Labour's end-of-year school report is dire

Spectator

21-07-2025

As we approach the end of a long, hot summer term, it is a good time to reflect on the state of schools after one year of this Labour government. I teach in both the independent and state sectors and it is fair to say that both are feeling bruised and bewildered by the events of the last twelve months. Schools are poorer than they have been for a long time, facing huge and complex challenges. They also feel there is no leadership or vision to make the reforms necessary to bring lasting improvement. It's an F for Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary.
The calendar year began in acrimony with the levy of 20 per cent VAT on school fees (which was brought forward from this coming September to January). It was rushed and ill-thought-through legislation which would bring little real benefit to state schools; most saw it as a deliberately spiteful act intended to hurt schools and families in the middle of the academic year.
Irrespective of what you think of fee-paying schools, the decision to make them more expensive has been both disingenuous and self-defeating. Instead of the (disputed) £1.5 billion Labour claimed they would raise through VAT on fees going to state schools, Keir Starmer suggested in June that, actually, this money will go on affordable housing. It was a breathtaking admission of deception. Furthermore, teacher recruitment has fallen sharply since Labour gained power; there are record numbers of unfilled vacancies and the lowest number of newly qualified teachers are graduating since 2010.
Starmer's VAT legislation was also self-defeating because it has placed more strain on the state sector: over 70 independent schools have closed since it was passed, and many of these children have enrolled at their local state schools. Expect far more private school closures next year.
But if the government's policies for independent schools are characterised by vindictiveness, there is, at the very least, a clear intent. When it comes to state schools, there is nothing more than confusion and indecision. Look no further than the utterly pointless and damaging decision to scrap the Latin Excellence Programme, an act rightly described by Kristina Murkett in The Spectator as 'cultural vandalism'. It was a spiteful, unnecessary move which nobody in schools could defend or explain.
Perhaps it was done because those currently in charge of school policy are fundamentally suspicious of anything that smells of elitism. This might also explain the decision to appoint Professor Becky Francis to oversee the review of the national curriculum. Francis is a well-known educationalist activist, and left-wing progressives were delighted by her appointment – only to be disappointed by her rather tepid interim report, published in March, which promised 'evolution not revolution'. Under this Labour government, it is becoming customary to hear bold statements but to see indecision and obfuscation.
But it is in the botched 'reforms' to Ofsted where the lack of leadership at the Department for Education (DfE) is most evident. It takes incompetence to an astonishing level if the changes introduced to inspections are felt to be worse than those they have replaced. But when the new report cards – which replaced a 'single-word judgement' in favour of a five-point grading scale – were unveiled in February, many parents found them confusing. These have now been delayed until September for further consultation, leaving schools completely in the dark about how they will be inspected.
Fundamentally, the government doesn't know what Ofsted should be or who is it for: is it for parents? For schools? For pupils? For politicians and civil servants? If you can't answer that, then you don't have a mechanism for assessing schools. The whole situation is a mess, branded by union leaders as 'reckless' and 'nonsensical'. Worse, it is potentially dangerous because without effective inspections children are at risk. Getting this wrong is a dereliction of duty by Phillipson.
But the opprobrium that greeted the reforms to Ofsted are positively benign compared to the reception the current Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill has been met with. This has been described by the head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh as 'insane'. Others, such as the Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, have warned that ministers are 'legislating against the things we know work in schools'. It is, indeed, a sclerotic bill, which has no unifying logic, other than to take autonomy away from academies, give more power to the Secretary of State and make recruitment even more difficult for schools.
Such things remain, largely, outside the daily lives of those teachers who are, this week, looking forward to their well-earned breaks. What is very real, and what they grapple with, daily in too many cases, is appalling behaviour by pupils. Here, again, the picture is gloomy. Earlier this month, the DfE published data which showed that suspensions and permanent exclusions from schools resulting from physical assaults on teachers are at an all-time high. The breakdown in authority figures, both in school and across society, no doubt contributes to these depressing statistics and makes recruiting and retaining staff even more difficult.
There are many more battles ahead. Some, like the guidance on relationships, sex and health education, will generate a lot of debate around gender identity and age-appropriate teaching. It seems to be a landscape filled with attritional culture war skirmishes, which will only add to the sense that Labour, in government, are still acting like a group of activists, not ministers. But this will pale into insignificance when the government faces another struggle to reform the bloated and hugely inefficient Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision. This currently costs the taxpayer £12 billion a year, and the bill is growing all the time. You would get very poor odds on Starmer getting any meaningful reforms through Parliament.
The verdict on this government is that there is no vision and no clear sense of what they want or how they will go about getting it. This is nowhere more in evidence than in education, where personal prejudices, coupled with uncoordinated decisions, have had a hugely damaging impact on both the independent and private sectors.
If you make a mistake with a piece of legislation, such as the winter fuel allowance, you can quickly reverse it. But changes made to how schools work take time and have lasting consequences. At the end of this difficult academic year, the impression is that Labour has learnt nothing, and that next year will be even more difficult for anyone who works in schools. Happy holidays, everyone.