Browse policies
Abolish SATs. They measure nothing that matters and damage the children taking them.
I have watched ten year olds cry in the toilets before a SATs paper. I have watched bright, curious kids start to hate school in year six because for months everything they do is either "practice" or "performance". I have watched schools r
Pay teaching assistants a proper living wage, or stop pretending schools function without them
A teaching assistant in my school earns £18,400 a year on the standard contract. That is term-time only, obviously, but even pro-rata that works out below the real living wage. We have TAs running small-group interventions, one-to-one suppo
Free school meals for all primary school children, no exceptions
A child who has eaten a proper meal at lunchtime learns better in the afternoon. This isnt complicated and it isnt controversial and yet somehow we are still means-testing school dinners so that some families who need them dont apply becaus
Pay teachers properly or stop asking where they all went
Four of my colleagues left the profession in the last two years. Two went into corporate training, one retrained as a data analyst, one just stopped. None of them wanted to leave teaching. They loved it. They left because they couldnt affo
An 'Educational Needs Plan' for Every Child
Every child is special. Labelling some as SEN clearly isn't working. Support teacher availability and class sizes are often allocated by the number of SEN children in each, rather than by their actual needs. Children who don't have a
Bring back proper imperial measurements in schools. The metric system was imposed on us by Brussels.
Pounds, ounces, yards, furlongs, gills, firkins and stones. Britain built an empire on these measurements. We went to the moon on these measurements. Actually the Americans did that, but they used inches, which we invented. Just saying. Th
Fund SEN provision properly instead of making parents fight for every hour
Why does it take 18 months to get an EHCP assessment? Eighteen months. For a child. I have been a primary school teacher for 14 years. The system isnt a bit broken. It is completely broken. Parents fight through paperwork and tribunal thre
Sort Out History Lessons in Schools
My son came home from university the other day and I was talking to him about his courses, he's studying engineering but he's also got to take some general studies, and I was shocked when he told me about the way they're teaching history no
Every school should have a proper counsellor, not just a poster on a wall
A poster saying its OK not to be OK is not mental health provision. It is a poster. Every school should have a trained counsellor available at least 3 days a week. Not a teaching assistant who did a two day course. A qualified counsellor w
Stop burying teachers in admin that has nothing to do with teaching
Last week I spent more time filling in tracking spreadsheets than planning lessons. Audit every piece of admin teachers do. If it doesnt directly help a child learn, scrap it.
make environmental ed compulsory already
i was talking to a friend who's a teacher and she was saying how she had to fight to get a single lesson on climate change into the curriculum, it's ridiculous that kids aren't being taught about the most pressing issue of our time. she had
Cap class sizes at 25 with no exceptions
Cap class sizes at 25. Everywhere. Primary and secondary. Yes it costs money. Its called investing in children.
Teach Britain's Real Story
I'm fed up with the way history is taught in schools, it's all about what we did wrong, never what we did right. I've had customers coming into the DIY store, real people, talking about how their kids are being taught to be ashamed of Brita
Schools are teaching kids to hate Britain. Time to fix it.
Why are we letting schools fill kids' heads with guilt about history instead of pride? Seems like every other week there's some new curriculum point about how terrible this country is. It’s madness. Kids should be learning about the good th
Schools to be granted full autonomy over budgets and curricula
I think it's time we stopped micromanaging our schools and let the people on the ground make the decisions, they're the ones who actually know what they're doing after all. The current system is far too prescriptive, with the government dic
Fund libraries properly and open them 7 days a week
Nearly 800 libraries have closed in England since 2010. The ones left are open three days a week with volunteers doing work that trained librarians used to do. We tell kids to read more and close the places where they get free books. For p
Scrap Free Uni for Rich Kids
I think we should stop giving free university tuition to kids from rich families, it's a waste of taxpayer money. We need to focus on helping ppl who actually need it, like low income families who can't afford to send their kids to uni. Rig
Stop Dumbing Down Maths & English in Schools – We Need Real Skills!
It drives me absolutely mad seeing the focus in schools shift away from core academic subjects towards what feels like a tick-box exercise in ‘wellbeing’ or some vague notion of ‘life skills’. Of course, those things matter, but not at the
Scrap University Fees for Business Courses
I think we should scrap university fees for business courses, it's a no-brainer. The reason is simple, we need more people with practical skills in business, and the current system is pricing out talented individuals who can't afford the de
Teach the Whole Story in Schools
I've been thinking about the way we teach history in schools and I think we need to make sure we're giving kids a proper understanding of our past, the good and the bad. I'm not saying we should be ashamed of what we've done, but we should