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Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the
Labour Party,
speech to the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) conference:
Thank you for inviting me here
today to your annual conference in the year of your union’s 120th anniversary.
I want to pay tribute to Russell
Hobby, your General Secretary: a great advocate for head teachers who has
overseen you joining the TUC, working with other teachers’ and education
unions.
I also want to pay tribute to the
next Education Secretary, Angela Rayner, who is a tireless campaigner and
passionate advocate for your profession and for children.
It is a great honour to address
you, leaders of one of the most important professions in our society, those who
look after the education, the wellbeing, and the future of our children.
That is why Labour is making our
children’s education one of the cornerstones of our General Election campaign.
The choice in this election could
not be clearer – and it’s not the re-run of the EU referendum that the Prime
Minister wants it to be.
Britain needs a government for the
many not the few – one that’s ready to invest in our economy and public
services. But the Conservatives have demonstrated that cannot be them, preferring
to give the richest and largest corporations tax hand-outs worth tens of
billions.
The NHS and social care have been
pushed into a state of emergency. Housebuilding has fallen to its lowest
peacetime rate since the 1920s. Schools across the country face real terms cuts
in funding per pupil, and class sizes are rising – while those young people who
want to go to university face huge debts.
There is no greater responsibility
than ensuring our children get the education that they deserve. I know this,
you know this, parents up and down this country know this. But it is clear that
this Conservative Government has its focus elsewhere.
The NAHT has correctly pointed out
that this election is make or break time for our children’s education system.
As all of you will know, the
National Audit Office confirms that schools are facing a cut of three billion
pounds in real terms by 2020, the first real terms cut in education budgets in
a generation.
This is an absolutely staggering
figure and shows the need for a complete change of direction in how the
government of this country treats our schools.
And we have to ask ourselves: is
this how we want to treat the education system of our children? Is this how
Britain’s children deserve to be treated?
Do our children deserve to be held
back by a chronic shortage of teachers?
Do our children deserve to crammed
into schools like sardines?
Do our children deserve to be
taught by teachers whose morale is at an all-time low?
Not by any fault of the teachers,
they are the people who also bear the burden of government cuts, but the fault
of governments who fail to recognise the importance of investing in the lives
of children, and those who teach and support them, up and down this country.
That is why we must value teachers,
because if we don’t we lose them. And you know better than anyone there is a
recruitment crisis and that crisis will be made even worse if we don’t secure
the rights of EU nationals.
Last year 5,000 teachers from EU
countries qualified to teach here and there are thousands more working to teach
our children. So that’s why, as Keir Starmer set out this week, a Labour
government will guarantee the rights of EU nationals living here.
And if we lose teachers, we lose
subjects, we narrow the horizons of young people. So that’s why I passionately
believe in an Arts Pupil Premium so that every primary school child will
benefit from a £160 million cash boost to help pupils learn to play
instruments, learn drama and dance and have “regular access” to theatres, galleries
or museums in their local areas.
And yet, while all this is
happening, while funding to our children’s education is cut, multinational
corporations have received multi-billion pound tax giveaways
How can it be right that money is
being siphoned straight out of our children’s schools and directly into the
pockets of the super-rich?
We have to be clear, once and for
all, that enough is enough.
Throughout this General Election
campaign, we will be making absolutely clear our commitment to build a country
for the many, and not just the few.
A vital part of that will be
creating an education system that provides for every child regardless of their
background, or their parents’ income.
Labour will introduce
a National Education Service, ensuring excellent learning opportunities for all
from early years to adult education.
What we need now – and what you as
teaching professionals need now – are concrete answers and concrete solutions
to the problems that our education system is facing.
That is why Labour has set out a
plan to help give every young person the best start in life possible, by
introducing universal free school meals for pupils at primary schools. It’s a
policy that is fully costed, and will be paid for by introducing VAT on private
school fees.
There are clear educational
benefits to providing universal free school meals. It boosts the attainment and
level of education of our children. We know that these early formative years
are the most important in a child’s education and we have a duty to provide for
our children the best we possibly can throughout that period.
It’s a policy that demonstrates
how a Labour government would care for the many, and not just the few.
We will ensure that every single
child receives a healthy and nutritious meal which will not only boost
children’s productivity in the classroom but also helps to ensure their
personal wellbeing, no matter what their background.
Children
eating together is a great start in life.
So not only will the policy help
children throughout their time in education, it will also help teachers who
will see the benefits of improved concentration and improved attainment in the
classroom.
And it will help parents who will
not only save money but will have the peace of mind in knowing that their child
is getting a healthy school meal during the day
Investing in the health of our
nation’s children, is investing in our nation’s future.
If we are to truly place value on
our children’s education, we must also place value on the teachers, head
teachers and other school staff who deliver that education.
We must put an end to the
continual attacks on the teaching profession, end the downward pressure on pay
and conditions, the constant undermining of morale and the erosion of standards
that means we have more unqualified teachers than ever in our classrooms.
That’s why, as part of the
comprehensive programme Labour has set out today to strengthen rights at work
and end the race to the bottom in the jobs market, we have confirmed a Labour
government will lift the cap on public sector pay.
It cannot be right that those who
provide our vital public services have their pay squeezed year after year.
Britain’s public service employees deserve a pay rise.
And we must give the teaching
profession the recognition it deserves, not only in terms of pay, but also in
terms of status in our society.
We need to listen to you, the
teaching professionals, on how you believe schools can be improved and respect
the huge wealth of talent and knowledge that lies in the teaching profession as
a whole.
I have always believed that the
people who know how to a job best are those who do it day in day out. We must
start listening to parents, teachers and head teachers: you are the people who
know how schools should be run and you are the people who best understand the
needs of our children.
That is why Labour has taken our
lead from the NAHT – and from the other teachers’ unions – when we set out in
no uncertain terms our opposition to the expansion of grammar schools in this
country.
Not only does the mass
introduction of segregation in our education system not help the overwhelming
majority of this country’s children, it also returns us to what are frankly
Victorian notions of education based on a narrow curriculum.
The task is clear: we must build
an education system that suits the needs of our children and the opportunities
they will have in the jobs market of tomorrow.
And if we are to build an economy
worthy of the 21st century, we need a schools system that looks forwards, and
not backwards to the failed models of the past.
We must recognise that every
single child in this country has talents and every single child deserves the
chance to flourish and thrive to their maximum potential in whichever field
suits them best.
But our children’s schools do not
exist in a vacuum. I am always in awe of the local head teachers I work with.
Like thousands of children, I have learned so much from them.
And what I admire most is their
commitment – not just to managing their schools and to educating our children –
but the multi-faceted demands of the children in their community: their housing
issues, immigration problems, their mental health. You are the heart of your
communities.
You are part of a wider care
system and you need the other parts of that system to work effectively
alongside you, youth services, the NHS and social care.
Support for schools by these
services is essential to promote pupil wellbeing. The duty to directly address
pupils’ mental health needs ultimately rests with the social and care services.
No school should be asked to fund
health and social care services from the school budget. That is why Labour has
pledged to address the chronic underfunding for social care and the NHS.
As you all know schools are most
effective as places of learning when they work together with high quality
social care and health services to meet the needs of all students but
especially those who are most vulnerable.
One in ten children and young people
in this country suffer from a mental health condition and 75 percent of adult
mental health problems are found to begin before the age of 18.
We must prioritise the mental
wellbeing of our children. This is the least they deserve.
It is vital that we enable early
intervention and provide support when problems first emerge but to do this we
must build an education system that integrates social and health care.
Improving the way our society
deals with mental health is a particular concern of mine because I am
passionate to see opportunities for all.
That’s why I have been so
impressed by the work so many of you do for children with special needs and how
good special needs co-ordinators can liberate children from what has sometimes
been a lifetime of exclusion.
That focus on the individual child
is what drives our determination to reduce class sizes. We know that half a
million children have been landed in super-size classes of 31 pupils or
more.
This government is failing on
education on its own terms. The Prime Minister herself has said that
super-sized classes are proof of a school system in crisis. So then why is it
allowed to continue?
Why are our children’s schools,
not getting the funding that they deserve? This is a choice. And it is the
wrong choice. The cut to schools funding is also a breach of their manifesto
the Conservatives’ pledge to protect schools funding.
Labour will ensure schools have
the resources they need.
I’m afraid I can’t give you a
sneak preview of the full Labour manifesto today but be assured if it’s a
choice between a tax giveaway to the largest corporations paying the lowest
rates of tax in the developed world or funding for our schools. Labour will
make very different choices from the Conservatives.
We have already started to set
some of that out not just our free schools meals policy.
And our commitment to reintroduce
the Educational Maintenance Allowance for college students from lower
incomes.
We are also committed to restoring
maintenance grants for university students so that no one is held back from
realising their ambitions and so that every schoolchild knows that the options
of further and higher Education are available to them.
We must not be ashamed to value
education, for education’s own sake.
Schools should exist to get the
very best from our children, to give them the best start in life, to enable
them to succeed in whichever walk of life they chose.
Whereas Theresa May’s government
has repeatedly cut resources and staffing we will invest in our children’s
futures because they deserve nothing less.
The excuses from the government
come thick and fast. They’ve blamed teachers for not working hard enough,
they’ve diverted funds to their vanity projects. £138.5 million wasted on
schools that have closed, partially closed or never opened in the first place.
We will not bring back a system
that blamed children and parents for not passing the eleven plus and getting
into a grammar school.
They blame everybody else, to
divert attention from their own damaging failures. They need head teachers to
tell them, own up, take responsibility and say sorry.
Labour will give schools the
funding that our children deserve, the funding that teachers and headteachers
deserve and the investment that our country and our economy deserves.
This election can be the chance
for a fresh start, with a Labour government that will invest to create shared
prosperity, protect our public services and build a fairer Britain.
A Labour government will work with
you, we will give schools the funding the need and we will ensure you and your
staff get the respect and resources you need.
We have a duty to our children and
we will meet it.
Thank you.