Reform UK – which had been conspicuously quiet on the education front – has just unveiled a host of policies, from mandatory portraits of the King in every school to “patriotic” history lessons.
Announcing the plans ahead of St George’s Day, the party said the new curriculum would restore “national pride” and would be implemented in their first 100 of Government, if they were to be elected.
Reform leader Nigel Farage may well be on track to become Britain’s next prime minister with his party having led in the opinion polls for many months.
If the polls ring true, Conservative defector Suella Braverman would become the new education secretary, having been named as Reform UK’s education and skills spokeswoman.
With the party finally announcing a string of education policies after months of radio silence, here’s everything we know about its plans for schools and universities.
A ‘patriotic’ curriculum
Reform has unveiled more details about its plans for a “patriotic curriculum”, which has been a consistent theme of its education policy.
The party argued that history should reflect a “patriotic history of the British Isles” without being framed in “modern narratives”, with pupils in England to cover events such as the Magna Carta, the Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the Act of Union, the Enlightenment and Victorian Britain.
These are all topics which fall within time periods covered already in GCSE history by exam boards across England.
Reform UK said British history would have to form a minimum of 60 per cent of the subject’s assessed content and the education secretary would be given powers to intervene “where this is not followed”.
Braverman said Tory and Labour governments have “failed a generation of young people with a substandard curriculum that undermines academic rigour and national identity in favour of promoting their mass migration agenda”.
She added that Reform’s new curriculum would “rekindle national pride and ensure that every child leaves school with an understanding of what a privilege it is to be British”.
Farage has accused left-wing unions of pushing a ‘woke’ agenda in schools (Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)Farage and his colleagues have previously accused left-wing teacher unions – particularly the National Education Union – of pushing a “woke” agenda in schools, which they say is divisive and encourages pupils to have a negative view of Britain and its history.
In a speech in America in October, Farage accused teaching unions of “poisoning our kids”. “They are telling them to be ashamed of their country,” he said. “They are telling little Johnny, who’s eight, who is black, that he is a victim and little Oliver, who is white, who is eight, that he is an oppressor. They are dividing us, not uniting us. They are feeding this negative culture.”
Farage’s choice of a right-wing firebrand in the form of Braverman showed that he wanted to lean into so-called culture war issues when it came to education, said one education union official. Braverman also has the equality brief. In February, she said that Britain was being “ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion” (DEI) policies, and that Reform would build a country “defined by meritocracy not tokenism, personal responsibility not victimhood, excellence not mediocrity, and unity not division.”
At Reform’s party conference in September, MP Lee Anderson claimed that teachers were “brainwashing our kids into their way of thinking” and “when we get into power, we will root these teachers out and hold them to account”.
He has also suggested that schoolchildren should “sing the national anthem every day”.
Flags in every school
Reform has also suggested that every school will be required to fly the Union flag, honour St George’s Day in England and mount a visible portrait of King Charles in a communal space.
They also indicated that funding would be provided for Scottish and Welsh schools to fly the Union flag along with their national flags but acknowledged that education is a devolved area of government.
They claimed that in 2024, every state-funded school in the country was offered a portrait of the King but only 34 per cent took up the offer.
Writing in the Telegraph, Braverman said she was “stunned” the first time she heard someone say they were “ashamed of our flag”.
“The Union Flag belongs to every one of us,” she wrote. “A symbol of a country that has endured, adapted and led and it is time we started treating it that way again.”
Braverman said teachers will be freed from “ideological pressure” so they can focus on “knowledge, discipline and character”, and parents will be encouraged to show children “what Britain has achieved”.
The return of new grammar schools
As The i Paper previously reported, the party is considering rolling out new grammar schools.
Currently, the creation of new academically selective schools is banned by a law passed by Labour in 1998.
A party source told The i Paper that Reform could lift the ban and allow people to set up grammars as free schools – state-funded schools set up by civil society groups which exist outside of local authority control.
Reform has already declared its support for academies and free schools. In its manifesto for May’s Senedd election race in Wales, published on Thursday, the party said it wanted to “facilitate new academies and free schools” to back “parental choice and higher standards”.
Many of Reform’s leading figures, including Farage, Braverman and economic spokesman Robert Jenrick have previously voiced support for grammar expansion.
The return of selection would be part of a wider programme of “traditional” education.
Farage wants schools to fly the Union Flag (Photo: AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)Braverman was the founding chair of Michaela Community School, the London free school run by Britain’s self-declared “strictest headteacher”, Katharine Birbalsingh.
The school has become famous for its “zero tolerance” behaviour policy and rigorous academic curriculum. When Braverman was announced as Farage’s education spokeswoman, she said that a Reform government would “restore freedom to our schools and restore authority to our teachers, to uphold order, standards, and respect”.
“Too many teachers now face the fear of intimidation and assault in the classroom,” she said. “Discipline, once the backbone of education has been weakened in the name of progressive ideology.” She also claimed that the “foundations of knowledge, literacy and numeracy have been undermined by this Labour government”.
However, the focus of a Reform government in schools would not be purely academic. Farage has repeatedly expressed his conviction that too many young people are going to university and that many would benefit from learning a trade instead. A Reform source told The i Paper that the party would seek “a balance between technical and traditional education”, while the Welsh manifesto promises to “expand high-quality technical education and apprenticeships”.
Ban on ‘trans ideology’
As part of its attack on DEI, Reform is particularly animated with how the education system deals with transgenderism.
Legally binding advice issued to English schools in February already states that schools should not initiate steps towards social transitioning – when pupils change their name, pronoun or clothes to reflect their gender identity – and should instead consider carefully what other support a child might need.
It also says that parents should be involved in the “vast majority” of cases where a child questions their gender, that full social transitioning should only happen “very rarely” in primary schools and that there should be “no exceptions” for single-sex facilities at schools.
While the guidance has been backed by Dr Hilary Cass – the author of the 2024 Cass Review, which said the evidence around medical interventions in gender care was “remarkably weak” – Reform appear to want even tighter rules.
Reform’s 2024 manifesto pledged to “ban transgender ideology in primary and secondary schools”. “No gender questioning, social transitioning or pronoun swapping,” it said. Braverman has since reiterated that Reform would “absolutely ban” social transitioning in schools.
Cuts for unis which don’t protect free speech
While Reform has not set out detailed policies for higher education, it has repeatedly threatened to punish institutions which do not protect free speech.
The party’s 2024 manifesto promised to “cut funding to universities that undermine free speech”. “The Government’s Free Speech Act is toothless,” it said. “Allowing political bias or cancel culture must face heavy financial penalties.”
Reform’s Welsh manifesto meanwhile vowed to “defend free speech and academic freedom”. “Reform will protect lawful free speech in universities, including legislating for a statutory tort against providers that don’t defend free speech,” it said. “Institutions that curtail open debate will not be rewarded with public funding.”
In March, Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf suggested Bangor University could have its funding stripped after a debating society refused an invitation to hear from a Reform MP. However, the party has since distanced itself from Yusuf’s words, and said it would not defund the university.
Education groups taking notice
With the next election still more than three years away, Reform still has time to put more flesh on the bones of its schools policies. Nevertheless, education groups are already sitting up and taking notice.
Farage has already become embroiled in a war of words with the NEU, and its general secretary, Daniel Kebede. After Kebede claimed there were “an awful lot of racists who are getting involved in Reform”, Farage accused him of the “indoctrination of teenagers” and vowed that his party would “go to war” with the teaching unions if it won the next general election. The Reform leader has also said that he is “anticipating a teachers’ strike very quickly” if his party wins power.
However, other unions want to avoid an NEU-style spat. A senior official in another education union said that given where Reform is in the polls, they could not afford not to engage with them. “At some point we would want to be able to start talking to them about what their policies might look like,” they said.
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