Education Policy

Incorporate PSHE into main subjects

PSHE stands for Personal, Social and Health Education and was introduced into the national curriculum in 2000.

The subject does not have a dedicated teacher and teachers are not qualified to teach the subject, instead teachers are qualified in their own respective subjects and PSHE is taught to a class by their form tutor, therefore teaching of the subject is inconsistent, a Geography teacher will teach PSHE differently than a PE teacher for example.

Many schools have also taken to employing the services of companies/charities to teach the subject, this is a practice that adds an unnecessary expense to the school budget.

This also means that PSHE is part-privatisation in what should be a fully state-provided education system.

This article mentions a firm with a £30 million turnover, this profit is made at the expense of the tax-payer.

I hope incorporating PSHE into the main subjects will:

• Ease the burden on teachers. PSHE is just another lesson that teachers have to prepare for, removing it would allow teachers to focus on their main subjects only.
• The purpose of PSHE will be more effective since it is incorporated into subjects which teachers are qualified to teach.
• Behaviour and attentiveness of students will improve as they feel that the main subjects are more valid.
• Schools will not be left on their own, course material will be provided by examining bodies.

Redesign national curriculum

When creating a software product, we gather the user and customer requirements, the user is the one who uses the product and the customer is the one who pays for the product. So then in this analogy, children are the users because they go to school and parents are the customers because they pays their taxes.

There is a disconnect between what politicians think children should learn, what teachers want to teach and the expectation of parents and children, a public consultation will include the views of parents and children and will improve behaviour as children feel it is more relevant to them.

Some of my ideas for a new national curriculum:

Restore grading system to alphabetic

In 2014 the government changed the GCSE grading system from alphabetic to numeric. This change only applied to England, so it was inconsistent throughout the United Kingdom and logically the new grading system is in descending order which is the opposite of what would be commonly expected (ascending order).

The grading system is 9-1 which is descending order with 9 being the top grade whereas 1-9 is ascending order with 1 being the top grade.

Furthermore, alphabetic grading systems are used in most English-speaking countries so restoring back to this system would be consistent with the rest of the English-speaking world.

Milk for pupils to tackle malnutrition

• Milk should be provided to all primary aged children.
• Milk is rich in vitamin D and helps children to grow. There has been research into malnutrition in schools and I believe the government should tackle this. Alternatives to cows milk could be provided.
• All schools supplied with bells which are to be used rather than whistles.

Mobile phone ban

Mobile phones should be treated as an accessory to the school uniform and should be banned in all primary and secondary schools.

Headteachers should have the freedom to opt-out of this ban, but the ban should apply to all by default.

Students wishing to phone their parents should ask for permission and use a school phone.

Children bully each other in many ways using mobile phones.
Young people suffer from mobile phone and social media addiction.

You can read more about the harms of mobile phone addiction on the SafeScreen campaign website.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has produced a guide for parents.

• Mobile phones are a financial pressure on parents, many of whom will pay for the phones and contracts.
• Mobile phones mean that students have their own access to the internet, through their own data and contract, meaning that schools cannot prevent children from viewing pornography. It is not just internet access that is of concern but children may also have files stored on their phone which are undetectable by teaching staff. Most micro-SD cards (the size of a finger-nail) are 32GB, so there is a potential that students could bring large amounts of pornographic material into schools all undetectable to teachers.

University tuition fees: Wipe out debt of married mothers

University tuition fees should be fazed out and the government should look at ways to do this.

However, tuition fees were introduced in 1998 and they are well entrenched into the current funding model, some new universities have been created since 1998 and universities depend on tuition fees, so they cannot be abolished immediately.

• The government could subsidise or abolish the tuition fees for certain subjects, such as teaching degrees and training of nursing could be reviewed to remove the requirement of degrees altogether.
• Apprenticeships and mature students should be encouraged.
• The tuition fees debt of married mothers should be paid off (wiped out) upon the birth of their first child. Mothers who apply for this scheme could send copies of their marriage and child’s birth certificate to prove eligibility and then when successfully approved, their student debt will be wiped out. This could be expanded to pay off the tuition fee debt of the husband upon the birth of their third child.

Tuition fees and debit is a bad thing for young people who just want to get on with their lives after university.

Many young people who have never had a job before would not be able to get a £9,000+ loan from a private bank because they would fail credit checks and yet they are able to get a student loan, it isn’t until somebody starts earning an income and paying expenses for themselves that they truly value and take responsibility for their finances.

I think abolishing tuition fees immediately would be a shock to government finances and would be detrimental to the cultural change that is needed.

Young people should consider alternatives to university and mature students, who already have a job and income, should be encouraged rather than university straight after school.

Alternative to GCSEs (City & Guilds)

Some children who are expelled from school go on to college where they study and qualify in City & Guilds courses which they prefer and do well in.

Academic studies aren’t everything in education and despite the introduction of vocational subjects, GCSEs remain largely academic.

The government should give children the option to study alternatives to GCSE at college.

I believe this policy would prevent children from going through the trauma of being expelled and increase choice in education.