Damian Hinds has urged his party not to let Labour “trash” its record on education, even though another shadow minister said the Tories should “hang our heads in shame” on SEND.
Meanwhile a frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race has revived the spectre of ripping up the schools system to allow new grammar schools – signifying the party’s muddled messaging as it seeks to rebuild after July’s election defeat.
Shadow schools minister Hinds was the main Tory voice on education at the party’s conference this week, but his job will be up in the air when a new leader is appointed next month.
Leadership hopefuls say little
Besides a vague plan for more grammar schools, the four Tory leadership contenders said little about what they would do differently in education if elected. But three of the four praised their party’s record on education.
Tom Tugendhat told the conference that “freeing schools and creating academies has seen our schools improve”, adding that Conservatives “gave parents choice and trusted teachers to teach”.
Meanwhile, Robert Jenrick said the last government “transformed our schools”. He called on his party to “do for all our public services what we did for schools in the 2010s”.
He said they should “empower the good leaders, kick out the bad ones, be relentless in driving up standards and having zero tolerance for failure”. He has promised to lift the ban on new grammar schools if he becomes prime minister.
Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of taking “freedom and choice away from families by telling them that Ofsted inspection reports are unfair”.
Private school VAT opposition
Whoever ends up in charge, the fierce opposition to Labour’s plans to charge VAT on private school places is likely to continue. Hinds fears the “rush” to implement it from January will cause “disruption” to schools.
Although there are hundreds of thousands of unfilled places in state schools nationally, some areas with many pupils in private schools have less capacity than the national picture suggests.
In Salford, over 94 per cent of secondary school places are filled, Hinds wrote in a recent letter to Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary. In Bristol, which also has a large private school population, over 95 per cent of secondary places are filled.
Hinds wrote that it was “no help for there to be large numbers of unfilled places in state schools if these are not in the geographic areas or year groups where they are needed”.
Unions have also called on Labour to delay the policy until next September, warning the plan could see “talented” teachers leave the profession.
‘Don’t let them trash our record’
Hinds told a fringe event that his priority was to “hold the government to account”, but he added: “When the government does things that we think are sensible, yes, we should still scrutinise them, but where appropriate, we will support them. But we will also call them out and try to stop them when they do things that are not.”
Phillipson has already talked down the rise in the PISA international league tables under the Conservatives – pointing out our scores actually dropped; it was just that other countries’ scores dropped faster.
Hinds said: “Don’t let them trash 2010 to 2024. We should not let them trash that period in which brilliant teachers delivered brilliant results, supported by our reforms.”
However, his attempts at optimism were quickly dampened when Gagan Mohindra, a fellow shadow education minister, said the Conservatives should “hang our heads in shame” over the state of the SEND system, for which he apologised.
