GE2017 | Schools Week

How school folks can influence politicians during the election campaign

A snap election during the summer term is about as welcome as a major football tournament. Both tend to disrupt pupils, who are usually more attentive to football, but become equally intrigued about this politics thing that the adults are banging on about. Labour has focused on children from the off, with its first party […]

Headteachers’ Roundtable Doorstop Manifesto – General Election 2017

What every child requires is a great teacher. Download the Headteachers’ Roundtable Doorstop Manifesto Our challenge was to provide a straightforward, useful document for everyone to use, on the doorstep, to help to ask candidates and campaigners of all parties the important questions on two key issues: Ensuring our schools are properly funded; Ensuring the supply […]

Labour pledges to bring back EMA with corporation tax hike

Labour will raise corporation tax to fund the re-introduction of the education maintenance allowance, the party has revealed today. The payments, aimed at supporting pupils from lower-income households who stay in education between the ages of 16 and 19, were scrapped in England by the coalition government in 2010, although they carried on in Wales, Scotland […]

Corbyn 4-day bank holiday pledge ‘includes teachers’

A pledge by Jeremy Corbyn to give workers an additional four national holidays per year will reduce the school year to 186 days for pupils, and 191 for teachers. The new bank holidays planned by the Labour Party as part of their election pledges, would be on each nation’s patron saint day: St David’s on 1 […]

Corbyn promises to halt rise of ‘super-size’ classes in latest Labour schools pledge

Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that children are being “crammed in classrooms like sardines” and pledged to keep class sizes down if he wins the general election, in the latest of a series of high-profile interventions on education issues. The Labour Party has released analysis of Department for Education data released in January which shows that more than half […]

Grammar schools white paper won’t be published until after election

Ministers will not publish the grammar schools white paper until after the snap general election on June 8, despite Justine Greening having recently pledged to release the publication within the “coming weeks”. The Department for Education (DfE) said “well-established restrictions” on government business during the purdah period in the run-up to local elections on May […]

Corbyn accuses May of ‘broken promises’ over school funding

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the government of “broken promises” over school funding in the first Prime Minister’s Questions since yesterday’s announcement of a snap election in June. Corbyn said parents taking their children back to school this term are receiving letters from heads “begging for funds” so they can buy books and fund squeezed […]

‘My wish for the General Election 2017’ – School experts give their view

So there’s going to be a general election. But what should it mean for schools? We asked a handful of education leaders and policy specialists: “If you could make one wish for the general election, what would it be?” Here are their answers. We’d love to hear your education election wishes – leave them as comments below! […]

Schools urged to coincide inset days with elections

Schools are being urged to reschedule inset days to coincide with planned elections in order to reduce “unnecessary” school closures. Theresa May’s announcement this morning of a snap election will leave schools all over the country bracing themselves for another turn as a makeshift polling station on June 8. It will follow local government elections […]