06 October 2023 , 17:00
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Labour's schools chief has branded Rishi Sunak's plans to scrap A-Levels undeliverable as she did not rule out shelving the upheaval.
Bridget Phillipson said the changes to education for 16 to 18-year-olds would be impossible before the chronic shortages of teachers have been tackled. And she argued the Government was looking at the wrong end of the system, instead of catching pupils when they are younger to ensure they don't fall between the cracks.
In an interview with the Mirror ahead of Labour’s conference in Liverpool, the Shadow Education Secretary accused the Tories of resorting to "gimmicks" after 13 years of failure. It comes as the Prime Minister this week announced he wanted to merge A-levels and T-levels into a baccalaureate-style "Advanced British Standard" qualification.
The Shadow Education Secretary accused the Tories of resorting to 'gimmicks' (Getty Images)Sixth formers will have to study five subjects, rather than three, and all pupils will learn English and Maths in some form up to 18. But the small print revealed that children will not begin sitting this new qualification until the late 2030s.
Ms Phillipson said: "How on earth can we trust the Conservatives to deliver on any of this? "It's like trying to put the roof on a house before you've built the foundations in terms of teacher recruitment, on standards in our schools, and on the real pressures that young people are facing right now.
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"Until we address all of that, any talk about the bigger kind of change the Prime Minister wants just isn't deliverable. And it won't have happened ahead of the election."
She didn't rule out scrapping the plans when grilled by the Mirror but said Labour wanted to focus on overhauling the curriculum, with kids encouraged to study creative subjects as well as how to speak fluently to boost their confidence. Ms Phillipson said it was "not credible" to order schools to teach English and Maths to 18 due to chronic shortages of specialist teachers, often demoralised by low pay and heavy workloads.
The PM ordered an expert panel earlier this year to look at making all pupils learn a form of Maths to 18 but no details have been published. It comes after the Government repeatedly missed its own recruitment targets in Maths in recent years. Nearly half of state secondary schools (45%) have used non-specialists to teach the subject, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).
"If you're studying GCSE maths, there's a strong chance that you're not being taught Maths by a Maths specialist," she said. "So somehow expecting that you can expand beyond the age of 16, English and maths and a wider range of subjects, with the recruitment and retention crisis we've got around teaching at the moment. It's just not credible."
The Houghton and Sunderland South MP said focusing on post-16 education was a mistake as interventions needed to be made earlier. She said: "It's no good waiting until children are 16 to address some of these bigger challenges that we face... I'll ensure that we have high rising standards right across all of our state schools."
Ms Phillipson, who grew up in a council house in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and received free school meals as a child, said children in communities like hers risked falling behind without proper help in the early years. She added: "Working class kids often don't get a second chance and making sure that they get a brilliant education, and they leave school ready and well prepared for the world is absolutely essential."
The Labour frontbencher said the PM's exams shake-up revealed a "completely warped set of priorities" as schools grapple with the RAAC concrete crisis which has forced thousands of kids to learn in portacabins. She added: "I don't think it's right that, Conservative politicians are prepared to tolerate that for other people's children. I think it's a complete dereliction of duty and there is no plan to sort this out in the long run."
Ms Phillipson also dismissed criticism of Labour's plan to scrap tax breaks for private schools. She said: "I don't think [people] will have much sympathy for private schools, who could make economies themselves and could seek to make some savings in the same way that millions of people across our country are facing some genuinely very difficult choices about what they can afford every day."