As we begin 2025 it is hard to be anything other than pessimistic about what lies in store for schools under this Labour government. The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, will no doubt continue to put ideology before both pragmatism and evidence, and many children will see their education adversely affected, with no amount of time, or “lessons learned” by her successors, able to repair the damage done. Never a fan of independence, in whatever form, Phillipson has already stopped funding promised to free schools by the previous government, and it seems inevitable that responsibility for opening such schools in the future will return to local authorities. So much for freedom: the blob is already regenerating.

The imposition of VAT on independent schools has gained a lot of coverage, but we now learn that the government has to now make contingency plans for a policy you would think it would have thoroughly researched given how central it was to their election manifesto. It now seems likely that state schools will have to cope with more than expected numbers of pupils forced out of their fee-paying schools.

Schools closing and class sizes rising, jobs lost, families disrupted, SEND pupils left in limbo, court cases pending, such actions are both punitive and inept, almost as if the Secretary of State doesn’t know what she’s doing and doesn’t care about the consequences. And in some government departments such a hapless state of affairs would be containable, but education, like health, is different because, quite obviously, at the end of these various blunders are vulnerable people. The Secretary of State has, ultimately, a duty of care to all children who attend schools in England. Given that she has never visited an independent school, or a free school, it is clear where her priorities lie.

Of course, independent schools and free schools won’t disappear overnight, but just like grammar schools, those other engines of excellence, there will be fewer of them over time. Diversity is a key idea, a mantra that dominates the collective thinking of the front bench, but for Labour, when it comes to schools there is only one acceptable model and it is a local authority funded, non-selective comprehensive. We will have to wait and see whether these schools, many of which are very good, but too many of which are not, can increasingly fill the holes left by school closures in other sectors.

What is different in this book is the level of detail they go into in how progressive objectives can be met

But the lasting damage to our children’s education is likely to be more fully articulated in the imminent curriculum review. Led by Professor Becky Francis, a professional educationalist committed to promoting “inclusivity” at every opportunity, the review is set to be published early this year; the consequences to what is taught in England’s schools, and how it is taught, will be far-reaching. Francis is on record as being opposed to setting by ability, which she sees as “incompatible with social justice”, and it seems likely, from what we know of the review so far, that accessibility, and equity, will be central to the review’s recommendations. If you doubt how opposed the government is to any manifestation of “elitism” in schools then look no further than its recent decision to scrap the Latin Excellence Programme in February, saving a paltry £4m. It is an act that the historian Tom Holland has rightly described as “shameful”.

A new book which no doubt resonates with Philiipson’s and Francis’s view of education is “Equity in Education: levelling the playing field of learning, by Lee Elliott Major and Emily Briant”. It’s worth reading if you are interested in what an “equity-based” education looks like.

At the beginning of the third chapter the authors write a telling line about how they see the role of teachers: predictably it is not, principally, to impart a deep love of an academic subject, or to learn and be excited by the acquisition of that knowledge. No, teachers entered the profession “to achieve the noble aim of social justice.” That one, short statement encapsulates much of what has gone wrong (and continues to go wrong) with teaching in many developed countries during the last ten years: too many teachers, and those who train them during their Initial Teacher Training programme, see the role as a means of bending society to a liberal, “progressive” version of their own world view.

They see it as a “noble” cause, a process of instigating lasting change where it really matters: in the minds of the young people they teach. They describe this desire as “fierce”. “Suddenly”, they write, “the learners in front of you are yours”. The classes “belong to you”. These “learners” do not sound like individuals with a diversity of opinions but, rather, a homogenous group that can be remoulded in the likeness of the teacher. There are plenty of stages where the culture wars are fought, but nowhere is it more depressing to see it played out in front of those rows of desks in a classroom which should be insulated from a teacher’s political sympathies.

There are no new insights in this book: the authors’ views on effecting social change through education are seeped into the souls of activists on the left. What is different is the level of detail they go into in how progressive objectives can be met. They write of “sweeping away middle class advantage”, and one way of doing this is by teachers adapting their own use of “formal” language and using more “casual” language when explaining ideas to pupils from working class backgrounds. Another tip is for “learners” (a depressingly utilitarian term that only those on the left use) to be encouraged to “draw an illustration of Marx’s capitalism on the main whiteboard” and for the class to “celebrate” such successes.

Needless to say the authors insist that lesson plans, books, texts and images are “diverse”, and, inevitably, that learners will be “inspired” by reading texts written and featuring people who look like them and have similar backgrounds. So much for Shakespeare then, and indeed much of the English canon. Such a view is as narrow as it is predictable, but it still is astonishing that academics who have themselves no doubt benefited from reading the greatest works of literature believe that the same opportunities should be denied others purely because of where they came from. They recommend that trips to the theatre, or museums should be replaced for working class “learners” with visits to local football clubs or graffiti workshops. Such philistinism has spread throughout the school system, and it is no longer surprising that the Head of English at a leading state school can call for Shakespeare to be replaced by lessons on Instagram posts. The death of woke has been greatly exaggerated.

In 1869 Matthew Arnold published “Culture and Anarchy”. For Arnold the “study of perfection”, or “the best which has been thought and said”, was fundamental to a society’s moral integrity: it is the safeguard against the “anarchy” of materialism, individuality and relativism. Culture unites an otherwise divided society, it elevates it to something finer than it would otherwise be. We have come a long way from the “sweetness and light”, the beauty and truth, that culture fosters, and the values it promotes. Arnold’s armies of ignorance have won, their influence spreads across every position of power that shapes the future of education today. It is a national tragedy.