When we polled users last month about their voting intentions and political priorities, the top priority overall was education. The Times Education Commission has just released its final report, making key recommendations for reform. The commission's chair, Rachel Sylvester, explains.
"As is so often the case, Mumsnetters captured the public mood in a focus group brought together for The Times Education Commission. Esther, who has two teenage children at state schools in London, lamented the “Gradgrindian misery” of the education system in Britain today. “School has just become this thing you endure for six hours,” she explained.
For Jade, a mother of three, the system is too dominated by exams. “We are failing children,” she said. “Children are coming out of school with no idea of how to cope, how to budget, how bills work, how bank accounts work… Nine, ten, eleven GCSEs: do you really need that many?”
Several members of the group worried about their children’s mental health and wellbeing, particularly after the pandemic. As Joanna, who has two sons at secondary school, put it: “I’m very much a firm believer that if your child isn’t happy, however good the school is, they’re not going to learn.”
These are all the same themes that resonated throughout our inquiry. The Times Education Commission has spent a year reviewing the whole system, from early years right through to lifelong learning and what emerged repeatedly was the need for greater breadth in education to draw out the potential of every child.
Our YouGov poll found that 65% of parents worry that the education system is too focused on exams and 56% think that this is bad for children’s mental health. Almost two-thirds of parents said they did not think the education system prepared young people well for life or work.
So many of the people we spoke to stressed the importance of focusing on character as well as qualifications.
The business leaders we heard from complained that schools were not giving children the skills they need for the modern workplace including creativity, teamwork and problem solving. Scientists protested about the early specialisation and the lack of practical experiments.
The world is changing at an astonishing rate but schools have not kept up. There is nothing more important than our children’s future - and the country’s economic fortunes - but reform has stalled for over a decade. Ten former education secretaries and two former prime ministers - from across party political divides - wrote a letter to The Times urging the government to push education back up the political agenda. Those working in schools must be exhausted after the disruption caused by Covid-19 but our survey of teachers found that a majority thought this was the moment to reset the education system to make it fit for the modern world.
The Times Education Commission has published a set of recommendations that we believe would boost productivity, improve social mobility and also make school fun again. We want a new assessment system - a British Baccalaureate that would include a broader academic and vocational qualification at 18 and a slimmed down set of exams at 16.
We think schools should get an annual ‘electives premium’ - an extra payment to fund non-academic activities including sport, drama, music and dance - and every pupil should have a National Citizen Service experience, with volunteering and outdoor pursuits expeditions alongside their lessons.
We want a greater emphasis on creativity and entrepreneurialism in education, as well as a new cadre of Career Academies - elite technical and vocational sixth forms, with close links to industry mirroring the academic sixth forms that are being established. This would help to end the ‘sheep and goats’ divide between academic and vocational education to ensure that every talent is respected and all children feel valued.
The Commission argues that wellbeing should be at the heart of education, with a counsellor in every school and an annual wellbeing survey of pupils to encourage schools to actively build resilience rather than just support young people once problems have arisen. There should also be a much greater investment in the early years, with a focus on the quality of education even before children get to school - both to help working parents, who are struggling with soaring childcare costs, and to level the playing field between rich and poor.
The full report is available here. We would love to hear what Mumsnetters think."