, Labour’s Shadow
Education Secretary, responding to the Government’s
announcement on the Schools White Paper and SEND review, said:
“After two years of pandemic chaos and six years since the
government’s last schools strategy, this plan will leave parents,
teachers and pupils will be left wondering where the ambition for
children’s futures is.
“For almost 8 in 10 schools the Education Secretary’s big idea is
to carry on as normal.
“Hundreds of thousands of primary children live in an area with
no ‘good’ schools, the gap in learning between the most and least
well-off pupils has widened during Covid, 4 in 10 young people
leave education without the skills they need and young people are
experiencing a mental health crisis. Yet the government has no
answers.
“Labour will put education at the heart of our ambition for
Britain, ensuring every young person leaves education ready for
work and ready for life. Our ambitious recovery plan would be
supporting children with tutoring, expanded before and
afterschool clubs and ongoing access to trained mental health
counsellors, alongside 6,500 new teachers to deliver a world
class education across all our schools. It’s time the government
starts to deliver for our children.”
Ends
- 75% of schools already hit the average length of the school
day.
DfE: Review of time in school
and 16 to 19 settings(P2)
Pre-pandemic the average mainstream school day in England
(for primary and secondary settings) was around 6 hours 30
minutes a day.
This is tightly distributed, with 75% of schools having a day
that lasted between 6 hours and 15 minutes and 6 hours and 35
minutes. However, some schools have a day that is well below the
average (8% of primaries and 5% of secondaries have a school day
that lasted 6 hours and 10 minutes or shorter), or well above the
average (2% of primaries and 22% of secondaries have a school day
longer than 6 hours 50 minutes).
- 200,000 primary age children live in an area with no schools
rated as good or outstanding (Onward)
