Bridget Phillipson and the Curriculum Question
Breakfasts or Brains?
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Bridget Phillipson’s Labour Conference speech had all the feels: a moving supermarket anecdote about a “lost boy” saved by an inspirational FE teacher, a soaring rhetoric of freedom and opportunity, and a checklist of breakfast clubs, nurseries and teacher pay rises.
But beneath the sentiment lies a silence. Phillipson talked about tomorrow’s “scientists and artists,” but never once mentioned the Francis Review — the live debate on what children should actually learn.
So, is Labour feeding children while starving them intellectually? Do stories like Alan’s illuminate education policy, or sentimentalise it? And what would it take for a curriculum to truly create the “people of tomorrow”?
Bridget Phillipson opened her conference speech with a story. Alan, an FE teacher from Sunderland, bumps into a former student in a supermarket. Years earlier, Alan had given this “lost boy” a chance on a building project funded by the last Labour government. Now the boy has his own business, a wife, a home, and a future. He tells Alan: without you, none of this would have happened.
It’s a moving anecdote. But does it tell us what we need to know about education policy?
Critical questions about the Alan story
• Why is the success story framed through one boy, one intervention, one charismatic teacher?
• Is this just survivorship bias? what about the other boys Alan didn’t bump into at the supermarket?
• Does it prove that government schemes change lives, or that luck and personal relationships matter more than systems?
• If Alan is the hero, what role does curriculum play in this narrative? What about the thousands of children who will never meet an Alan?
Freedom and the “people of tomorrow”
Phillipson pitched education as liberation: freedom to choose your path, freedom from poverty, ignorance and fear, freedom to be more than just a worker. She insisted education is about the people of tomorrow the scientists and artists, carers and campaigners, museum-goers and football fans.
But then came the pivot: a long list of what Labour has already delivered — breakfast clubs, nurseries, Family Hubs, teacher pay, more apprenticeships. Good things, but not the stuff that turns children into scientists and artists. It all sounded rather less Tomorrow’s World and more The Tomorrow People - promising superpowers, but delivering little more than cereal and childcare.
The missing piece: Curriculum
What she didn’t mention - not once - was the Francis Review, the live question of what children should learn and how knowledge should be sequenced. This is the real engine of opportunity. Without it, promises about “the people of tomorrow” sound like aspiration without architecture.
What she could have said:
“The Francis Review is not some dry consultation. It is the question of our time: what knowledge do our children need if they are to become the scientists and artists, the carers and campaigners of tomorrow? The inheritance of our culture, the sciences that push the boundaries of what is possible, the arts that make life worth living — these are not luxuries, they are entitlements.”
Instead, the Review risks drifting into bureaucratic fudge: shuffling qualifications, mouthing slogans about “skills for the future,” and quietly hollowing out the knowledge-rich curriculum children need. Breakfast fills bellies. Curriculum feeds minds.
Starmer’s backdrop
Starmer added his own twist: ditching the 50% university target and aiming instead for two-thirds of young people to secure either a university place or a “gold-plated apprenticeship.” But what makes an apprenticeship “gold-plated” without the intellectual preparation a rigorous curriculum provides?
Key takeaway
Phillipson’s speech was long on sentiment, short on substance. Until Labour can say what children will actually learn, and why, “the people of tomorrow” remain a rhetorical flourish, not a reality.
Questions
1. Do personal stories like Alan’s illuminate education policy, or obscure the bigger picture?
2. Is education about creating “workers of tomorrow” or “people of tomorrow”? Can it be both?
3. What should the Francis Review actually deliver if Labour is serious about cultivating artists and scientists, not just workers?
4. Is “freedom” meaningful in education without a clear philosophy of curriculum?
Katherine Birbalsingh on Phillipson: https://x.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1974936660954767679
Amanda Spielman on Assessment reform: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/no-real-subject-inspection-left-spielman-slams-ofsted-reforms/
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