Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said a Labour government would reform the school curriculum so that it “prizes skills as well as knowledge”, in her speech to the party’s annual conference today.
She also reaffirmed the party’s plan to end tax breaks to private schools and announced that breakfast clubs would be available in every primary school.
On the final day of the conference in Liverpool, Ms Phillipson told delegates that the country needed a fresh vision of education. “One that looks to the future, not the past,” she said. “A curriculum that prizes skills as well as knowledge; that values and nurtures creativity alongside academic success.
“We need an education system that enables every child to achieve and thrive.”
She told the conference that Labour’s priorities “will define that vision”, which is why the party plans to “end the tax breaks private schools enjoy”.
She added that money gained from this policy would be used to deliver “the most ambitious school improvement programme for a generation”.
This would involve recruiting thousands more teachers “to help children excel in science and maths, and thrive with access to sport, art, music and drama”.
Ms Phillipson also said a Labour government would build a modern careers advice and work experience system as well as a “modern childcare system”.
The first step of this would be the introduction of “breakfast clubs for every child in every primary school in England”.
She said the next Labour government would build a childcare system “that supports families from the end of parental leave right through to the end of primary school.”
Labour would fund “this landmark first step on that road by restoring the higher income-tax rate for the very richest”, she added.
