General Election 2017: The Policies

With a general election on the horizon and the manifestos out, we thought we would outline all the policies of all the main political parties contesting that directly affect students and young people.

Labour
According to recent reports and the Labour manifesto, the key policies relating to young people are that, if elected, a Labour government would reduce the voting age such that 16 and 17 year olds can vote in all elections. For university students, they would scrap tuition fees and would reintroduce the maintenance grants that were scrapped under the previous Tory government.

Another key election pledge is to create a National Education Service for England, akin to the NHS, to "move towards cradle-to-grave learning that is free at the point of use". They say they will do this by scrapping Conservative plans for schools to pay an apprenticeship levy, extending schools-based counselling to all schools to improve children’s mental health, at a cost of £90 million per year, bringing funding for 16 to18-year-olds in line with Key Stage 4 baselines and restore the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16 to 18-year-olds from lower and middle income backgrounds. They also pledged to maintain the apprenticeship levy, and moreover, would set a target to double the number of completed apprenticeships at NVQ level 3 by 2022 as well as protecting the £440 million funding for apprenticeships for small and medium-sized employers who don’t pay the levy.

Labour have also said they won't fund any new free schools or grammar schools. They also said they will oppose any attempt to force schools to become academies. They have also said they are considering introducing teacher sabbaticals and placements with industry to encourage interaction between education and industry. Furthermore, Labour will require joined-up admissions policies across local schools to enable councils to fulfil their responsibilities on child places, to simplify the admissions process for parents and to ensure that no child slips through the net.

In terms of investment in education, Labour has said they will make sure schools are properly resourced by introducing a fairer funding formula and redressing the historical underfunding of certain schools. Labour have said they would invest in new school buildings, including the phased removal of asbestos from existing schools.

Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems have pledged that, if elected they would invest £7 billion in education, reverse all cuts to frontline school and college budgets, and protect per pupil funding in real terms. They say they will do this by introducing a 'fairer' National Funding System "so that no school loses money per pupil in cash terms", protecting the Pupil Premium and establishing an independent Education Standards Authority to pilot, phase-in and resource future policy changes in consultation with professionals and experts.

To help teachers, the Liberal Democrats have said they will end the 1% cap on teachers’ pay rises. To attempt to tackle unnecessary teacher workload they have said they will reform Ofsted inspections so that they take into account longer-term outcomes and sustainable improvement as well as teacher workload, sickness and retention. They will continue to work with the Education Endowment Foundation to establish a comprehensive evidence base on what works in teaching and they have said they will introduce a slimmed down core national curriculum, which will be taught in all state-funded schools. This will include a ‘curriculum for life’ including financial literacy, first aid and emergency lifesaving skills, mental health education, citizenship, and age-appropriate Sex and Relationship Education. They have also pledged to guarantee that all teachers in state-funded schools will be fully qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) from January 2019.

The Lib Dems oppose new grammar schools and plan to scrap the planned expansion of grammar schools and devolve all capital monies for new school spaces to local authorities. They will also give local authorities proper control over admissions and new schools, allow Ofsted to inspect both local authorities and academy chains and rule out state-funded profit-making schools, and ensure that new schools are built in areas where there is a need for new school places.

They also pledge to include in SRE teaching about sexual consent, LGBT+ relationships, and issues surrounding explicit images and content. Equally, they say they will challenge gender stereotyping and early sexualisation, working with schools to break down outdated perceptions of gender appropriateness of particular academic subjects

With regards to university, the Lib Dems have also said they would reinstate maintenance grants, as well as ensuring that all universities work to widen participation and require every university to be transparent about selection criteria. They have also said they will establish a review of higher education finance in the next Parliament to consider any necessary reforms, and make sure there are no more retrospective raising of rates, or selling-off of loans to private companies.

The Lib Dems have also said they would legalise the possession and sale of marijuana in the UK, they would restore housing benefit for 18-21 year olds trying to get on the housing ladder and that they would offer discounted bus passes, giving up to 66% off local tickets.

Conservatives
The Tories have pledged to put an extra £4bn into schools by 2022 if elected, that no school will have its budget cut as a result of the new funding formula and open a specialist maths school in every major city in England.

They have said they will put plans in place for at least 100 new free schools a year, as well as ending the ban on grammar schools, the conditions of which would include allowing pupils to join at other ages as well as eleven, and will ask universities and independent schools to help run state schools. To this end, they have said that if universities want to charge maximum tuition fees, they will be required to "become involved" in academy sponsorship or the founding of free schools.

The Tories have said they will scrap free school lunches for infants in England, but offer free breakfasts across the primary years, and they expect every 11-year-old to know their times tables off by heart.

One major education policy put forwards is to introduce the ability for sixth form students to sit T-Levels, more vocational and technical qualifications, as well as A-Levels. Like the natural progression from academic A-Levels to university, "under the new technical route, young people will embark on one of 15 technical education routes, rather than the 15,000 currently on offer. It brings to an end the possibility of 16-18 students sitting a mixture of vocational and academic qualifications.The 15 technical routes are as follows: agriculture, environmental and animal care; business and administrative; catering and hospitality; childcare and education; construction; creative and design; digital; engineering and manufacturing; hair and beauty; health and science; legal, finance and accounting; protective services; sales, marketing and procurement; social care; transport and logistics." How these T-Levels will be different from the pre-established BTECs is unclear.

Green

Like Labour, the Greens have also said they would fight to restore student grants, reintroduce the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16-17 year olds and enable apprenticeships to all qualified young people aged 16-25. They say they want real term spending per pupil to increase, bring academies and free schools into the local authority system, abolish SATS and reduce class sizes. They will also push for the age of voting to be lowered to 16.

There figurehead policy - and possibly most contentious - is that they would scrap university tuition fees and scrap all student debt currently held by graduates (according to reports currently standing at £76.3bn).

The Greens have also pledged to address teacher workload, abolish Ofsted, and reform the curriculum. They hope to provide mandatory sex education that is LGBT-inclusive, promotes healthy relationships and positive body image. They want to ensure that every child with Special Educational Needs or Disability has access to a mainstream education, and that every young person under the age of 18 and in full-time education is entitled to free local public transport.

UKIP

In their manifesto, UKIP's key pledges are to open a grammar school in every town, adapting the old 11+ system to add transfer examinations up to the age of sixteen, stop paying tuition fees for courses which do not lead at least two thirds of students into a graduate level job, or a job corresponding to their degree, within five years after graduation, fund all secondary schools according to a single formula and make First Aid training a statutory requirement so pupils obtain a 'Basic Life-Saving Diploma'.

They have also said they will stop offering EU nationals student loans when the country leaves the EU, end sex education in primary schools and will reverse the policy of closing special schools, as well as ensuring all other schools are accessible to disabled learners and that individual support is in place for each child.

With regards to careers, if elected UKIP would introduce 'practical' employability lessons into the syllabus, teaching interview skills, time management, making presentations, public speaking, networking, making a good first impression, and developing social skills. UKIP would also include practical information about entrepeneurialism and setting up businesses into the syllabus. UKIP would also like to introduce a scheme of 'Dual Vocational Training', in which students attend classes at a vocational school and receive on-the-job training at a company. 

According to the manifesto, UKIP has a long-term goal of abolishing tuition fees altogether, which they will seek to enact 'as soon as economic conditions allow'. They, like Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens, would restore maintenance grants. Futhermore, they pledge to abolish tuition fees for undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, provided they work in their discipline and pay tax in the UK for at least five years after they complete their degree and for medical students, provided they commit to working within the NHS for at least ten out of the fifteen years after they qualify.

Sources: The Labour Party website, the Liberal Democrat website, Conservative Party website, Green Party website, UK Independence Party website, BBC News website, i Newspaper website.

DISCLAIMER: The policies outlined in this article are by no means exhaustive, and anyone who is politically interested or is entitled to vote in the June election we implore read the full manifestos of the political parties before making any decision. This article is intended merely to outline to policies that we think matter to students.

Buzz Bashing - Spring 2017

You know the drill. Something something Hampstead Buzz, something something [insert witty and nuanced comment about the Buzz being either a propaganda tool or generally disorganised here].

The Head's message began with the usual drivel about revision, which is only fair since students do actually have to sit exams between being told to find their blazer. He reported, once again, that the school "had record numbers of applications for places in our Sixth Form from within Year 11 and from external students", most likely because, as has been the case for many years, the school insist all students fill out their sixth form application even if they don't want to attend. Another pointless statistic from the man made entirely of PR initiatives? No, never...

He went on to say that, after a series of successful interviews, "once we’ve seen everyone, we will look to see if any tweaks to our options blocks are needed", which is pretty language for 'we're cutting subjects'. How do we know this? Because none other than the Head said this in last week's Camden New Journal. To be fair, its not entirely the school's fault - national cuts and a new funding foirmula introduced by once-friend-now-bitter-enemy Justine Greening are the reason inner-city budgets are being squeezed. But rather than sugar-coat it for the parents, just come out and say it.

The Head also outlined some of the school's new targets, now they can check bureaucracy and incompetence off the list, the first being "Improving student attendance and achieving our school target of 99%". It cost the school a budget of £55,000 a few years back to 'achieve' 95% attendance; I have no idea how much 99% will cost. I wonder how many extra classes people could attend it would be. He also urged parents to download the 'My App' app, which allows parents to implant a tracker chip right into the base of their child's skull, because what's better than one pointless app? This new attempt to be down wiv da kidz probably cost the school a not inconsiderable sum of money (see our article on Show My Homework, Trash passim) and the grand irony is that they ask later on that parents "do not unsubscribe to the school’s e-mail service", making the app (or the email system, which is also expensive) also obsolete.

Moving on to the other pieces, most of it was the same stuff you expect from a school newsletter. There was a bizarre bit in a piece about a ballet project in which a teacher at the school was quoted in italics at the base of the article, which is a bit like me quoting me in this article. "This is a good article."

Another piece was about a new extra-curricular club (at Hampstead??) working on illustrating literature - that well-known life skill. Whilst this sounds like a genuinely interesting project, the article stated that the club was "aimed at Key Stage 3 boys with a particular interest in writing or illustration". Why not girls? Can girls not draw? The Trash wants to know why it is that a school is aiming an extra-curricular club at one specific gender. If the Girls Aloud Area (see Trash passim ad nauseum) was anything to go by, this may be a completely ill-thought-through attempt at inclusion and gender equality.

There seems to be a case of editorial extremes in the Buzz. In some places there isn't enough editing, in some the editing seems to be done with a hacksaw. In a piece about Holocaust Memorial Day, one student wrote about being taken along to the ceremony in City Hall, it doesn't hurt to say that someone may have wanted to read over the article, as one of the sentences read: "It was able to get the point across of making sure that history does not repeat itself". Eh? In a piece about the school debating team doing well in two Model United Nations this year - despite the Head's purported vendetta against clubs in the school - the school couldn't even congratulate those involved without cocking it up: the final sentence read "A special mention also goes out to ___, ___, ___ and ___ for helping to organise and prepare the students for helping to organise and prepare the students." Yet, in another article, one teacher "just wanted to share a few pictures from the International Women’s Day event". There was one picture.

9 LEAKED Early Labour Manifesto Clauses

We've all seen the leaks, and indeed the real thing, but here are 9 clauses that didn't make the final cut of Labour's Manifesto.

1.  An end to the shrinking of Jellies.

2.  Cookie selling ban to be lifted. 

3.  End the privatisation of lunches, the lockers and the WiFi.

4.  Smother the New East Block in motivational banners, inspirational posters and other Party                  memorabilia. 

5.  Fully reverse cuts to the use of fruity language. 

6.  Strong and stable leadership? 

7.  Hire 10,000 new Red Army officers at the cost of £30 £3000000 £2.5m £80m amount TBD.

8. Do a thing. 

9. Construct a third, fourth and fifth regional Gulag. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is a spoof. Consider reading the real thing - or not.

Head Reveals Budget Squeeze puts Pressure on Resources

The Headteacher has hit out against the government in last week's Camden New Journal (we're surprised they still speak) about the lack of funding local schools are getting.

Speaking about the latest plans by the government to tweak the funding formula in England and Wales to take more money from the inner cities to give to schools out in the country, the article said:

'The Department for Education says funding is higher than ever before, but Hampstead School headteacher Jacques Szemalikowski warned; "By 2019, we estimate that we will lose £1million from our annual budget. This figure is simply too large to continue offering all we do for our pupils."'

 Most of this we already knew before, or could guess at, but it puts in writing some very strong claims. The school will lose money in the coming years, it will have to drop subjects, resources or activities as it has already been doing and Hampstead students will be worse off, in a time when we need as many well-educated people as possible. We doubt it, but one possible money saver would be scaling back on the school's marketing campaigns, of which £1m probably just about covers, as we have been suggesting for the past three years.

The article went on to quote a letter from the Head to the paper, in which he said:

"We have already seen budget cuts and are having to plan tough decisions about what to cut in order to make savings, while minimising impact on our pupils."

If only he had such foresight of what was to come from the - I don't know - six years of Tory government last year, when now-Education Secretary Justine Greening was stomping around the English Block in the name of children's rights, he would have had the foresight and gumption to plead with her directly.

ETC Director Fired

Headteacher Jacques "Uncle Joe Sztalin" Szmellytroika has fired Jay M. S. Comey, director of ETC., Hampstead's largest news outlet, in a controversial move that has inspired shocked reaction throughout the East Block. 

Prior to being fired, Director Comey headed the ongoing investigation into the SLT's connections with Russia, which was expected to uncover "significant evidence" of "collusion". An investigative dossier, written entirely in Comic Sans, is said to have gone missing from Comey's office. When Trash reporters attempted to gain access to ETC's headquarters, next to the first floor toilet in the English block, they were threatened with police action, shoved, and warned that they were "next".

The official reason for Comey's dismissal is the recent discovery of a chain of emails which detailed plans for ETC's fourth re-branding. Included in the "shocking" emails were a number of draft articles, said to contain language "far too fruity for the public". Student-English-department liaison and genuine Enid Blyton character Susie Bridgmington denied that ETC had any plans to publish satire in the future.

Comey's dismissal is said to have taken place in a dark boardroom. It is believed that the decapitated Head looked directly into Comey's eyes, pointed, and said "you're fired".

En route to Siberia the IEU, Comey reportedly took to Facebook live, saying:

      "First they came for the jellies, and I did not speak out because I went to Subway at lunch. Then          they came for the Trash, and I did not speak out because I didn't write for the Trash. Then they            came for the anarchists, and I did not speak out because I was not an anarchist. Then they came          for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

At a loyalty rally earlier today, President Nixon Mr Slzeazyloftsuite told enraptured students that a "new age is upon us", before leaving the stage, his huge leather cape trailing far behind him.

Wanderer seen above the Sea of Fog

As the old building is torn down, one man, subject neither to the whims nor the demands of modern society, stands, deep in contemplation... 

Get some learns. 

French with a Big F and french with a Little f Actually the Same Language

It's the time of year when Hampstead's Year 11 French cohort discovers the shocking truth about French and french. What's that like? We went to find out.

One teacher, who asked not to be named Ms. Jackie "Dur" Ida, said: "Well it was only a matter of time. You can only go through every single word in French so many times before realising that they're the same as the ones in french, at which point it's just a matter of connecting the dots. Pretty funny how [fruity language] long it took them, eh?"

If you say so, Ms. Ida.

In a survey, 89% of Year 11 French students said they "weren't so sure what to think anymore", and a further 93% said that they'd have to "sit down after that one". Abdina, Year 11 Representative on the School Council and one of the 7%, reportedly rushed out of class and straight to one of the three computers in the school, to "amend selections from the School Council's vast body of legislative works to reflect these urgent developments in linguistics". Nobody's sure which one of the computers she went to, and she hasn't been seen since, so Abdina, if you're reading this, let someone know where you are.

Jean-Louis Le Breeze de Snapback, who previously confirmed he only bothered turning up to class to "taunt the others with [his] vastly superior knowledge and understanding of French", said: "it's pretty obvious". When asked if he had known the shocking truth about French and french prior to today's lesson he said "yes, by which I mean no, by which I mean not really", before stating "it's the thought that counts".

Headteacher Jacques Szmelalalalala said: "See people always ask, you know what it's like, does any of this stuff have any use in the real world? And I say 'Of course it does!' With French and french, just think about the next time you're in a chicken shop and you're not sure what to get. No more worrying about whether to get the French fries or the french fries!"

DISCLAIMER: This article is a spoof. The French/french distinction is covered by most in primary school.