Schools policies attacked

STRUGGLING schools have been abandoned in the Government’s “reckless rush” to throw extra cash and freedoms at the very best, Labour has warned.

Education Secretary Michael Gove came under fire for ripping up a pledge to tackle poor results at the worst schools in “the first 100 days” of a Conservative Government.

Mr Gove had been silent on the issue since May — and had refused to back Labour’s own successful National Challenge programme to improve underperforming schools, Labour’s conference in Manchester was told.

Instead, resources had been thrown at converting outstanding schools into academies and into creating so-called free schools — the vast majority of which are in the South of England.

Ed Balls, Labour’s education spokesman, said: “I am proud that we transformed hundreds of schools across the country — but Michael Gove has shown he will abandon those schools to struggle.”

The National Challenge programme was hugely controversial, triggering accusations of “stigmatising” secondaries where under 30 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs at A*-C, including English and maths.

But Mr Balls said around 1,600 secondaries were below the 30 per cent benchmark in 1997 — a figure that fell to 247 last year and was expected to fall again significantly after this summer’s results.

He told delegates: “Our programme gave more help and support to underperforming schools, in the most disadvantaged communities. But Michael Gove’s academies programme gives extra resources to outstanding schools, in more advantaged communities.”

Mr Balls also stepped up his attack on the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which saw Oldham’s ambitious programme bite the dust, saying: “Michael Gove has told hundreds of thousands of children ‘sorry, but you are not worth it’.”

And he highlighted the ditching of one-to-one tuition, free school lunches for half a million primary school children, breakfast clubs and hundreds of new play areas.