
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.
Lee
April 14, 2015 at 5:31 pm
So Ofsted to police EBacc but reduce the burden of Ofsted. Presumably maintaining that Ofsted is also independent of Party politics.
Agatha Trunchball
May 8, 2015 at 1:12 pm
testing, testing, testing until your child hates learning and then we’ll medicate them
Dr Leslie Howard
May 9, 2015 at 7:11 am
Words entirely missing from the plan:
Culture
Art
Literature
Theatre
Music
Dance
Philosophy
History
Citizenship
Shirley
May 9, 2015 at 2:28 pm
The part that says they will not allow state schools to make a profit is worrying – will this mean they will not allow a school to have a contingency fund?
Christine Powell B.Sc
May 9, 2015 at 5:20 pm
Not interested. I live in Wales
Maria
May 9, 2015 at 6:36 pm
How are all good teachers to be paid more if the budgets for schools are not increasing?