Sweeping schools reforms “will not cut teachers’ pay” and will restore academies “to their core, intended purpose” of raising standards, Bridget Phillipson has insisted as she batted back criticism of her schools bill today.
The education secretary spoke in Parliament this afternoon during the second reading of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill.
A formal vote is expected by around 7pm, with the opposition having tabled an amendment to take down the bill.
Here’s what we’ve learned so far.
1. Reforms ‘won’t cut teachers’ pay’
Labour’s proposal that academies be forced to follow national pay scales for teachers has prompted warnings from the Tories that “thousands” will face a pay cut.
Many trusts pay teachers above national rates. The country’s largest has flagged concern about the consequences of Labour’s plans.
Phillipson was pressed today to confirm “there is nothing at all in this bill that would result in a teacher in any school getting a pay cut”.
The education secretary said: “I will reiterate today that the measures in this bill and the changes that we will bring forward to the school teachers pay and condition documents in the following remit will not cut teachers’ pay.
2. ‘We’re restoring academies to their core purpose’
Conservatives are up in arms about Labour’s plans to significantly scale back freedoms for academies over things like the curriculum, teacher pay and admissions.
Academies are regarded as one of the former government’s biggest policy successes, with standards rising since they took office.
But Phillipson shrugged off criticism. She said government was “restoring academies to their core, intended purpose: driving up standards for the most disadvantaged children in our country, with innovation spread wherever we can do that”.
She told MPs that academies, “introduced by the last Labour government and expanded by the party opposite have been instrumental in raising standards in our school system.
“They have delivered brilliant results, particularly for the most disadvantaged children, and they will continue their record of excellence under this Labour government.”
3. Bill targets Tory failures over absence, forgotten third
Phillipson also warned that “this consensus must not stifle progress”, and said that while the Conservatives “did make some progress over the past 14 years, it must reckon with its many failures.
“One in four children leaving primary school without meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. Tens of thousands of children not securing good maths or English GCSEs.
“One in five children regularly absent from school, unable to learn if they aren’t there, holding back their classmates when they do return, hundreds of thousands of children in schools that perform poorly year after year. Protecting the foundations should not mean that we don’t build on them.”
Schools Bill: we’ve got you covered
The headlines: Bill to enact sweeping academies reform
The round-up: All 39 schools bill policies
The fall-out: Axed academy freedoms could harm school improvement
Opinion: Labour’s plans show it gets trusts’ vital role
4. No to MAT competition that ‘hoards best practice’
The education secretary heaped praise on the “best schools and trusts” for their “incredible work, day in, day out”.
“They are engines of innovation. Civic leaders. Collaboration and improvement are central to their success. They prove excellence already exists in the system. Now is the time to spread it to all schools, and that does not mean no competition.”
She warned: “Competition can be healthy, a spur to excellence, but competition that encourages schools to hoard best practice or to export problems to others must be replaced by collaboration, by schools working together to solve problems and put children first.”
5. ‘Destroys two-decade consensus’ and academies gone ‘in all but name’
But Conservatives were scathing. Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said the schools part of the bill was “the policy equivalent of a wrecking ball”.
“It is an all-out assault on teachers, the education system and standards. It is nothing less than education vandalism, and we will oppose it with every fibre of our beings.”
She warned the bill “destroys the consensus built over two decades in England on how to improve schools, a consensus that has led to English children being the best in the western world at reading and maths”.
And Trott also accused the bill of “abolishing academies in all but name, and for what?
“Because education ministers think that they know better than [Michaela founder] Katharine Birbalsingh and [United Learning CEO] Sir John Coles?”
6. ‘As if Tony Blair had never been prime minister’
Former education secretary and schools minister Damian Hinds told the chamber he was “sure Labour MPs today will cheer what they will see as the final demise of the Gove-Gibb reforms. But what we have before us today reverses far further back than that.
“If this bill passes in anything close to its current form, it will be as if Lord Adonis was never the school minister, as if Lord Blunkett had never sat in the secretary of state’s chair.
“It will be as if Tony Blair had never been prime minister and had never made central to his pledge and contract to the British people in 1997 those famous three words: education, education, education.”
He accused the bill of “attacking school and trust autonomy and giving power back to Whitehall and to the LEA”.
“All of the progress that we have talked about from our reforms, all of it is now at imminent risk.”
7. It’s not just Tories with grave concerns …
Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, also flagged “serious concerns” about making academies following the national curriculum and pay levels.
She said two of the four secondaries in her constituency were in the bottom performing five per cent of schools in London in 1997. Now they have three academies, all of which are ‘outstanding’.
“I struggle to see how removing these rights would benefit children who need additional support that they provide.. forcing academies to follow the national curriculum risks undermining one of the key to their success”.
She also feared proposals to make academy conversions for failing schools ‘discretionary’, rather than automatic as it is now, would lead to “a large increase in judicial reviews and prolonged uncertainty in nobody’s interest”.
She instead called for a list of ‘good’ academy trusts that were able to take on struggling schools.
8. Confusion as Phillipson says RISE teams will be ‘in’ schools
Labour is setting up new regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) teams, but there has been confusion over who will actually carry out the improvement work in schools.
Officials last year said RISE teams “will not provide support directly, but will commission strong organisations” which will “create a bespoke package of support”.
But Phillipson appeared to muddy the water further today, when she said schools falling short “of the statutory level of intervention will see regional improvement teams in their schools driving up standards”.
9. Labour MP claims academy successes down to off-rolling
Academies reform may be an awkward subject for Labour, but its new MPs seem unafraid to put the boot in.
Lauren Sullivan, a former teacher elected in Gravesham last July, asked if Trott would “concede that the academisation process has meant that the off rolling that we’ve seen up and down this country has led mostly to the crisis we have in SEND”.
“And actually that is the whole point of how the academy systems have apparently improved standards. No, they haven’t. They’re decreasing inclusion.
“Can you please show us how the accountability system has helped our children that are now stuck at home because they have been off rolled.”
Ofsted has found examples of off rolling in academies after it launched a crackdown in 2018, but maintained schools have also been guilty of using the practice too.
Many trusts will also bristle at Sullivan’s claims. She did not provide the evidence her claims are based on.
But the comments perhaps give an insight into the scepticism some in the Labour party still harbour over academies and their impact.
