Bridget Phillipson and I have a lot in common. Like the Education Secretary, who started life in a council house in Tyne and Wear, I grew up on a tough estate. Mine was in Selston, a rural East Midlands mining village. Home life was hard; my mam was blind and illiterate. But against the odds – like Phillipson – I achieved outstanding results at my local state school. Decades on, I’m still proud that my grade As in physics, maths and English were O-Levels, not wishy-washy GCSEs.

Labour’s mooted education review would almost certainly kick the ladder out from under kids like me

Yet while our backgrounds are similar, I couldn’t disagree more with Phillipson’s curriculum shake-up. These changes will make life harder, rather than easier, for the Phillipsons and Scotts growing up today.

The c

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