Labour’s slapdash plan to ‘modernise’ school education panders to thickos – and Britain’s children will pay the price

CLASS dismissed. Pack up your rucksacks, kids, and lap up some TikTok for supper. Because, under the latest Labour plans to overhaul our ailing educational system, that’s what it’ll come down to. Lucy Powell reckons schools are stuck in a ‘straitjacket’, and that it’s unfair on thickos the less academically blessed that educational facilities only prioritise subjects like English and maths Credit: Getty If ‘modernising’ education becomes a cheat code for making it easier, simpler and less demanding, it’s Britain’s children who will end up paying the price Credit: Getty New Education Secretary Lucy Powell reckons schools are stuck in a “straitjacket”, and they should be offering Love Island studies instead. Sort of. She reckons it’s unfair on thickos the less academically blessed that educational facilities only prioritise subjects such as English, maths and history. And that schools should spend yet more precious budget, from one already being strangled at the seams, on vocational subjects like childcare and hospitality. Quite how state schools — Labour’s priority — will find both the staffing and the money to achieve this is unknown. Then again, this is coming from a minister who included a massive typo in her announcement to the role on X. So attention to detail perhaps isn’t foremost on the curriculum. In my day, if you weren’t the smartest, well . . . unlucky. Oxbridge wasn’t a-beckoning, and them’s the cards dealt you. Work on your personality. Get a Saturday job. But for the progressive left, no one must be left out. Powell said she intended to take a “fresh look at what we are teaching our children and whether we are equipping them for their lives ahead” as part of a drive to undo the education reforms of Michael Gove. The Government is considering changes to the curriculum, proposed as part of a review by Professor Becky Francis. The Francis Review recommends teenagers take fewer GCSE exams because of fears they are overly stressed and being taught to the test, rather than understanding the subject. And Powell is understood to want to go further in allowing pupils to concentrate on more technical subjects at an earlier age. She appears at risk of making the typical mistake many progressives make: believing creativity and knowledge are somehow at odds. They aren’t. Crucially, in the burgeoning/terrifying world of AI, Pythagoras’ theorem et al will soon be redundant anyway. These days, even the least brightest of mummy’s little darlings can pick up a smartphone and cheat their way to 50 per cent. But not many PPE students at Balliol can fix a broken toilet or a boiler. Which is why I do absolutely believe schools and colleges SHOULD be encouraging trades. Sadly, too, so many teenagers today believe that they don’t need a formal education — not when a career in Influencing beckons. One where the one per cent can make millions through brand deals, likes and the ability to know your 0.5x camera lens from your 1.0. Dumbing down education at the cost of traditional subjects, though, is not the one. Nor is allowing our youngsters to sit fewer GCSEs so as not to add to their mental-health woes. If children are allowed to believe they can just concede defeat and strive for less at the very first hurdle, what example is that giving them for later in life, when s**t really hits the fan? Supporters of Powell insist it’s not about lowering standards, rather that not every 14-year-old wants to dissect frogs or calculate Ohm’s law. Trust me, guys, neither did I. But I did so because no Saturday-night ice disco for me otherwise. You know? Discipline. When it comes to education, raising aspirations should always matter more than lowering the bar. If “modernising” education becomes a cheat code for making it easier, simpler and less demanding, ultimately, it’s Britain’s children who will end up paying the price. POOR SHOW, HOLLY Holly Willoughby’s new YouTube show was met with mixed reaction Credit: Holly Willoughby Together MUCH fanfare around Holly Willoughby’s debut YouTube show last week, one which was met with mixed reaction. “Mixed” being kind. Or as one reviewer observed: “How bad is Holly’s new show? I don’t know where to start. “But I do know where it should end – at the half-hour mark where she and Stanley Tucci are so stuck for conversation they end up reading out the ingredients list of a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie.” Another highlight saw Holly painstakingly chopping a cucumber. Elephants have been gestated quicker. CAN somebody please help readers of the Daily Telegraph. “Britain’s most persecuted minority? Millionaires”, read the page one headline. Clemmie’s meme of the week Credit: Supplied CONES A CON MUCH more of this, and I’ll be voting Count Binface at the next GE. Stopping for a quick Mr Whippy yesterday, I was aghast at being made to pay £5.49 for the pleasure. The Clacton by-election candidate has famously pledged to make 99 ice creams 99p again. Now I can see how such a move really would lift the spirit of the nation. Vote Binface. JESUS AND HAIRY CHAIN All the wrong’uns develop Messiah complexes, above Russell Brand, Jared Leto and Shia LaBeouf WHY do all the wrong’uns develop Messiah complexes? First up, M’lud, we have Russell Brand – a deeply unpleasant man who has been charged with historic offences of rape and sexual assault. Today, he is a Bible-clutching, cross-bearing, bearded Jesus-lookalike (sorry, JC). Then we have also-bearded Shia LaBeouf. A Hollywood actor experiencing a profound religious conversion and entering the Roman Catholic Church, following a string of pretty damning revelations. And now, step forward Jared Leto – a man with a long-running reputational problem. He also appears to have undergone something of a Christ makeover as grim tales of abuse surface. Here’s hoping Ephesians 4:32 saves them all . . . but I doubt it. BECKS BOOK SHOCK Six-year-old Brooklyn Beckham wearing a £6,000 watch to a Scooby-Doo premiere Credit: Alamy SOME fascinating revelations from a new Beckham tell-all tome regarding the family’s ongoing family feud. But perhaps none greater than a then six-year-old Brooklyn wearing a £6,000 watch to a Scooby-Doo premiere, or that his mother was stone-cold sober during that dance at her eldest son’s 2022 wedding to Nicola Peltz. Because there is no money in the world that would see me dancing sans booze. WHATEVER the opposite of the national postcode lottery is, I have just lost it. Living as I do in a tiny cul-de-sac terraced street in leafy West London, nice, quiet residents are a must – especially in windows-open heatwave season. Thrilled, I am then, to have (lovely) neighbours on both sides of me having babies within days of one another. Screaming, crying, heat-despising babies. As I type this, there is a veritable cacophony of tantrum emanating from both left and right. Aww, the circle of life. DEER LITTLE BAMBI Molly-Mae Hague informed fans that her daughter Bambi put someone in a headlock during a recent lunch Credit: Getty THAT being said, at least Molly-Mae Hague and boxer Tommy Fury aren’t living next door. The former Love Island star breezily informed fans that her daughter Bambi put someone in a headlock during a recent lunch. It comes after the influencer listed the little friends the three-year-old wanted to “bite”. “She needs a Hannibal-style restraining jacket and spit mask,” observed my esteemed colleague and Bizarre Editor, Ellie Henman, in our internal group. “We have to remember she has Fury genes in her, too,” wryly replied another showbiz hack. So, yes. Things could be worse.