According to the Labour Party website the Labour Party have achieved the following in their time in power:
Why Labour?
Unlocking the talent and potential of each and every young person is at the heart of Labour’s vision for education. Since 1997, Labour has transformed education; young people are achieving some of the best ever results at 11, 16 and 18. We have more than doubled investment in education from £30 billion in 1997 to £73.3 billion in 2008/09.
Key achievements:
* Labour has doubled the amount spent per pupil since 1997 from £2,900 to over £5,850 today.
* Labour has delivered over 40,000 more teachers and 116,000 more teaching assistants than in 1997.
* Our investment has enabled 100,000 more 11 year olds to master literacy and 93,000 more to master numeracy since 1997. Today, 81 per cent of 11 year olds reach the expected level in English and 78 per cent in maths. This compares with 63% for English and 62% in maths in 1997.
* Labour has seen 470,000 more young people gain five or more good GCSEs. The proportion of young people achieving five or more good GCSEs is up by nearly 20 percentage points since 1997.
* The number of schools where less than 30 per cent of pupils get five GCSEs at A*-C grade , has fallen from more than half of schools in 1997 to just 440 (around one in seven) today.
* Over 1,100 new schools have been built, rebuilt or refurbished.
* We have offered every 16 and 17 year old a ‘September Guarantee’ which means we are funding a guaranteed place at school, college, training or in an apprenticeship for every 16 and 17 year old that wants one.
New Labour, your Britain:
* To ensure that every child leaves primary school confident in their literacy and numeracy skills, Labour will offer 30,000 pupils support in literacy and 30,000 support in numeracy every year over the coming years.
* Labour is committed to rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school and half of all primary schools in the coming years.
* The National Challenge is the government’s scheme designed to ensure that no school has fewer than 30 per cent of its pupils achieving 5 GCSEs at A*-C grade including in English and Maths by 2011. The programme is backed up by £400 million of extra investment over the next three years.
* We want every secondary school to be a Specialist school, a Trust school or an Academy, with a business or university partner for every one of them. By 2010/11, over 310 Academies will be open or in the pipeline.
* Labour will guarantee every young person up to the age of 18 an apprenticeship, training or a place to study free of charge by 2015. We will continue to increase the number of apprenticeships available.
* In secondary schools, Labour will provide one to one tuition to 300,000 pupils in English and Maths who are falling behind their peers.
Labour Party Schools Policy :http://www.labour.org.uk/schools
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Labour’s Schools policies in the comments below?
Labour should grant more autonomy to teachers and schools in return for improved results. Teachers need more freedom to develop good lessons and real learning which needs to be less prescriptive and more creative. There still isn’t time to do this and Ed Balls/Gordon Brown never sound progressive when talking about education. They always sound harsh and punishing, prefering to pander to the Daily Mail ( a Labour favourite passtime)than seeking to inspire. Big mistake and a real shame.
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I agree because to make teaching more effective it has to be a lot more creative to ensure students get inspired and not bored but that shouldn’t mean ditching the text books because a good teacher has to realize that every student has a different learning ability and not all students learn by doing practical work. However as a student myself I have seen a lot of development at schools for example we have better facilities and a lot more opportunities being opened up for us like work shops encouraging us to consider higher education and more support for us before we go into the working world.
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education needs to focus more on raising standards in learning, dramatically. too many new subjects are brought in for pupils to take on, especially during their gsce’s. it is impossible for them to cope and achieve a good sound knowledge base for their future. exams etc have been repeatedly watered down over the years that children really do not have the essential skills to go to work with. there is far too much emphasis on entertaining these children in class. since when should we compete with a tv program to ensure they learn. since when should the children get the say on what should be taught. overall, it may appear that we are getting better results but this is an illusion. we are teaching children to be dumbed down and these are the children who will be teaching and working in our future and raising others. on top of that, there is far too much pandering to their behaviour.
And what is all this quality assurance about. since when is teaching about filling in tick boxes? teachers should be teachers. more and more jobs are being dumped on educators and it effect them being actually able to teach their subject. why should there be so much bs to work through. keep it simple and direct to the point.
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