Conservative Education Pledges: the complete list

The Conservative Party launched their manifesto this morning. Here is the complete list of education pledges.

In a section labelled ‘our plan of action’, the Conservatives say:

They will drive up standards in your child’s school

This will be done by:

– Requiring every 11 year old to know times tables by heart, perform long division and multiplication, read a book and write a short story.

– If children do not meet Level 4 in their ‘exams’ at the end of primary school, they must resit at secondary school.

– Require all pupils to take GCSEs in the ‘English Baccalaureate’ subjects – English, maths, science, a modern foreign language, and history or geography.

– Limit Ofsted ratings for schools that ‘refuse’ to offer all Baccalaureate subjects. They will only be able to get a ‘good’.

We will ensure there is a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance of failure

The party will:

– Continue to expand academies, free schools, studio schools and University Technical Colleges.

– Open at least 500 new free schools

– Introduce new powers forcing any school receiving a ‘requires improvement’ rating to be taken over by new leadership unless it has an improvement plan

– Allow all good schools to expand, whether maintained schools, academies, free schools or grammar schools.

We will continue to protect school funding

The party will:

– Commit £18billion for new school buildings

– Continue to provide the pupil premium protected at current rates

– Continue providing free meals to all infants

– Not allow state schools to make a profit

– Least-well funded authorities have already had increases in funding, and this will be the baseline for future funding.

We will back your child’s teacher

The party will:

– Expect every teacher to be trained in serious behaviour and stopping low-level disruption

– Reduce time spent on paperwork

– Introduce bursaries for the most ‘in-demand’ subject

– Pay good teachers more

– Reduce the ‘burden’ of Ofsted inspections

– Encourage the growth of Teach First

– Increase the number of teachers able to teach Mandarin

– Support an independent College of Teaching

We will lead the world in maths and science

The party will:

– Train an extra 17,500 maths and physics teachers over the Parliament

We will protect children

The party will:

– Introduce regional adoption agencies, working across local authorities to match children.

– Expand training programmes for social workers, such as Frontline.

– Continue to tackle all forms of bullying.

– Require age verification for all sites containing pornographic material and age-rating for all music videos.