Teaching

A Labour conference delegate was heckled from the floor when she mentioned her school. Joanne, an immigrant who came to this country seeking political asylum and is about to read law, came face to face with the vested interests that blight education reform: the hall did not like the fact that she went to an Academy school. A delegate started shouting about comprehensive schooling, much to the horror of those around her. Michael Gove has come down on the girl’s side, he has just told me: ‘Heckling a schoolgirl because she goes to an academy is disgraceful. But it also shows the real face of Labour – a party where

I counted five issues which the NUT conference suggested that teachers might strike over. But in a conference full of the usual bluster, the most noteworthy threat was not to cooperate with Ofsted inspections. Ever since the new chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw — who was hugely successful as the head of Mossbourne academy — announced that a merely satisfactory grade would no longer be regarded as good enough, the teaching unions have taken agin him. But not cooperating with Oftsed would be unlawful. Anyone who tried to block an inspection would be liable to prosecution and a fine. Another issue exercising the unions is George Osborne’s proposals for regional

Assorted acolytes from the teaching unions are padding around the Lib Dem conference, fomenting discontent around activists who are opposed to the coalition’s adoption of academies and free schools. Officials from NASUWT and the NUT have pricked the airwaves with tales of concern and frustration. Education minister Sarah Teather addressed the conference earlier this morning and she was unrepentant. She eviscerated Labour’s record on education and, by extension, the system that has been dominated by the teaching unions. She also pledged to double the pupil premium next year to £1.25 billion, which will allow schools to increase their expenditure on tuition, parental support, after school clubs and so forth. The

David Cameron and IDS have been promoting the Work Programme this afternoon and they reiterated that jobseekers must learn English to claim benefits if their language difficulties are hampering their job applications. It’s another indication of the government’s radical approach to welfare reform. Aside from that, the main event in Westminster today was Ed Miliband’s speech to the TUC. Miliband was widely heckled by the Brothers, especially when he told them: “Let me just tell you about my experience of academies as I’ve got two academies in my own constituency. They have made a big difference to educational standards in my constituency and that is my local experience of that.” The Tories

When Michael Howard offered David Cameron the pick of the jobs in the shadow Cabinet after the 2005 election, Cameron chose education. Howard was disappointed that Cameron hadn’t opted to shadow Gordon Brown but Cameron argued that education was the most important portfolio. A sense of that commitment was on display today in his speech on education, delivered at one of the new free schools that have opened this term. His defence of the coalition’s plans to make it easier to sack bad teachers summed up its refreshing radicalism. He simply said, “If it’s a choice between making sure our children get the highest quality teaching or some teachers changing

If it is GCSE results day, there must be a row about government education policy. True to form, the NASUWT — a union whose role often appears to be to make the NUT look moderate by comparison — has come out with a comically hyperbolic statement accusing the coalition of a ‘betrayal of young people’ because of its decision to reform the educational maintenance allowance. What the NASUWT statement ignores is that the real betrayal of young people has been pushing them into doing courses and qualifications that condemn them to a life of low-skilled labour at best. Last year, only 16 per cent of pupils achieved a C or

Ed Miliband is learning. He has written a blog on Thursday’s strikes and it is plain that he has learnt from the errors he made during the March against the Cuts by associating himself with militancy. First, he places himself firmly on the side of parents who will be inconvenienced by Thursday’s strikes: “The Labour Party I lead will always be the party of the parent trying to get their children to school, the mother and father who know the value of a day’s education.” Miliband gives the unions and their members pretty short-shrift to be honest. He writes: “I understand why teachers are so angry with the government. But