By holding firm, the Government should make clear to striking teachers it is not only their own time they are wasting but that of a generation of pupils who have already lost too much.
Teachers have legitimate grievances – including the administrative burdens imposed on them. Some union leaders have a political motive in exploiting these.
I declare an interest: I am one of the few MPs with a degree in mathematics. And I have never felt like a data-entering robot…
The Education Endowment Foundation is headed by a person who describes grouping children according to their learning needs and abilities as “symbolically violent”. It should be scrapped.
These changes would be resisted by the trade unions – understandably as it would render them pretty irrelevant. But their members would be empowered.
Early struggles with reading are one of the largest, and is possibly the largest, root cause of poor outcomes for school leavers.
The ‘once and future Schools minister’ is a clear example of where twelve years of Tory rule have not been wasted.
One way in which the Government could help would be through a temporary increase in the Gift Aid rate. Conservatives introduced Gift Aid in 1990, and now have the chance to enhance it.
Rishi Sunak’s fighting talk about the “hardworking aspiration of millions of people” will fall on barren ground so long as the middle classes can’t afford fees.
We can avoid getting into an argument about whether or not the Government’s plan is an industrial strategy. The Conservative Party has got rather hung up on that term.
A lower tax burden will be impossible without less supply of government. And for there to be less supply, there must first be less demand.
At present, too many youngsters are become invisible when they leave the system, and not receiving the education they need.
We cannot stand by whilst Welsh Labour fail our children, and pack our schools with their union cronies.
Spurious cost concerns mask a misguided spirit of egalitarianism which will only inflict more pressure on style-conscious teens.
We have been looking at how we can strengthen our laws to provide the police with the clarity they need to stop serious disruption and will come forward with those plans in the coming weeks.