Phillipson was awful. Powell promises to be even worse. I could weep for our schoolchildren with such hapless Education Secretaries. They don’t want rigour, they think exams are too hard, and they are overseeing the closure of many schools following the cruel Labour policy of taxing education. Empirical evidence shows that children do worse under…
I recently wrote that the relief I felt after Bridget Phillipson was sacked as Education Secretary might be short-lived with the appointment of Lucy Powell as her replacement. I was right. The first few utterances of the new Minister have brought home my worst nightmares. She has claimed the spelling test for primary school leavers…
I expressed serious criticisms about Bridgette Phillipson, the recently-sacked Education Secretary, so it was a relief when she lost the brief. But my relief might be short-lived because her replacement, Lucy Powell, could be even worse. Astonishingly, in an interview in 2019, she described the idea of spelling tests for primary school children as ‘draconian’.…
A recent poll for the NEU (National Education Union) has shown a massive collapse in support for Labour, but a huge leap for the Greens. The NEU is the biggest teaching union. The poll asked for teachers’ voting intentions compared with how respondents voted in the last general election. Predictably it shows vast support for…
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson strikes again. Her latest wheeze is to introduce ‘V Levels’, which the government said will: “replace many existing qualifications, simplifying the current system and open up more high-quality routes for young people. “These reforms will make sure that whatever a student’s interests or strengths, whether academic, technical, or vocational, there’s a…