Raising standards across the board

Despite 13 years of record investment, there are, still, too many failing schools – and too many young people leaving full-time education with inadequate qualifications. The number of inner-city Yorkshire LEAs towards the bottom of the seemingly endless league tables is indicative of this Government's inadequacies.

Yet Mr Cameron's proposals to allow parents to set up their own

schools – while eye-catching at face value – is not, necessarily, a feasible solution when low standards are so widespread.

This proposal, imported from Sweden, will benefit only a relatively small number to pupils; in particular, those fortunate to have pushy parents who are determined to give their children the best possible start to life and who have the patience, and ability, to make sense of the accompanying bureaucracy and funding issues.

It will not help those families living in an area where the overwhelming majority of parents are just content for their children to go to their nearest school – irrespective of any inherent weaknesses. These children will eventually leave school with their potential unfulfilled.

What Mr Cameron, and his rivals, need to accept is that such issues would be superfluous if families could command confidence in every local school. This would also end the annual scramble for places – more than 5,000 youngsters in Yorkshire missed out on a place at their first choice secondary school last year.

The Tory policy also misses another fundamental point and it is this: the key to raising standards is not an increased range of secondary provision, but a greater emphasis on early years education.

The simple reason why some secondary schools appear, at face value, to have a poor record at GCSE level is because they are inheriting pupils from primary schools who cannot read or write.

If the reasons for this can be resolved, Mr Cameron – and others – may find that the reforms to secondary schools may not need to be so destabilising.