Public service Tories want to hug-a-teacher

"We want to raise educational standards by working with the professions, not beating up on them. Teachers have an enormous amount of wisdom and experience and we want to learn from it, instead of living in a fantasy world where they can be ignored and we start all over again."

- David Willetts, quoted in this morning's Guardian

It wasn't so long ago that David Willetts - as Shadow Works & Pensions Secretary - declared that the war on single parents was over.  Now Shadow Education Secretary, Mr Willetts wants a similar message to be heard by teachers.  This is not Mr Willetts' first attempt to improve Tory-teacher relations.  In his first incarnation as Conservative education spokesman - during the early days of William Hague's leadership - he addressed the NUT but the party was not ready to hear Mr Willetts' message.  It appears to be ready now.

Today sees the publication of the first report from the Public Services Improvement Group.  Today's interim report focuses on education and another will soon follow on health.  The report from the group cochaired by Baroness Perry and Stephen Dorrell is not binding on the Tory leadership but some of its recommendations are likely to be welcomed.  The report's belief that the party needs to win the hearts and minds of teachers is particularly resonant with David Cameron's own overtures to public sector workers.

Other key messages of the report include a concern that audit and inspection regimes that began under the Tories have grown out of control and have become too statistical.  Similarly - and echoing Julia Manning's '100 policies idea' of last week - there is a worry that there may be too much testing in schools.

Less likely to be welcomed by the Tory frontbench is the policy group's suggestion of an arms-length funding agency for all of the nation's 25,000 schools.  This super-quango would potentially remove the allocation of funding from LEAs and from central government.

Four principles guide the interim report: respect for the professionalism of teachers, equitable access to education, more localism and self-governing status for schools, and a commitment to growth in education and wider public service provision.

Some traditional conservatives may be disappointed not to see a greater emphasis on choice in the report and for ideas such as an end to national pay bargaining.  David Cameron has already suggested higher pay for inner city teachers.

The report - which contains a large number of consultative questions - will be published later this afternoon on the policy group's website.

Comments

[Chris Palmer]

I wonder whether a policy of scrapping school leagues tables would be popular with the teaching profession. It has been mentioned before. Just a though.

[Richard]

Unfortunately teachers are given a bad name by those clowns who turn up at the NUT and try to promote a socialist agenda that is probably unrepresentative of the vast majority of teachers. We need to make it clear that our sympathies are with the majority while paying no attention to groups like the Socialst Worker's Teacher's Alliance or whatever silly names they call themselves by.

[eugene]

One vote winner with teachers will be for the Party to promise to stop changing things for at least 3 years....I am a teacher....no sooner are we just getting the last change together before another one arrives that makes the previous one redundant. Many teachers just do not bother to find out what the new changes are anymore.

Most of all, we need far more special school places. There arew so few places available that many needy (especially in term of behaviour) students land up in mainstream schools, making life very difficult for teachers and fellow students alike. The Conservatives shut down many of these places when they were in power and Labour has continued to do so. It has been to the disadvantage of ALL.

[Richard Weatherill]

Allowing teachers to hug children would be a good start!

Seven or eight years ago, one of my children (then in Reception) had a nasty fall in the playground. His class teacher (an absolute gem) not only cleaned up his cuts and bruises but also took him on her knee and gave him a cuddle. She confided to me afterwards that she could have got into hot water over this (with her union, interestingly enough) because it would have been considered inappropriate physical contact!

I don't suppose things have got any better over the intervening period. This is the kind of nonsense that we really need to sort out.

[Malvolio]

Yes but there are still extremist teachers in our schools spreading Marxist poison to the kids.

One of our first steps should be to deal with this major problem.

[Ted]

It all sounds reasonable stuff except the funding Quango. We elect politicians to make decisions and exert emocratic control over the priorities & spending of our money.
Sometimes the politicians elected don't make good decisions, they may have political views I completely disagree with but thats democracy. We should be putting the funding into hands of elected local officials for direction of capital investment (or utilise private investment through charity, church or independent schools) and on a follow the pupil basis for current account.

[Matt Davis]

As a Governor at two Primary Schools I can only agree wholeheartedly with the principles set out in the interim report. I also know from my own experience that over the last couple of years more and more of the Teachers that I know have been warming to the Conservatives and I do believe that if we make the right choices we can win them over, they are certainly not going to vote Labour that's for sure.

However we must also be careful not to get swept away in an all encompassing love of all public servants since, whilst we are right to listen to and try to do the best for our Teachers, Health Care professionals, Emergency Services and other front line public servants who provide a real and needed service to everyone, we are also going to have to address the incredible and unjustifiable growth in those employed in the public sector but whose function is of more questionable value to society.

In particular under Labour the growth in employment and wage inflation in both the Civil Sevice and Local Government has created an awful lot of unneccesary box ticking, spin doctor or PC commissar type jobs, for example, that divert resources away from the provision of the first class public services that Conservatives can and should provide. We have some very good models for excellent service delivery already in the shape of some of our Conservative run Councils; I would particularly mention the London Borough of Wandsworth and Braknell Forest Council in Berkshire.

Ultimately though it is refreshing to see us considering public services in the same way as most voters do at last.

[Serf]

Set the teachers free to teach, that's what they signed up for. Its a conservative approach that I'm sure would make most teachers happy.

[eugene]

Malvolio @ 10-26.

I have been teaching 20 years in several schools and have yet to meet a Marxist teacher, never mind one that 'poisons' kids minds.

Many used to vote Labour, now many seem to opt for the LibDems (because it is a non-vote)- and that is the peak of their political interest. Most teachers I have met have very little interest in politics (indeed, many do not bother to vote anymore); and most of us chuck Union stuff straight into the staff rubbish bin (alongside all the new initiatives from politician who do not understand what teaching is about).

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Malvolio has a habit of talking abosolute tosh!

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Eugene - that's very true. I doubt that Malvolio has much experience of school staff rooms. The few you hear at conferences are as representative as some of the stranger commenters you read here are of the conservative party.

I welcome Willetts' ideas and approach, this is a potentially fruitful area electorally.

[malcolm]

I think you're right Justin.I strongly suspect he how shall I put this?He doesn't have the best interests of our party at heart. There are one or two others who have started posting recently who are also very suspect.

[Malvolio]

Malvolio has a habit of talking abosolute tosh!

Nice to see you avoiding ad hominem digs, Justin.

BTW was that you at the YC dinner at The Blind Beggar Whitechapel about 12/13 years ago or was it somebody with the same name?

I think you'd made a speech at the party conference the year before and been hailed by the bluerinse brigade as the new William Hague.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Reveal yourself!

[Andy P]

I am a teacher in Hull, a real Labour City, but I do not think I have ever heard any socialst dogma being spread to our kids.

I think most teachers are so peeved off with the system, they may well consider voting Tory in future, so long as we present ourselves well.

Most secondary teachers are so sick of having their hands tied and the lack of support they receive from senior management. My advice is target classroom teachers, they know how bad it really is. The only ones who will criticse are the senior management in schools, many of whom only got promoted because they are true believers in the government's propoganda!

[Malvolio]

Oh right. I assume that was you at the BB.

Hope you settled your drinks bill because nobody else seems to have done so. It may have been the biggest hit that boozer suffered since Cornell had his head blown off by the Krays in the saloon bar.

As I recall that speech of yours was pretty sound stuff. Sorry. It was VERY sound stuff.

[TomTom]

I am a teacher in Hull, a real Labour City, but I do not think I have ever heard any socialst dogma being spread to our kids.

Well it doesn't sound like you are at Hymers College so I suppose you have the products of Hull's weird social life and estates............my sympathy

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

I have never made a speech to a conference, never supported capital punishment and did not start to drink alcohol until I was 18 (I am now 25!).

[David Walker]

Then you most certainly are not the new William Hague.

[changetowin]

Great to see that the Conservatives are taking steps to win back the trust of professionals in our public services. We must trust the professionalism of teachers and have much less central interference.

[Malvolio]

I have never made a speech to a conference, never supported capital punishment and did not start to drink alcohol until I was 18 (I am now 25!)

So you weren't at the Blind Beggar with Harry Phibbs and that crowd?

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

You have an unhealty obsession with me.

[Editor]

Enough!!

The next person to post off topic on this thread will have their IP address banned.

[Denis Cooper]

Agree with Ted @ 10:34 - haven't we had enough of these arms length agencies?

I vaguely recall that it might have been Virginia Bottomley who was the first to stand up in Parliament and say that this or that failure in a public service was no longer anything to do with her, guv, she was just a Minister of the Crown and that public service was now being run by an agency outside her control - and therefore completely outside her responsibility.

[kingbongo]

o promise to stop changing things for at least 3 years....

as a fellow teacher (well, we like to call ourselves lecturers but these days it amounts to much the same thing) hear hear.

Unfortunatley the new 14-19 Diplomas are coming, they are a mess but probably unstoppable.

[Ted]

Denis

Perhaps we missed a chance at 100 policies
- Ministers responsible for all Agencies funded or managed through their departments
- A HoC committee to look at Quangos/Agencies and decide if their managing bodies could work better directly elected / indirectly elected (i.e. the Immigration Directorate should be accountable through a Minister, a regional Health Authority through direct election)
- All senior appointments to Agencies or other Government funded organisations to be voted on by HoLs and/or HoC Committees.

[matt wright]

I welcome the announcement on Education today and look forward to more as this is heading in the right direction,

Matt

[Andyp]

TomTom wrote "Well it doesn't sound like you are at Hymers College so I suppose you have the products of Hull's weird social life and estates............my sympathy"

Alas not Tom Tom, Bransholme secondary pupils for me. Actually, a really good place to teach, kids are alright once you have them controlled, problem really is with management. The sort of people who think disciplining kids is bad, largely because they were pretty poor at it themselves and thus could not wait to be promoted so they could set about hamstringing everyone else!

I rant, my apologies

[Thomas Hobbes]

Andy P

You misrepresent your city and the many committed educational leaders working in schools. Remember Inigo Wilson before you make such posts.

[Andy P]

Hmm, Thomas not sure on that one. We have an excellent and innovative head in Kevin Beaton who has turned around a number of schools in the City. I was certainly not dismissing them all and would not wish to cause offence in anyway.

However, the LEA has been judged fairly harshly by OFSTED in the past and this is well documented. Several schools have been judged to have poor management and so I think it is fair to assume that there is some truth in my (somewhat tongue in cheek) comments.

I was really making a comment about how many teachers in schools feel frustrated with management, some of whom have a less than impressive classroom management record themselves. It is those classroom teachers who I think will find our message most appealing. If you can't point out some of the failings of local schools than it really is a sad day for democracy.

Part of the problem today is that when somebody does criticise something, even ever so slightly, there is such a disproportionate response the other way. It is as if we are not allowed to say anymore, "hey, this actually doesn't work." That use to be a great British trait.