Labour has been accused of undermining school standards after announcing another major overhaul of the curriculum.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell faced claims that “children will be the losers” after confirming that speaking skills will be given equal importance to reading and writing in GCSE assessments.
Ms Powell also indicated that fewer pupils could be sent home for serious misbehaviour, arguing that the education system should reward “inclusion not exclusion”. Setting out her vision, she said she wanted to “widen the narrow view of what good is” and described herself as head of the “Department of Hope”.
Downing Street said the speech, delivered to school leaders in Birmingham, was intended to “set out her vision to reimagine childhood in a new era”.
The proposals appear to reverse some of the efforts made by previous Conservative governments to raise academic standards and strengthen school discipline.
Tory education spokesman Laura Trott said: “Blowing open the curriculum and assessment review once again creates more confusion for schools and risks reopening the hard-won debate over the importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum.”
She also described Ms Powell’s decision to rebrand the department as the “Department of Hope” as “Orwellian”.
Labour has been accused of “destroying school standards” after Education Secretary Lucy Powell, pictured in August, announced another curriculum overhaul
Ms Powell was told “children will be the losers” after she said speaking skills would become as important as reading and writing in GCSE assessments (Ms Powell with students collecting GCSE results in Bolton)
Referring to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ms Trott said: “The Ministry of Peace made war, the Ministry of Love tortured people, and now Lucy Powell has the Department of Hope while school standards are being destroyed.”
Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said the plans appeared “woolly”, adding: “Hope won’t get pupils through exams.”
Speaking to the Confederation of School Trusts, Ms Powell said “speaking, listening and communicating” would become a “core part” of teaching and assessment “from primary to GCSE and beyond”. Speaking and listening exams were removed from the English GCSE grade in 2013 after concerns that teachers were inflating marks.
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Baroness Spielman, the former head of Ofsted and now a Conservative life peer and shadow work and pensions minister, said the announcement could signal that Ms Powell plans to reopen pathways once used by schools to raise GCSE grades and make their performance appear stronger than it was.
“It is children who will be the losers,” she added.
Other Conservative sources warned that the rapid push to assess speaking skills could reduce the amount of demanding academic content taught in state schools, while private schools continue to challenge pupils with a more rigorous curriculum.
Ms Powell said “oracy” had become increasingly important in the age of artificial intelligence, arguing that pupils in state schools were too often denied the opportunity to develop those abilities.
“The ability to articulate yourself confidently is central to success in work and in life, but for too long it’s been a marker of privilege,” she said. “Now it will become the right of every child – nobody left out because they can’t speak up. That’s why we’re hardwiring oracy into the revised national curriculum.”
She added: “I can announce today that I will give oracy equal status to reading and writing, as a new strand of the English curriculum.” Labour will work with schools and exams regulator Ofqual to ensure that “oracy will light up every classroom”, she said.
Ms Powell also signalled plans to reduce exclusions, saying she wanted an education system that “rewards inclusion, not exclusion”. She stressed that poor behaviour should still have “strong consequences”, but warned: “Once someone falls out of the system, it’s all that much harder to get them back.”
She is also seeking to reduce the emphasis on written academic work in subjects including music, physical education and drama, replacing it with more practical forms of assessment. Summing up her approach, Ms Powell said: “We need to widen the narrow view of what good is. And we need to give our young people something to believe in again. Hope for the future. That is my mission – I’ve dubbed it as me leading the Department of Hope.”
But when Our News Outlet asked for details as to how all of this would be implemented, no answers were forthcoming.
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Oracy is vital but should be a side product of all good teaching.
‘Separating it out will be a green light for lazy teaching.’
