Angela Rayner | Schools Week

Angela Rayner elected deputy leader of the Labour party

The shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has been elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, it has been announced. The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne will serve under new leader Sir Keir Starmer, whose election as leader was also announced today. She has also been appointed by Starmer as chair of the Labour Party, and is understood […]

Just 1 in 6 breakfast clubs in £26m scheme are actually new

Just 286 new breakfast clubs have been created under a £26 million government scheme, ministers have finally admitted. The government claimed last month that its national school breakfast programme had “created or improved” around 1,800 clubs in schools across the country. Time and time again the figures they use turn out to be a misleading […]

Angela Rayner at Labour party conference 2019

My, but Angela Rayner is a canny political operator. Early on a Sunday morning, not a high point for crowd engagement, even at party conferences. The delegates had been whipped into a fervour by discussions of motions from the conference arrangements committee, and then a fairly somnolent speech from the leader of Welsh Labour. The […]

The 4 schools policies in Angela Rayner’s Labour conference speech

Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has addressed the Labour Party conference in Brighton. In a short speech, Rayner announced a number of policies that her party will enact if it wins power in a forthcoming general election. Here are the schools policies she announced. 1. Integration of private schools – but no commitment […]

Labour refuses to rule out replacing Ofsted

Labour is “looking at all options” for an overhaul of the school accountability system, including replacing Ofsted. In an exclusive eve-of-conference interview with Schools Week, Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, refuses to rule out scrapping the inspectorate, but does concede there is a need to replace it with a new system to hold schools […]

Stats watchdog launches investigations into ministers’ ‘disingenuous’ use of data

The statistics watchdog has launched two investigations into the government’s “disingenuous” use of education data, with ministers accused of using “smoke and mirrors” to deflect criticism from shrinking budgets. The UK Statistics Authority is investigating the Department for Education’s use of an OECD finding that the UK is the “third highest spender on education” to […]

Angela Rayner: Full text of Labour Conference 2018 speech

Conference, we’re at our best when we work together. That is what we did when we stopped the Tories in their tracks last year. Just look at their manifesto. If you can find a library they haven’t closed, you’ll find it under ‘political fiction’. And if you read now what they claimed they’d do then, […]

Labour should move on from the academies debate, says Angela Rayner

The Labour Party should “move on” from the debate over academies and focus on campaigning for greater controls over the way they are run, the shadow education secretary has said. Speaking to Schools Week ahead of the Labour Party conference, Angela Rayner no longer wants to get “bogged down” in debates on the merits of […]

Corbyn and Rayner have the wrong ideas for schools

Tory education policies in the 2017 election didn’t hit home with voters, but Jeremy Corbyn has the wrong ideas for schools, argues George Looker The government’s election campaign has been widely criticised for failing to set out a positive vision and lacking broad appeal to voters. Now that the campaign is over (for the time […]