News

Nick Gibb MP, Conservative Shadow Minister for Schools 

Summary article by Deborah Simpson, Voice Principal Officer (Pay and Conditions)

(deborahsimpson@pat.org.uk)

Nick Gibb welcomed the opportunity to speak to Voice to outline Conservative Party thinking on education.  Like Voice, his party wanted to see and promote a rational debate about current educational issues, based on evidence of what worked.  Mr Gibb said that he believed strongly that education policy went wrong when ideology drove out the practical and where professionals were afraid to voice an opinion which was against the majority.

Nick Gibb reiterated that, under the Conservatives, there would be no return to the 11+ and grammar schools in areas that had abolished them 30 years ago.  However, the 164 grammar schools that remained were safe.

Finding ways to help the better off ?escape? the state sector was not their policy, rather the focus was on raising standards in the state schools where 93% of children were educated.  What mattered was what worked and what worked should be determined by evidence.  That was why Mr Gibb believed that phonics should be at the heart of teaching children to read, and that children did better when taught with others of similar ability.

Mr Gibb revealed that the Conservatives were looking at the establishment of an independent research institute to investigate the most effective teaching methods.  Instead of methodology going in cycles, Nick Gibb said that he felt an agreed approach would be better.

He then spoke about reducing bureaucracy.  Instead of lists of tick boxes renewed trust should be placed in the professionalism of teachers ? a sentiment that resonated well with delegates.  Teachers knew their pupils and their problems; they don?t need to fill in a Government form to find out!

Mr Gibb saw his, and others?, job, as politicians, to set out a clear framework of what education systems were to deliver ? not to provide a detailed blueprint for every minute of every day in the classroom.  Mr Gibb said that, through his visits to schools, he had learnt that success was about the ethos of the school and an approach that expected the best of every child ? not about where the school was.

Mr Gibb supported Voice?s position on anonymity for teachers facing allegations by pupils in light of the fact that over 90 per cent of such allegations were eventually found to be false.  ?We need to do more to protect them [teachers] and we will?, he said.

He concluded by saying that a Conservative Government under David Cameron would be committed to state education and to raising standards in schools.  It would be committed to ensuring that the teaching profession was well rewarded and respected, and committed to having a different relationship with the teaching profession and teaching unions than previous Conservative Governments.

pressoffice@pat.org.uk

www.pat.org.uk/conference2007