The questions Bridget Phillipson must answer about Labour’s Schools Bill

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which threatens the huge gains made in education over the last 15 years, is moving swiftly through Parliament. If it passes, the impact on our children, especially our most vulnerable, will be seismic. Yet this Bill is slipping by largely unnoticed.

Labour’s huge majority gives it untrammelled power. But it is using this authority to push through, without proper scrutiny, a piece of legislation that will do untold damage. Here are the questions that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson must answer about this Bill, before it is too late:

Do you understand why school leaders find it odd that you did not visit a single school last year which achieved a Progress 8 score (which measures how much a pupil improves between the end of primary school and the end of secondary school) of at least +1? There are dozens to choose from. Do you think you should have spoken to some of them and heard their views before you made big decisions to change the freedoms so many of these school leaders have? How many of the top ten Progress 8 schools do you plan to visit before the Bill is passed?

Is it true that you did not take any proper advice from school leaders at all before publishing your Bill? We understand that you only met with a group of them once a few school leaders had spoken out against your Bill, thereby throwing it into the limelight.