Research published this week claims to prove that social mobility will not be improved by grammar schools as too few working-class children attend them. Well, yes, that is true going by the status quo and the reason it’s true is that there are too few grammar schools! Currently, there are only 164 grammar schools across…
If throwing money at things always made them better then the world would be a very easy place to run. But sadly, life isn’t that simple and just increasing the education budget will not result in us suddenly climbing up the international performance league tables. Yet the Labour Party manifesto seems to think that is…
Theresa May’s shock announcement to hold an early General Election had barely registered before all political pundits pronounced it a Brexit Mark II referendum. And I for one will be deeply dismayed if the well-worn argument over Brexit dominates the election debate when there are so many other pressing domestic issues, not least in education.…
Growing up in a working-class household in Kent I could never have envisaged that one day I’d be advising ministers on the education of our children. My mother was a cleaner who left school at 12 and my father was a railway guard. Neither were educated but both encouraged me to do the very best…
The government has recently announced a raft of measures to improve our country’s industry – with education playing a key role in this. I have long argued that what we need is as varied an education system as possible so our children’s individual talents are best harnessed. As well as raising the academic standards for…