100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke

100 Shades of Gove: 100 failings in Education & Training by this Tory Government

Funding Cuts
1. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, in real terms, education has suffered its largest funding cut since the 1950s (evidence) (evidence) 2. The 2.5 billion Pupil Premium did not come from additional monies as promised but actually came from within the existing education budget (evidence) 3. Government Funding for Universities was cut by almost half (evidence & evidence) 4. The funding for school meals was halved in 2010-11 (evidence) 5. In 2010-11, the funding for Children & Families was cut by 800m (exactly the same amount that was earmarked for academisation) (evidence) 6. A Public Accounts Committee report concluded that Michael Gove had no grasp of value for money when it came to building schools (evidence) 7. UK Education Spending as a percentage of GDP has now fallen behind the USA (evidence & evidence) 8. 77% of Primary Schools said their income fell between 2011/12 and 2012/13 (evidence)

Student Support
9. Gove scrapped EMA despite evidence it increased participation in Education (post 16) (evidence) 10. Tuition Fees Tripled to 9,000 (evidence) 11. Youth Unemployment is up by 5% (evidence) 12. Number of pupils staying on in education (aged 16-18) has fallen for the first time since 2001 (evidence) 13. In June 2010, Gove axed Labours plan to extend Free School Meals to half a million more children a decision justified by Gove in this letter (evidence)

100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke 14. A FoI query by False Economy exposed that the government are considering retrospectively raising the interest rates on old student loans (evidence)

Free Schools
15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. Cost of establishing Free Schools has more than doubled to 6,600,000 (evidence) Free Schools perform worse than other schools in Ofsted Inspections (evidence & evidence) There is no automatic right to Trade Union recognition in Free Schools (evidence) 8% of Free Schools inspected are deemed to be failing (page 9) Michael Gove spent 1.1 billion on Free Schools at a time when every major Education spending category was cut (evidence & evidence) The Average Free School has just 471 School Places which is an inefficient use of taxpayers money at a time of restraint (evidence) Free Schools are projected to cost at least 600 million more than was originally planned (page 8) 13% of Free Schools are opening in a place where there is no need for them (Labour argue the figure is 51%) (evidence & evidence) There are concerns about the Financial Management at 8% of Free Schools inspected (evidence) A quarter of Free School places were unfilled (page 10) Only 27% of voters support Michael Goves Free School policy, yet he continues to ignore the wishes of the majority (evidence) Michael Gove has handed a Free School over to a profit-making Swedish firm to run (evidence) Free Schools are taking lower numbers of poorer pupils (pupils on Free School Meals). Many argue this is de facto selection (evidence) A sample of 30 Free Schools opened in September 2013 showed an average number of just 96 pupils per school (evidence) Michael Gove wasted 440,00 on Free Schools that didnt even open [wave 1] (evidence)

Academies
30. Government leaked document admits spending on Forced Academies is an inappropriate use of money & ideologically driven (evidence) 31. Michael Gove overspent on Academies by 1bn & cut the funding of state school pupils to pay for it says National Audit Office (evidence) 32. Three Academy Chain networks hand 180+ average pay packets of 88,000 and 7 staff are paid more than the Prime Minister (here, here & here) 33. The government has admitted that on at least three occasions it has forced schools against their will to convert to academy status (evidence) 34. Michael Goves Department stand accused of bribing schools with payments outside their funding allocation to convert to academy status (evidence & evidence) 35. The Academy programme cost 8 billion in just two years at the same time 13% cuts to the Education Budget (real terms) were announced (evidence) 36. Poor planning in the transfer of school places from LEA run schools & academy schools costs the taxpayer 350 million. A slower transition would have saved cash (evidence)

100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke 37. The government wasted 114 million on Consultants to plan and implement their Free School/Academy reforms (evidence & evidence) 38. Taxpayers foot the bills for the extravagant expenses clocked dup by so-called charities running academy chains (evidence) 39. Academy Head teachers have been earning income from their own private consultancy firms carrying out work in the schools for which they are head (evidence) 40. Pupil per spend in Academy Schools is in many cases considerably higher than Council Run Comprehensives (evidence & evidence)

School Closures
41. 471 Schools (net) have been axed by Michael Gove shows the ONS (evidence & evidence) 42. Michael Gove admits he scrapped the Building Schools for Future Programme that was set to renovate or build 715 schools (evidence & evidence) 43. Since the Olympics, Michael Gove has oversaw the sale of 1 school playing field every 2 weeks, and now more than 50 fields have been sold (evidence & evidence) 44. The privatisation of educational services has begun. In Staffordshire, alone, 2 billion of education services including support for disabled children, was handed to a profit making firm (evidence) 45. The new school improvements programme is nearly 6 billion short of what is required and is only improving 169 schools (evidence)

School Places
46. Number of Children in Class Sizes of more than 30 has doubled in a year and nearly trebled since 2010 (evidence & evidence) 47. 29% of local authorities are under-funded and are unable to fund as many school places as they need says the National Audit Office (evidence) 48. UKs teacher to pupil ratio has risen for 2 years running under the Tories and is now comfortably the worst the EU (evidence) 49. Michael Gove is failing to deliver the extra 240,000 school places required by 2015 (evidence) 50. Applicants to UCAS to attend UK Universities decreased for two years running, they are up this year (evidence & evidence) 51. There are more than 2000 classrooms in England that have more pupils in them than 4 of the Free Schools that opened in September have on their entire roll call (evidence) & evidence)

Childcare
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100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke 52. Childcare costs are up 30% under the Tories and grow 5 times faster than wages 53. There are 581 fewer Sure Start Centres under Michael Gove (evidence & evidence) 54. The government, by their own admission, deleted evidence of Sure Start closures from their own website (evidence) 55. Government funding for Sure Start was axed by 20% in 2012-13 (evidence) 56. Goves Department attempted to lower the quality of staffing in nurseries by increasing the child to carer ratio after report showed the idea had failed French children (evidence & evidence) 57. There are now 2,423 fewer childminders than there were in 2009 (evidence) 58. Changes to Child Tax Credits amounted to 1bn in raw figures but even more in real terms (evidence) 59. 92 Sure Start Centres have been privatised (evidence) 60. There is a 38,000 shortage of Free Nursery Places for 2-year-olds on the governments flagship scheme (evidence & evidence)

Teaching Staff
61. Michael Gove imposed a 1% wage freeze on teachers despite allowing the pay of bosses to soar (evidence) 62. Gove has scrapped requirement for schools to seek a teacher with qualified teaching status before they decide to fill the gap with an unqualified teacher (evidence, evidence) 63. The government have scrapped Teachers Final Salary Pension Schemes are new regulations amount to a real terms cut of 3% on salaries (evidence) 64. There are 6,063 fewer teachers under Cameron. The total number of teachers has fallen every single year of a Tory government (evidence) 65. The average salary of a Primary School Teacher has fallen by 400 in 2 years (in raw terms). In real terms the picture is much worse again (evidence) 66. Gove is introducing performance related pay that could eventually slow teachers wages by 10,000 a year (evidence) 67. Secret Talks are underway between the Treasury and Department of Education to consider phasing out 230,000 teaching assistants in a bid to save 4 billion. (evidence) 68. In the last academic year, 5,950 trainee teacher places were unfilled as a crisis in teacher recruitment takes hold (evidence & evidence)

Pupil Performance
69. Michael Gove & his officials were judged to be misusing Education Statistics to talk down pupil achievement (evidence & evidence) 70. 10% decline in pupils achieving A/A* in GCE English since 2010 says Joint Council for Qualifications (evidence) 71. ONS data released on 15 October 2013 shows that school truancy figures were on the rise (evidence) 72. 2012 recorded the first fall in Pupil Performances in the history of GCSEs (evidence) 4

100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke 73. 2013 recorded the largest ever fall in GCSE performance (evidence) 74. A Level grade results have fallen 2 years running (evidence) 75. On 7 February 2013, Gove abandoned his E-Bacc Plans and his idea to scrap Exam Boards admitting that they were errors (evidence) 76. Michael Gove, despite rhetoric, has actually increased testing especially for young children (evidence, evidence) 77. Goves new National Curriculum (here) was rushed and made many mistakes based on ideology not evidence. Introducing complicated mathematics too early in a c hilds life is one such example (evidence), and the History Curriculum faced last minute revisions because it excluded prominent figures such as Mary Seacole (evidence & evidence) 78. Gove removed funding from Connexions Careers Advice Service but then attacked what he called the Careers Lobby in front of the Education Select Committee (evidence & evidence) 79. 4 in 5 schools are failing to provide adequate careers advice to pupils at KS3 & KS4 (evidence 80. More than half of schools are duty in their requirement to provide good religious education says Ofsted (evidence) 81. There has been a 40% drop in the number of students getting literacy tuition under Cameron (evidence) 82. Tories axed pupils right to one to one tuition and buried a report that may have shown the benefits of such tuition (evidence)

Apprenticeships
83. The number of apprenticeships lasting 6 months or less grew to 19% in 2011 (evidence) 84. The percentage of apprentices achieving level 1, 2 or 3 passes all fell in the year 2011/12 (evidence & evidence) 85. The number of under-19 year olds starting apprenticeships has fallen 2 years running (page 8) and are down 12% (evidence)

Child Poverty
86. Child Benefit was scrapped for middle class households (evidence) 87. Benefits were frozen to 1% for 3 years putting 200,000 more children into child poverty (evidence) 88. Child Poverty is up 300,000 under Michael Gove (evidence) 89. As 1 in 7 children go to school hungry, Michael Gove responded by saying Food Bank users only have themselves to blame (evidence & evidence)

Child Obesity
90. Michael Gove Constituency Association accepted funding from Fast Food Businessmen (evidence)

100 failings in Education & Training since May 2010, by oin Clarke 91. 1 year before the Olympics, Michael Gove scrapped the 160m Schools Sports Partnership (evidence) 92. Hospital Admission for children where the primary or secondary diagnosis is obesity is up 16% since 2010 (Table 7.5 evidence) 93. Free Swimming for under 16s was scrapped in a 40 cost savings exercise (evidence)

Transparency
94. Michael Goves Department lost a Freedom of Information complaint and were ordered by the Information Commissioner to release emails sent from personal accounts discussing DFE business (evidence & evidence) 95. Michael Goves Department was placed under Special Monitoring for its refusal to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (evidence) 96. A Tory Donor was enobled and appointed Education Minister (evidence)

Education Ethos
97. Goves drive to inject a military ethos into schools is a policy founded on rhetoric and machismo and ignores the nuance of pedagogy (evidence & evidence) 98. As students sat GCSE exams in June 2012, Michael Gove took to a Conference Stage to devalue their efforts by pronouncing that exams had been dumbed down (evidence) 99. Michael Gove had a Gove [King James] Bible sent to every school in England and in doing so alienated Christians of different faiths such as Catholics as well as non-Christians evidence) 100. Michael Goves Department has faced allegations of bullying that have not satisfactorily resolved themselves (evidence)