This week on the Tes News podcast the team reflect on the major education policies to emerge from the Conservative Party conference this week - and what plans for schools Labour could announce at its conference next week.
On Wednesday prime minister Rishi Sunak signalled his intention to transform post-16 education, announcing a plan to scrap A levels and T levels in exchange for a new Advanced British Standard.
Mr Sunak said that under the new qualification, all students would study a form of maths and English to 18, and pledged a new cash injection to improve teacher recruitment and retention in shortage subjects to make his vision a reality.
But Labour’s shadow schools minister, Catherine McKinnell, in her first speech since taking on the role, and referencing the school buildings concrete crisis, accused Mr Sunak of announcing a “back-of-the-envelope 16-19 maths policy” while “roofs up and down the country are literally propped up”.
Join Tes’ deputy news editor, John Roberts, and news reporter Matilda Martin, speaking from the Confederation of Schools Trusts’ (CST) conference, as they reflect on what schools learned from the Conservative Party conference in Manchester and what will be announced at the Labour conference in Liverpool next week.
News from the Conservative Party conference:
Here’s what else schools need to know this week:
