told schools<\/a> across England this week to adapt their curriculums to the needs of local businesses, as part of a drive to make technical and vocational skills as valued as academic qualifications and help tackle the jobs crisis for young people.<\/p>\nPowell said: \u201cI absolutely don\u2019t want schools to dumb down. My kids might say I\u2019m a tiger mum. You know, I\u2019m a tiger mum for all our kids \u2013 every single child that\u2019s in our education system achieving excellence, achieving what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell said those arguing against a focus on vocational education were making a \u201cfalse trade-off\u201d by framing Labour\u2019s plans as a choice between knowledge and skills. \u201cWhat I\u2019m not going to oversee is some kind of lower ambition for some kids. It\u2019s about ambition for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the criticism of her approach has come from Tory politicians who oversaw the system for years. \u201cThey have to take some responsibility for creating \u2026 a system that has left over a million young people now not in education, training or employment. The current approach has left too many behind,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
However, she acknowledged that headteachers were concerned about extra pressure on their budgets to provide vocational routes, saying she was \u201cvery conscious\u201d of school funding, which took a hit during the austerity years. She insisted any specific new proposals would be fully funded.<\/p>\n
With many teachers struggling, and strikes potentially looming, Powell said she wanted a constructive relationship with the unions, and the government was already making changes to help ease the pressure. \u201cWhat I\u2019ll say to teachers is \u2018work with me\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Powell has been under pressure since she took over the brief to row back on plans made by her predecessor, Bridget Phillipson, to overhaul the special educational needs and disabilities system (Send), in particular limiting education, health and care plans (EHCP) to pupils with the \u201cmost complex needs\u201d.<\/p>\n
Powell signalled that she would stick to the plans, while accepting that the issue was creating worry and anxiety for many parents. \u201cWe can reassure them, because this is about tilting the system so that you don\u2019t have to fight tooth and nail. That you get much earlier help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pressed on Labour\u2019s election pledge to recruit 6,500 teachers, which has since been watered down, she suggested the government was doing well against a lower target, and that a sharp drop in primary numbers reflected falling rolls in schools.<\/p>\n
Asked about private schools, Powell took a less adversarial approach than her predecessor, saying it was up to parents to make their own decisions about where they sent their children. \u201cI\u2019m not here to worry about private schools. I\u2019m here to worry about state schools,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Powell sits next to Andy Burnham during his first cabinet meeting as prime minister. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe\/EPA<\/p>\n
Powell added that she would be spending a significant amount of time at the No 10 North outpost in her central Manchester constituency. The DfE\u2019s third biggest office, housing 1,100 civil servants, is also based in the city.<\/p>\n
She batted away suggestions she was unhappy not to have been appointed deputy prime minister by Burnham, saying they had agreed she would continue to play a central role in Labour\u2019s political direction as education secretary.<\/p>\n
There had been no purge of the Starmerites, she added, saying the new cabinet was representative of people from across the party, and that, in contrast, the last cabinet had been too narrow. \u201cThat was one of the issues for Keir towards the end. His government wasn\u2019t necessarily one of all the traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell also criticised Starmer\u2019s government for focusing too much on the Reform threat rather than Labour\u2019s own plan for the country. \u201cWhat most people wanted to know was not what we thought about other political parties, but what were we doing? What were we about? What has been refreshing over the last week or two, is being on the front foot. Every day you\u2019re on the front foot is a day you\u2019re winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
She insisted that despite multiple spending pledges in Burnham\u2019s first fortnight in office, all policy announcements were funded, with the prime minister and his chancellor, John Healey, \u201cquite prudent and careful\u201d about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucy Powell has said she wants to be an ambitious \u201ctiger mum\u201d for all young people, whatever their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-724746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}