Politicians want to do two things when they make statements, or set policy. They want to do things which will improve outcomes. But they also want to say and do things which are popular, electorally. (This is often seen as distasteful, but it shouldn’t be — saying and doing popular things is how you get elected and stay elected, and without that you haven’t got much chance of doing stuff that will improve outcomes).

Both of those are difficult! Especially in Opposition, where the resources available to you to think and make up policy is much harder than in government.

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One of the things I have been thinking about for a few years is how policy makers ameliorate some of the structural and policy issues around academisation. Indeed in 2016, having proposed full academisation while at Policy Exchange, I wrote about a way in which the “schools no one wants” problem could be addressed:

Government could require the RSCs to be a provider of last resort, via its own arms length trust, probably with a duty to make the school viable for re-brokering into another chain over time. Although I dislike the analogy, given that the schools in this instance…

There’s a nascent campaign floating around the various Labour left circles at the moment around Phasing Out Public Schools (POPS). Indeed I covered the launch in a sketch piece the other week, which some people seem to have taken offence at and claimed I was under some duty to write a factual news report about it. The group aims to put pressure on Labour to go further than their current proposals to put VAT on fees. …

[note: I originally wrote this in early Jan but parked it in my drafts folder meaning to come back to it; I’ve finally been prompted to do so by Angela Rayner’s speech yesterday]

Just before Christmas, a technical but very important announcement was made by the Office of National Statistics related to the treatment of student loans in the national accounts. If, unaccountably, you didn’t interrupt mince pies and merriment to read it, the very short version is that student loans are currently treated by the government as if they will all be repaid over time. Because of the 30…

The quality of an education system can never exceed the quality of its teachers. So runs the well worn aphorism. But despite its ubiquity, it is still true (or mostly true: I think it more accurate to say cannot exceed the quality of its teaching)

But yet, it’s much easier for policymakers to try and drive improvements through structural changes, where the levers are more under their control. If I had a pound for every time someone made the point that Finland draw their teachers from the top 10% of graduates, I’d have enough money to make teaching competitive in…

This week, the DfE announced its new Curriculum Fund, whereby schools who teach a “knowledge rich” curriculum will be eligible to bid for up to £150k to further develop these proposals and create shareable materials. …

The Social Mobility Action Plan: Justine Greening takes her Place

First things first. The Social Mobility Action Plan is indeed a limited document. It isn’t a full White Paper of the kind that Secretaries of State normally produce (or even a Green Paper). And as such it is much narrower in its scope than Education Excellence Everywhere (NiMo’s ‘vision doc’) and certainly compared to Gove’s The Importance of Teaching. But in its defence, it doesn’t claim to be the type of all encompassing document that departments normally put out. Nor does it try to cover anywhere near the full breath…

Apparently in the New Year, “Labour plans a Jeremy Corbyn relaunch to ride the anti-establishment wave….the party leader is expected to appear on TV more often as senior figures want to exploit the populist mood to beat the Tories”

Quiet at the back. Stop sniggering.

Whether Corbyn himself is the right man to front such a campaign (currently polling at 18% on “who would make the best Prime Minister”, including a mere 35% favourability rating from Labour 2015 voters, fewer than the 37% of such voters who say they can’t decide between him and Theresa May), it’s true to the…