UK Education Policy-watch

• Published date: 24 November 2022
• Subject Matter: Consumer Protection, Tax, Education, Sales Taxes: VAT, GST
• Law Firm: Withers LLP
• Author: Ms Emma Flower

Recent months have seen seismic changes in Westminster which have made it unusually difficult to plan for key policy and other developments in the education sector. This article draws out some of the key current talking points in this shifting landscape.

Schools

1. New Education Secretary

• Gillian Keegan has replaced Kit Malthouse as the new Education Secretary. She was educated at a comprehensive secondary school in Merseyside and left school at age 16. She was an apprentice at Delco Electronics and sponsored to study at Liverpool John Moores University before going on to a Masters degree at the London Business School.
• Early indications suggest she will not be pursuing Liz Truss's interest in promoting Grammar Schools and is more focused on the comprehensive offering. She has, historically indicated that she finds unions overly powerful, which may be relevant for her relationship with the teaching unions.

2. Large academy trusts

• While the Schools Bill (which set out substantial reforms for the academy sector) seems on the back burner for now, the Government's stated aim remains to move struggling groups of schools collectively into large academy trusts, and to have all schools in 'strong' academy trusts by 2030.
• There were 1215 double 'requires improvement' schools as of December 2021, these are the schools primarily being focused on within these plans.
• The Government expects all trusts to have or be working towards having at least 10 schools by 2030.

3. Oxbridge barriers to entry

• Recent figures suggest Oxbridge demands higher grades from UK private school pupils than state school pupils.
• Entry grades for 76 per cent of private school pupils were three As or above, only 40 per cent of state school pupils were subject to the same grade requirements.
• Analysis of Oxford and Cambridge offer rates to 50 independent schools (with the most applications in the previous year) shows that the likelihood of pupils receiving an offer has fallen from 39 per cent to 26.5 per cent in five years.
• The Telegraph has revealed that state school pupils are more likely than private school pupils to be admitted to the University of Cambridge for the first time.
• Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council states that 'contextual admissions is only a fair system if applied fairly - which means looking at the individual pupil and their circumstances, not the type of school they go to.'

4. British Baccalaureate

• New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to...