Labour’s grassroots members are increasingly disillusioned by what they see as a retreat from core principles. Leadership may attempt to downplay dissent, but the growing rebellion suggests the discontent is too widespread to ignore.
Our schools should uphold British values. I am proud that Britain stands for democracy, liberty and tolerance, and it is essential young people learn this from day one. There is no place for politics in the classroom.
I usually ask children, in a jokey way, if they behave perfectly all of the time, and explain that languages, like children, behave most of the time – but not always.
It is easy to see officials laughing up their sleeves while dumping every pupil with extreme behaviour in the same place.
The Education Secretary gave councils the power to stop good schools expanding. But that does not mean councils have to use it.
Almost exactly 10 years ago, Ed Miliband was pushing local control of schools – I’d never have believed then that we’d see a Labour government praising multiacademy trusts.
The key issue is whether she will allow the most successful state school in history to be thrown to the wolves.
Cummings, intelligent but impulsive, attracted Conservative politicians through his ability to demolish the box as well as think outside it, but he lacked any clear view of the consequences of his ideas.
Katharine Birbalsingh has never been a Conservative – she rightly insists on a small “c”. But without Government support, her opponents would have prevented her school from opening.
An inspection by a person who demonstrably knows less about the work than those in the setting they are inspecting, is professionally insulting and must stop.
We have a Children’s Social Services Department that has been rated as inadequate by OFSTED and things are so bad that a Commissioner has been sent in to oversee the necessary improvements.
Paying back debt as soon as they begin to earn a graduate-level salary and suffering from excessive rents, is an unattractive combination. Why should these young people vote for us? Social engineering is not a Conservative principle, and it has blown up in our faces.
The current Ofsted handbook has 459 paragraphs and is supplemented by 179 pages of government guidance on safeguarding – while the time for inspectors to check them has been reduced by over 90 per cent.
The twenty-second article in a new series on ConHome about how government might be made smaller, taxpayers better off and and society stronger – through strong families, better schools and good jobs.
Agents of the ayatollahs in Tehran walk our streets, threaten our citizens and attack people who oppose the fundamentalist regime. Regime-friendly activists are also seen stirring up dissent. We should ridding our charity sector of extremists.