Lucy Powell wants to release schools from the “straitjacket” of an overly academic education system. Her critics have responded with a familiar warning: Labour will dumb down schools. It is an effective attack because it forces Powell into an apparently impossible choice. She either defends wellbeing, creativity and a broader curriculum or rigour and high standards. She cannot, her critics suggest, have both. But that choice is false. The problem with the reforms of the 2010s was not that they sought to improve academic performance, nor is it credible to claim they failed. England’s performance in international assessments improved and appeared to be protected from some of the pandemic’s worst effects. Schools rightly care that children acquire knowledge, master demanding content and leave education with qualifications that open doors. The more important question is how those gains were pursued. The reforms by Michael Gove, the former Conservative education secretary, created a content-heavy, “knowledge-rich” curriculum and placed greater emphasis on standardised assessment. Some pupils now sit more than 30 hours of GCSE exams, while England relies unusually heavily on high-stakes exams at both 16 and 18. We have one of the highest exam-hours in the developed world. GCSE results also became increasingly important not only to pupils, but to schools. Accountability measures including progress 8 made exam performance central to how secondary schools were judged. Teaching to the test Because those measures influence league-table positions, parental choice and ultimately pupil numbers and funding, state schools responded rationally to the incentives the government created: examinable content took priority, creative subjects and extracurricular activities were squeezed, and teaching to the test expanded. An ambitious education system perhaps, but a particular model of ambition – narrow, high stakes and high stress. Over roughly the same period, pupils’ relationship with school deteriorated. Social Market Foundation analysis of OECD data found that, in 2003, the UK performed above average for mathematics and pupils’ sense of belonging at school. By 2022, mathematics performance remained above average, but belonging had collapsed. Of the 36 countries measured, only eight performed worse than the UK. Most strikingly, the UK experienced the largest fall in belonging of any country included in the comparable data. But this deterioration is not the unavoidable price of raising standards. There is no inherent trade-off between pupil wellbeing and academic attainment. This reflects the particular way England pursued improvement. Research has linked stronger pupil wellbeing with better academic outcomes. A greater sense of belonging is associated with higher engagement and lower absence, while school enjoyment appears to have a particularly strong relationship with whether pupils participate in their education. Mental health difficulties, by contrast, can inhibit concentration, attendance and attainment. England’s attendance crisis, rising concern about young people’s mental health and the difficulties schools face in including a diverse range of learners, particularly those with SEND, cannot be separated from the standards debate. A system that loses so many pupils cannot sensibly call itself rigorous. International evidence International evidence shows that neither the decline in belonging nor the supposed trade-off between wellbeing and attainment was inevitable. Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and Switzerland maintained above-average PISA performance while improving pupils’ sense of belonging. Japan moved from the lowest belonging score among the countries measured in 2003 to the top five in 2022, while retaining an internationally respected education system. There is no single policy behind those outcomes, but high-performing countries often place greater emphasis on a well-rounded school experience, including collective, co-curricular and extracurricular activities. It is welcome that both the curriculum review and the schools white paper recognised the need to reduce the examination burden. But our previous research suggests that cutting the number of exams will do little on its own to relieve the pressure on schools. As long as accountability measures continue to prioritise pupil attainment above all else, schools are likely to devote even more time to preparing pupils for a smaller number of high-stakes assessments. That will not necessarily create more space for extracurricular activities, nor reduce the pressure on teachers to deliver ever-higher results. None of this amounts to making education easier. The lesson of the Gove era is not that England was wrong to pursue higher attainment, but that the method matters. Powell should reject the choice her critics are trying to impose. She should promise not an easier education system, but a better one. Our schools can deliver an education that is ambitious enough to raise attainment, broad enough to recognise different talents and humane enough to keep children engaged — if government gives them the freedom to do so.