Dr Stephen Curran is an education expert who advised on the 2014 syllabus.
I learned with amazement that the Government is to cut by half funding for the hugely successful Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP). While recovering from this shock I learnt that it was also axing the Stimulating Physics Network (SPN), which gets more girls studying the subject.
These latest attacks on our children follow the government’s decision to become one of the only administrations in the world to tax education by introducing VAT on private schools, and the restrictions it is placing on academies.
As someone who advised on the maths part of the curriculum changes in 2014 and has advocated for more students to take the subject at A Level, I find it hard to fathom why the AMSP should be targeted.
It was introduced in 2018 and followed the Further Mathematics Support Programme which began in 2009.
The AMSP provides support for teachers and students in state-funded schools and colleges across England. It also targets areas of low social mobility and low participation in Level 3 maths to increase opportunities for all students to study the subject after their GCSEs. All good Labour stuff, you’d think.
The programme has 40 ‘area coordinators’ across England who work with schools and colleges.
The Government justifies the cuts by saying it needs to save money. So how much are Labour saving by wielding the axe to the AMSP? Currently, the programme costs £17 million over two years. That is all.
It is the same amount the Government is sending to Gaza aid agency UNWRA – an organisation that had Hamas terrorists working for it, including some who took part in the grotesque October 7 attacks. £17 million is equivalent of 0.01 per cent of the whole education budget. It is peanuts.
Thanks to AMSP and its targeted support, entries for maths A Level in England rose from 64,500 in 2009 to almost 100,000 last year. In the same period the number of students taking further maths increased from 9,400 to almost 17,000. The AMSP also drove an uptake in the core maths programme.
The Stimulating Physics Network has also proved successful at a tiny cost – the latest phase of the programme received just £2.7 million of funding. A report showed that A Level entries for physics rose swiftly in schools that were part of the network – and the number of girls taking the subject soared.
One of the great ironies is that the Prime Minister has vowed to unleash AI in the country. He wants us to become world leaders in technology. Does he not understand that STEM subjects are vital if his ambitions are to be realised?
For some years we’ve known that take-up in STEM subjects was not as high as it needed to be – which was why these schemes were first introduced. And they’ve been working.
So why does the Government want them to end? They claim it is about saving money – the mythical ‘black hole’ is trotted out as a reason. But this is bunkum when you consider the vast sums of tax-payer cash it has thrown at UNWRA, train drivers, foreign farmers, and an assortment of new quangos and other batty projects.
Perhaps the reason is more sinister and ideological. Bridget Phillipson seems to want to crack down on any part of our education system that gives freedom and autonomy to schools and teachers.
Her department has made clear that it wants to curtail the freedoms of academy schools, which have drastically improved the outcomes of children who pass through them.
Tellingly, when Phillipson was asked in the House of Commons to congratulate for its astonishing success the Michaela Community School – a free school that uses traditional teaching methods that are anathema to the Labour ideologues – she refused point blank.
Socialist thinking – to use a maths analogy – attempts to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. These dangerous ‘comrades’ would rather no one excelled if the alternative was just a few excelling.
Envy is dressed up as equality. Discrimination is called fairness. Outcomes are irrelevant. Pragmatism is replaced by purity. Marks become Marx.
Their socialist instinct is to control everything that is taught and how it is taught. Abolishing education programmes that are separate from schools gives them more control over what happens in classrooms.
Their policies are not evidence-based but ideologically-driven and they will do great harm to our children.
Having attacked private schools, free schools, academies, and maths and physics support programmes I fear Labour will soon set their sights on our few remaining grammar schools.
Dr Stephen Curran is an education expert who advised on the 2014 syllabus.
I learned with amazement that the Government is to cut by half funding for the hugely successful Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP). While recovering from this shock I learnt that it was also axing the Stimulating Physics Network (SPN), which gets more girls studying the subject.
These latest attacks on our children follow the government’s decision to become one of the only administrations in the world to tax education by introducing VAT on private schools, and the restrictions it is placing on academies.
As someone who advised on the maths part of the curriculum changes in 2014 and has advocated for more students to take the subject at A Level, I find it hard to fathom why the AMSP should be targeted.
It was introduced in 2018 and followed the Further Mathematics Support Programme which began in 2009.
The AMSP provides support for teachers and students in state-funded schools and colleges across England. It also targets areas of low social mobility and low participation in Level 3 maths to increase opportunities for all students to study the subject after their GCSEs. All good Labour stuff, you’d think.
The programme has 40 ‘area coordinators’ across England who work with schools and colleges.
The Government justifies the cuts by saying it needs to save money. So how much are Labour saving by wielding the axe to the AMSP? Currently, the programme costs £17 million over two years. That is all.
It is the same amount the Government is sending to Gaza aid agency UNWRA – an organisation that had Hamas terrorists working for it, including some who took part in the grotesque October 7 attacks. £17 million is equivalent of 0.01 per cent of the whole education budget. It is peanuts.
Thanks to AMSP and its targeted support, entries for maths A Level in England rose from 64,500 in 2009 to almost 100,000 last year. In the same period the number of students taking further maths increased from 9,400 to almost 17,000. The AMSP also drove an uptake in the core maths programme.
The Stimulating Physics Network has also proved successful at a tiny cost – the latest phase of the programme received just £2.7 million of funding. A report showed that A Level entries for physics rose swiftly in schools that were part of the network – and the number of girls taking the subject soared.
One of the great ironies is that the Prime Minister has vowed to unleash AI in the country. He wants us to become world leaders in technology. Does he not understand that STEM subjects are vital if his ambitions are to be realised?
For some years we’ve known that take-up in STEM subjects was not as high as it needed to be – which was why these schemes were first introduced. And they’ve been working.
So why does the Government want them to end? They claim it is about saving money – the mythical ‘black hole’ is trotted out as a reason. But this is bunkum when you consider the vast sums of tax-payer cash it has thrown at UNWRA, train drivers, foreign farmers, and an assortment of new quangos and other batty projects.
Perhaps the reason is more sinister and ideological. Bridget Phillipson seems to want to crack down on any part of our education system that gives freedom and autonomy to schools and teachers.
Her department has made clear that it wants to curtail the freedoms of academy schools, which have drastically improved the outcomes of children who pass through them.
Tellingly, when Phillipson was asked in the House of Commons to congratulate for its astonishing success the Michaela Community School – a free school that uses traditional teaching methods that are anathema to the Labour ideologues – she refused point blank.
Socialist thinking – to use a maths analogy – attempts to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. These dangerous ‘comrades’ would rather no one excelled if the alternative was just a few excelling.
Envy is dressed up as equality. Discrimination is called fairness. Outcomes are irrelevant. Pragmatism is replaced by purity. Marks become Marx.
Their socialist instinct is to control everything that is taught and how it is taught. Abolishing education programmes that are separate from schools gives them more control over what happens in classrooms.
Their policies are not evidence-based but ideologically-driven and they will do great harm to our children.
Having attacked private schools, free schools, academies, and maths and physics support programmes I fear Labour will soon set their sights on our few remaining grammar schools.