Reform and Green voters less likely to be satisfied with child’s school

Parents intending to vote Reform and Green are less likely to report being happy with their child’s school than those who plan to vote Labour or Conservative, a new poll suggests.

Polling of over 6,000 parents by Public First for the Parent Voice Project found 82 per cent of Labour parents and 81 per cent of Conservative parents reported that they were “happy” or “very happy” with their child’s school.

The figures were 73 for Green voters and 71 per cent for Reform. The two parties’ close figures come despite their voters having “very different ideas about what school should be for”, PVP founder Fiona Forbes said.

“I expected the clearest differences to fall between left and right. Instead, one of the most consistent patterns in our survey cuts across that divide.”

Contact with school

Seventy-seven per cent of Labour and 73 per cent of Conservative parents reported their child receives a high-quality education, compared to 62 per cent of Green and and 59 per cent of Reform voters.

Liberal Democrat parents “sit somewhere in the middle: less likely to be very satisfied than Conservative and Labour parents, but with a higher total satisfied group than Green and Reform”, Forbes said.

Labour-voting parents were also more likely to report they attended an event at school, spoke to a teacher outside parents’ evening or something similar in the last year (50 per cent) than Green (33 per cent) and Reform parents (29 per cent).

“We cannot tell from the figures which way the relationship runs. Parents who have less contact with school may become less satisfied, or dissatisfaction may make parents less inclined to engage. Both may be true,” Forbes said.

Labour and Conservative voters were also more likely to report feeling “very prepared” for their child’s move to secondary school than Green, Reform and Liberal Democrat parents.

Differences over mental health

But the “widest difference is in how parents view children’s mental health and wellbeing”.

Thirty-six per cent of Labour and Conservative parents think children’s mental health is worsening, rising to 49 per cent for Reform and Liberal Democrat voters and 55 per cent for Greens.

Green and Reform parents were also less likely to report confidence that their child’s school would take a complaint or concern seriously.

“Two patterns run through these data points. Labour and Conservative parents answer within a few points of one another throughout, and Reform and Green parents have something in common in how they experience schools,” said Forbes.

“Reform and Green parents are not, however, in agreement on everything. In fact, they often want very different things from school.”

The poll found 39 per cent of Reform parents believe the purpose of school is to prepare children for work, compared to 23 per cent of Green parents, who were most likely to say school should help children “find their passions”.

“Labour and Conservative parents, by contrast, are difficult to separate here. On each option on offer for the ‘purpose’ of education, they sit within three percentage points of each other on all but one.

“Whatever the distance between the two parties’ own policies, their voters give much the same account of what school is for.”

‘Not a simple left-right divide’

Forbes said that “leaves us with a more interesting question than the simple divide between left and right that I was expecting.

“Why do parents with such different hopes for education report similarly lower confidence in and satisfaction with schools?

“Our survey cannot answer this question on its own. These voter groups differ in many ways, and wider attitudes towards public services may also shape how parents think of schools.

“But it is the kind of question political parties should be asking during conference season. Before deciding which education policies might appeal to their voters, it is worth understanding why they feel less well served in the first place.”