{"id":6296,"date":"2015-04-16T07:55:26","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T07:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6296"},"modified":"2015-04-20T06:59:43","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T06:59:43","slug":"education-manifestos-take-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/04\/16\/education-manifestos-take-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Education Manifestos \u2013 Take 2; the Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you know,\u00a0I have decided to read all the main parties' education manifestos. \u00a0The second\u00a0I have come across was from the <a href=\"https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/manifesto2015\/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf\">Conservatives<\/a>. \u00a0The headlines say that they'll:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ensure a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance for failure<\/li>\n<li>turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy and deliver free\u00a0schools for parents and communities that want them<\/li>\n<li>help teachers to make Britain the best country in the world for developing maths,\u00a0engineering, science and computing skills<\/li>\n<li>create 3 million new apprenticeships and make sure there is no cap on university places,\u00a0so we have aspiration for all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>... and the action points say that \"We will ...<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>drive up standards in your child\u2019s school<\/li>\n<li>ensure there is a good primary school\u00a0place for your child, with zero tolerance of failure<\/li>\n<li>turn every failing and coasting secondary\u00a0school into an academy, and deliver free schools\u00a0if parents in your area want them<\/li>\n<li>continue to protect school funding<\/li>\n<li>back your child\u2019s teachers<\/li>\n<li>lead the world in maths and science<\/li>\n<li>protect children<\/li>\n<li>improve skills training<\/li>\n<li>improve Further Education<\/li>\n<li>ensure that if you want to go to university,\u00a0you can<\/li>\n<li>ensure that our universities remain\u00a0world-leading.\"<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you read the whole thing, you will see that it's not quite a curriculum-free zone. \u00a0There is, of course, no mention\u00a0of ESD, etc, etc, or of sustainability \u2013 it's clear they think that they've already addressed such peripheral matters through recent revisions to the national curriculum. \u00a0They say that they \"<em>will require secondary school pupils to take GCSEs in English, maths, science, a language and history or geography<\/em>\", punishing schools that refuse to do this. \u00a0This is a clawing back of the ridiculous position that applied a few years back when a vocational course in underwater flower arranging (or somesuch) could count for about 6\u00a0\"good GCSEs\", which cynical school leaders exploited in their pursuit of league table success \u2013 a position that was connived at by government. \u00a0It also re-establishes an important entitlement of\u00a0all pupils, irrespective of culture or class background, to courses and qualifications that have meaning in the wider world. \u00a0This is not to belittle flower arranging, above or under water; just to re-establish it is it proper place in the hierarchy of things. \u00a0That\u00a0<em>is<\/em> a worthy curriculum matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you know,\u00a0I have decided to read all the main parties' education manifestos. \u00a0The second\u00a0I have come across was from the Conservatives. \u00a0The headlines say that they'll: ensure a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}