a report card system.

Unfortunately this means that the inspectorate will continue to exist albeit with a slightly different reporting method. This means the same people, the same fear, the same lack of accountability.

I’m sorry, Labour, but the only solution, as I wrote here, is abolition.

Assessment

On my wish-list of policies for a new education secretary to implement, a change to assessment is high on the list.

An end to GCSEs would be a great start, something I have been championing for years. There are many options available and I was honoured to be asked to be a member of the National Education Union’s secondary assessment working party.

The aim of the group was to look at the case for change in secondary assessment and what can be learnt from alternative approaches. This culminated in a report published this year with several recommendations.

I am hearing rumours that education advisers to the Labour Party are very keen on coursework. In theory I can see the benefits of this. It removes the pernicious influence of private tutors and also the onus on cramming before exams.

My worry though is twofold. First, coursework often increases workload. The time taken by teachers to assess and give feedback to students on coursework used to mean that I spent large parts of my free time marking.

Second, while league tables, performance-related pay and Ofsted still exist there will always be the temptation to “help” pupils perhaps more than they deserve (see for example the case where a well known member of our aristocracy allegedly had his A-level art coursework written for him.

Private schools

It is good to see that the legacy of Abolish Eton is still having an influence on Labour Party policy. Labour is promising to end the tax breaks private schools currently enjoy.

The revenue raised by ending the VAT exemption on private school fees will be used to pay for 6,500 extra teachers in ordinary primary and secondary schools.

This has created hilarious panic among some parents from these elite schools who have been trying to spread fear among local authorities and education unions by pretending they are going to place their children in state education even though they have no intention of moving their child.

The aim is to worry teaching unions about increasing class sizes who they then believe will somehow block the move. If only Labour listened to education unions that much!

Private schools are the engine of privilege and have no place in our society. The removal of VAT exemptions is a positive step but what we really need to do is integrate all private schools into the state sector while removing all selection and hierarchy from education. This includes finishing the job of getting rid of grammar schools and reversing academisation and returning schools to local democratic control.

Trade union rights

British law is the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world and the new Minimum Service Level Bill will only make this worse.

For many in the education sector — especially those in primary and special education — striking will be made illegal. Head teachers, trusts or local authorities will decide on what a safe level of staffing is and work orders will be issued.

Labour have said they will revoke these laws but can anyone name a time when Labour have repealed anti-union legislation in their recent terms in office?

The fact that Labour’s New Deal for Working People has already been watered down — now including caveats to consult business on workers’ rights — leads me to believe that Sir Keir Starmer is not the white knight who is going to ride in to save us.

This of course means that we need to be well organised in our unions and ready to defend our right to strike by whatever means necessary.

Robert Poole is a full-time teacher, editor of Education for Tomorrow — The Journal of Progressive Education, a workplace rep and assistant district secretary of Bolton NEU. You can subscribe to the latest edition of Education for Tomorrow here https://tinyurl.com/eftsubs.