Grantham and Bourne MP Gareth Davies shares his thoughts on education and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Last month in parliament we saw the passing of the ‘Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill’ through the House of Commons and so it now makes its way for further scrutiny in the House of Lords, writes Grantham and Bourne MP Gareth Davies.

Many residents have contacted me to share their views on this Bill, so I wanted to use this opportunity to set out my thoughts. The Bill contains two main parts. The first focuses on improving child safeguarding, an important overall principle and ambition that I am sure none of us disagree with.

The second part, however, is far more contentious and is where I’m afraid I seriously disagree. This part of the Bill effectively brings a wrecking ball to reforms that have been made by successive Governments, both Labour and Conservative, and implemented by headteachers and school trusts over the previous two decades.

I do not believe the provisions of this part of the Bill are being included for the good of children, or to express the wishes of parents, but rather for ideological reasons to appease the trade unions. The Government’s own stated aim with this Bill is only to make education “more consistent”, arguably at the expense of making further progress on standards.

At the centre of previous cross-party reforms were academies - schools allowed the freedom to make their own decisions on how they provide the best education for young people in their area, no longer imposing a one-size-fits-all model on schools across the nation or across regions.

This Bill will effectively abolish academies. It will end the ability of academies to recruit many teachers from non-traditional backgrounds, such as the armed forces or professional sports, and force them to strictly follow the national curriculum, depriving academies of the freedom to attract the most talented staff and turn around failing schools.

The Government even had to be forced to amend their own Bill to prevent an effective pay cut for 20,000 academy teachers as they tried to also limit the ability of academies to set pay.

Since their introduction some 25 years ago, and the expansion under the Conservative Government, many agree that academies have been the driving force of the vast improvement we have seen in the English education system. Under the previous Government, English pupils rose up the rankings in reading, maths, and science, becoming the best in the Western world on some metrics. 89% of schools in England are now ranked as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, compared to just 68% in 2009-10.

I will never tire of championing the schools in our area. We are fortunate to be surrounded by so many excellent local primary and secondary schools, many of which are academies. Unlike the Government, I know that our schools are determined to continue to capitalise on this success and since 2019, children and their families in our corner of Lincolnshire have benefited from more local schools achieving a rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.

I have seen first-hand how our primary schools lay the foundation of our children’s future learning, while so many of our secondary schools empower them to secure places on courses at the best universities and excellent apprenticeship schemes.

We should all want our children to benefit from the enjoyment and opportunity that a great education brings. Our children are our future - they should always be a priority.