ASCL's ten asks for education 

We welcome the creation of a cross-government child poverty taskforce. It must produce tangible results urgently. As an immediate step, free school meals should be extended to all families in receipt of Universal Credit, a process of automatic enrolment implemented, and the two-child benefit cap scrapped.

Children are missing out on vital support because of delays in Education, Health and Care Plans: schools cannot afford the costs of SEND provision; and there aren’t enough places in special schools to meet demand. The whole system is on the brink of collapse.

Schools and colleges have suffered from more than a decade of underinvestment. Education should be treated by policymakers as an investment – in children and our country – rather than as a cost.

The erosion of local support services for children and families has left schools and colleges picking up the pieces as an unofficial fourth emergency service. This is damaging and unsustainable.

We welcome the government’s commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers but this will not be enough to address the current level of shortages and will be difficult to achieve under current circumstances. The solution is inescapable – better pay and conditions to improve recruitment and retention.

Years of underinvestment have left around 700,000 pupils learning in schools that need major rebuilding or refurbishment. All school and college buildings should be safe, comfortable environments. 

Every year about a third of children do not achieve at least a Grade 4 in GCSE English and maths. This impacts on their life chances and condemns them to a grinding cycle of mandatory resits with many falling short of a Grade 4 once again. We have to do better for these young people.

Currently school and college leaders don’t know whether they will be able to offer applied general qualifications in 2025 pending the outcome of a review. Students need certainty that these qualifications will be available next year.

We welcome the decision to scrap single-word Ofsted judgements and introduce a system of report cards. We now need to make sure we get the new system right so that inspections are genuinely collaborative and supportive.

Some politicians have been too quick in the past to snipe at schools. This denigration must stop. We need a more positive discourse about education.