Crumbling schools: we are just days from a ‘serious incident’

THE recruitment and retention crisis and crumbling school buildings are the two issues keeping the Shadow Schools Minister awake at night, he told leaders.

Stephen Morgan said the Government was not taking the staff shortages “anywhere near as seriously as it should be,” adding: “More teachers are leaving our classrooms than entering. We have a recruitment and retention crisis created by this Government.”

In a short but wide-ranging address, Morgan also raised as a serious concern the “terrible state” of many thousands of schools.

One in six children was being put at risk, he said, adding there hasn’t been a review of the conditions of school estates since 2019.

He warned: “It’s a matter of days or weeks until something drastic is going to happen. There is going to be a serious incident and it’ll be a wake-up call for this Government.”

Secondary head and former NEU president Robin Bevan told Morgan: “My biggest concern is capital investment. If you gave me £1 million tomorrow, I’d spend it within a week repairing the infrastructure of the school. We need tarmac relaid on playgrounds. We need the 1930s downpipes and guttering redone.

“I would like to propose a policy for Labour’s manifesto, which is that every school is guaranteed to be refurbished every 25 years and rebuilt every 75. The Government announced last autumn that it was rebuilding 500 schools in the next ten years – at that rate, every school building in this country has to last 488 years.”

In an impassioned plea that drew applause from delegates, London primary head John Hayes urged Morgan, who outlined a number of proposed new initiatives that would be introduced if a Labour government comes to power, to simply focus on reinvesting in education.

“We don’t want new initiatives. We just want the money to do the job, but we don’t have it. We don’t want to be sent on any more courses to run new, clever initiatives. We just want Ofsted reformed so it’s not a threat.

“You are our hope. Please give us the money we need because we know how to do this job. You have to trust us – we are the professionals. We don’t want gimmicks. We just want the money to do the job and get the kids what they need.”

Morgan acknowledged that the £2 billion announced by the Government, available from 2025, would only get funding back to 2010 levels. He said a Labour government would raise money from axing nom dom tax status and tax breaks for private schools.

He went on to say that the post-16 sector has been undervalued and not resourced for quite some time. “FE is at crisis point and I know Keir is committed to investing in skills.”

The Labour Party wanted to work with the education sector to devise policy proposals so they were evidence-based, he said.