Teachers and parents slam Labour plan for primaries to monitor children for ‘joblessness risk’

Primary schools are underfunded (Picture: Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

Labour wants primary schools to spot children they think will leave education at 16 without finding a job.

It’s the latest move from Alan Milburn, a right wing Blairite who is leading a review into youth unemployment.

His report into 16-24 year olds not in education, employment of training (Neets) is expected in the autumn.

“The warning signs are there from a very early, early age—you know, frankly, from pre-school,” he said.

For Milburn, it’s another chance to shift the blame for unemployment onto working class parents and children.

But Labour has done nothing about a key barrier to children getting a good education and being able to engage in schools.

Over a million children struggle with speech and language difficulties in Britain. Without the right support, they are six to 11 times more likely to be behind in key subjects at school and twice as likely to be unemployed as young adults.

Rhona, a primary school teacher, told Socialist Worker that speech and language difficulties are often “treated as a tick box exercise by schools”. They lack of adequate support “means that many children are not getting the education that they should be”, she said.

“The learning support department at my school was closed down because of a lack of funding,” she said.

“Before that, young people with speech and language difficulties had access to extra teaching time, specialised support and 1-to-1 help with lessons.

“But with it closed, there were even fewer support mechanisms in place.”

Rhona said that the impact of failing to support children in early years and in primary schools is huge. “Their social interactions with others can be impacted, their confidence and self-esteem can be impacted,” she said.

“Language is essential for people to form relationships, but also for engaging at school and understanding tasks and instructions.”

A report published by Speech and Language UK found that children with speech and language challenges make up almost half of mental health service referrals.

“If the lack of support in schools is left unaddressed, children risk exclusion and challenges down the line which could be completely avoided with early intervention,” said Rhona.

This was echoed by Maryam, who is the mother of two boys of primary school age. Her sons have an autism diagnosis and have severe difficulties with speech and language.

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“Trying to get support for speech therapy is like banging my head against a brick wall,” she told Socialist Worker.

“There are no specialist staff or speech therapists at the school. There’s no support. I feel like my children are being set up to fail from the get-go.”

She added, “Early intervention is so important. My oldest boy went to a kind of pre-school which specialised in helping with speech and language.

“It gave him more confidence and he had more words that he was able to say when he went to primary”.

But the provision was no longer available to support her youngest son two years later after the Covid pandemic.

Maryam said, “This is systemic neglect, not an individual issue.

“There are amazing tools and support out there if you’re wealthy and can afford private speech therapy. But what about the working class kids that cannot access these things and can’t receive it through the curriculum.

“It makes me so angry, how dare the government make our children feel like they’re failures, and that we, as parents, are failing them. It is them who are failing us.”

• Rhona is a pseudonym