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Why I Fear What Labour Will Do to the Education System

by Stephen Curran
28 July 2024 11:00 AM

Here we go again. A new Government has vowed to shake up what is taught in schools.

A feminist professor, Becky Francis, has been appointed to ‘breathe new life’ into an ‘outdated’ curriculum and a new Education Secretary wants to stamp her mark on the system.

It is worth noting here that England has been rising up the PISA rankings since the introduction of the present curriculum in 2014. Scotland, which introduced a progressive curriculum, has slumped down the list – its once highly respected education system is now open to ridicule.

All state schools will have to teach whatever changes are introduced by the new Government – even academies which presently do not have to.

Prof. Francis specialises in education inequalities and gender stereotypes in the classroom and it is said her role could see more girls encouraged to take science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

All schoolchildren should have the same opportunities and it is true that there are subjects dominated by one sex or the other.

Cyber is very male-dominated, whereas criminology is female-dominated.

However, trying to even up numbers in certain areas is not as easy as it sounds and can backfire.

There are studies which have shown that countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM graduates.

Research found that places such as Albania and Algeria have a greater percentage of female STEM graduates than those with high levels of gender equality, such as Finland, Norway and Sweden.

It’s almost as if, when opportunities are ‘levelled up’, boys and girls choose different career paths.

Creating equal career opportunities does not, therefore, automatically lead to an evening-up of boys and girls in certain sectors.

We must accept that there are differences between boys and girls which trendy educationalists might not want to accept.

The new Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has spoken about the exam system and claims children are put under too much pressure.

I take issue with this. Children are officially and nationally assessed three times in the system: at 11 (SATs), GCSE and A Level, and potentially T Levels too, if these are not scrapped.

I think it probable that Labour wants to remove SATs. If they are abolished there will be no measures at all in primary schools.

It is already severely diminished by the simplicity of the grading system (‘working towards’, ‘working at’ and ‘working above’ national standard).

The present grading system replaced a very effective system of measuring children’s performance with 18 staging posts in maths and 18 staging posts in English. This should be restored and not weakened further.

Ms. Phillipson has also promised that Labour would overhaul the maths curriculum.

It would see children taught to manage their household budgets, exchange currencies and rank their favourite football teams.

It is true that things can be improved but this should include more rigour in the primary system on teaching traditional approaches that have been there for millennia – and not fancy fads that are not worth anything.

If children have been taught the four rules of number, decimals and fractions, can do amount-to-percentage and percentage-to-amount, ratio and probability they can work out household budgets, exchange currencies (using fractions) and rankings of football teams.

If you are taught foundational maths, all these things can be in the questions that are set for children.

Financial literacy can only be there if children can do the basics.

Similarly, the English curriculum should be the teaching of good grammar, syntax, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary. This should be coupled with comprehension skills and creative writing. This is traditional but it is what is needed.

My overall fear is that we are facing a radical educational agenda set by the highly progressive wing of the educational establishment.

They say ‘evolution and not revolution’ but in my experience, politicians don’t really grasp all the issues.

There are rarely educational experts at the helm. There is a real split in education between the progressives and traditionalists – and the progressives are in the majority. They have been since the 1950s.

Some progress was made to address this in the 2014 curriculum, but it didn’t go far enough. The danger is we will go into reverse and be dragged back into the vague and confusing dogma of the progressives.

I am not against creativity, innovation and wanting children to be independent and imaginative thinkers.

However, this will only occur if the foundations are there in the first place. Maths and English are the core subjects and everything else rests on these two planks in the system.

I have long believed that focusing on the primary system is the key to improving the performance of all children across the country. This does not involve scrapping what has been there for the last 14 years. It involves building on it.

Dr Stephen Curran owns Accelerated Education (AE) Publications and AE Tuition and was on the panel which advised the current government on the new maths national curriculum.

Dr Stephen Curran owns Feltham-based Accelerated Education (AE) Publications and Berkshire-based AE Tuition, and was on the panel which advised the previous Government on the maths national curriculum. You can read his blog here.

Tags: Bridget PhillipsonEducationLabour PartyNational CurriculumProgressive LeftSchools

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13 Comments
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JXB
JXB
10 months ago

There is no such thing as ‘same opportunities” – entering a cow into the Grand National doesn’t give it the ‘same opportunity’ as the horses.

There is a difference between active and passive. No child should be denied an opportunity, but that is not the same as them having ‘the same’ opportunity.

Socialists don’t understand individuality and the difference that brings between individuals. Everyone can be MADE the same.

6
0
Free Lemming
Free Lemming
10 months ago
Reply to  JXB

Well, the cow has the same opportunity but, unless all the horses collapse mid-race, cannot expect the same outcome.

2
0
DickieA
DickieA
10 months ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Ahh, but, if the desired goal was equality of outcome, holding the horses back by tying large weights to them would even up the odds for the cow.

Last edited 10 months ago by DickieA
4
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soundofreason
soundofreason
10 months ago
Reply to  DickieA

Or sticking a rocket into the cow’s … OK, you get the idea.

2
0
Free Lemming
Free Lemming
10 months ago
Reply to  DickieA

Of course, hence “expect”. If we make sure we nobble the horses whilst shoving a rocket up the cows arse then we can also get equality of outcome. But it’ll never be a natural equality, no matter how much we’re force-fed that it is. Males and females are physiologically different in many ways. End of.

2
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No-one important
No-one important
10 months ago

There is little ‘equality’ in Life. Sad fact, but there we are.

I long ago realised that the National Curriculum did not provide for my children or, latterly, my grandchildren and so therefore set about completing their education myself. They have been taught how to live wild, find water where there appears to be none, ride a horse, shoot a bow and arrow, climb a cliff without ropes, and efficient self-defence. But most importantly, they have been taught how to think, not what to think. Just yesterday I advised my thirteen-year old great niece, “when some one tells you something, ask yourself – why is this person telling me this?” Question everything. I suspect that I would not be popular in the halls of acadame these days.

7
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jimshall
jimshall
10 months ago
Reply to  No-one important

Can I enroll my grandchildren?

0
0
ChrisA
ChrisA
10 months ago

I’m 36 and had a reasonably tough and challenging private school maths education, I never excelled at it though, I looked at my dad’s textbook from the early 50s and it was far more advanced, 5 years ahead if I had to judge, If that was the standard taught 70 years ago things are on a slow continous decline.

2
0
Heretic
Heretic
10 months ago
Reply to  ChrisA

You are spot on. I remember an old history professor lamenting the fact that his students had shown a slow, continuous decline in intellectual ability since the late 1970s, and he could not understand what was causing it.

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt warned the world about this in her book, “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”.

The sinister motto of the “new educators” was very simple:
“Target the Resisters”.

Last edited 10 months ago by Heretic
0
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
10 months ago

Although the reverse is possible, men tend to be more interested in things, and women in people. That’s why men have sheds, and women have lunch with friends.

I have three kids, brought up under the same roof with the same parenting, and they have chosen three completely different career paths. No equality, even from the same mother. Why do this fools think they can apply equality across society.?

5
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Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
10 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Traditionally, men with wealth creating skills worked in sheds or, communally, in factories.

1
0
Free Lemming
Free Lemming
10 months ago

“We must accept that there are differences between boys and girls which trendy educationalists might not want to accept.”

Try telling that to the feminists pushing all this nonsense and their weak-willed supporters – often men. Their view of the world looks like this: there are no differences between men and women, other than culturally enforced, unless that position negatively affects women, and then there are indisputable differences between men and women. A lot of this stops when enough people call out the feminist hypocrisies that sit at the root of most of this far-left cr*p.

0
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
10 months ago

Whatever is taught in schools the focus should go back to letting kids be kids and enjoy “the innocence of childhood” without being indoctrinated in issues they’re far too young to understand e.g. gender ideology or climate change.
Channel 4 (always competing with the BBC for the most woke broadcaster) has a series called the secret lives of 5 year olds. One episode is about what 5 year olds know about climate change. Surely no 5 year old should know anything about climate change as they’re clearly far too young to form their own opinions on complex subjects. As far as I can remember I was nine and a half before I knew anything that wasn’t going to directly affect me in 6 months time or less (the Falklands conflict is the first “world event I can remember) and I’m sure I was happier than today’s young kids not knowing and worrying about world events at such a young age.

1
0

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