JOHN HUMPHRYS: Theresa May, freedom means doing effectively what you want to do so teachers will be able under your system to teach what they want to teach will they? THERESA MAY: One of the big complaints that I get from teachers, and the policies that we've developed have been developed after a considerable period of time actually listening to teachers and parents and governors and their concerns, and one of the big complaints that I get from teachers is that increasingly they're not just being told what to teach in the classroom they're being told how to teach it. Now we want to give them more freedom in the classroom. That doesn't mean getting rid of the national curriculum altogether and there will still be standards being set by rigorous inspection regimes, we don't want to simplify the national curriculum and give teachers more flexibility within that to teach in the way that they know with their professional judgement is actually going to be best for the children in their classroom. I think a teacher in the classroom is best able to judge how to teach the children in that classroom rather than a bureaucrat in Whitehall. HUMPHRYS: You want to do a bit more than that don't you, you want to simplify the national curriculum drastically as David Willets puts it. Well if that doesn't mean getting rid of bits of it I can't see what else it means. MAY: The concept of the national curriculum I believe is a good one, that framework of a core entitlement for children in our schools and I believe we should be looking at a national curriculum that actually delivers that which is it's original intention when it was first introduced..... HUMPHRYS: To put it back to the way it used to be? MAY: Well what has happened in the national curriculum over time is that, yes, the amount of bureaucracy in it has increased significantly and that's another complaint I get from teachers, but also it's become more like a national syllabus, it's become more and more prescriptive and more and more detailed in terms of what teachers are actually going to do in the classroom. I think we need to take some of that bureaucracy out, I think we need to increase the amount of flexibility that teachers actually have to exercise their professional judgement, remember we're talking about a teaching profession who have been trained to exercise their judgement in the classroom about how best to teach the children in that classroom. HUMPHRYS: But that's not simplifying it drastically is it? I mean if you're simplifying it drastically as I said it implies that you're going to take stuff out of it so what stuff are you going to take out of it? MAY: Simplifying it as we have said for some time that we will do with the national curriculum actually means that we're going to look at a national curriculum that meets the original objective again of a core entitlement. HUMPHRYS: Well it's reading, writing and arithmetic isn't it, that was the original objective? MAY: The original objective was a core entitlement for children so that children would know from school to school that there was a basic framework of education that they were going to receive...... HUMPHRYS:` Yeah.... The three 'R's MAY: Over time what has happened, it was a little bit more than the three 'R's when it was introduced but over time what's happened is that it's become more and more prescriptive, we now have David Blunkett introducing extra subjects into it, it's become more and more prescriptive within each subject, it's more and more like a syllabus rather than a national curriculum and I think we need to stand back from that and look at how we can simplify it to ensure that we provide yes a framework so that we know that we're able to provide high standards in all our schools and certainly within that framework schools will still be being rigorously inspected by OFSTED so we can ensure that we have high standards in our schools but free up the teaching profession to actually do the job that they're there to do and that they actually want to do which is teaching children. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but teachers being individuals want to do things differently. They're all individuals themselves, they want to do things differently so that means that if some of them want to return to what you..... what some of the Conservative party certainly is described in the past as 'trendy' teaching methods then they'll be able to do that will they? MAY: I think that the teaching profession has found over the years that it's increasingly had imposed on it various methods of teaching from outside and what I see when I go round schools is many teachers who instinctively know what they want to do in the classroom, they want to be able to teach in ways which they know will actually raise standards in the classroom but they find it being imposed... they find that over time they've had various new teaching methods or whatever imposed on them in the classroom. We want to ensure that teachers have flexibility to make decisions about what's right for the children in those classrooms. I think it's common sense that a teacher in the classroom knows best how to teach the children in that classroom but you overlay that with the core framework of the national curriculum and the monitoring and obviously publication of results so that the standards that are being achieved in that school are visible to everybody and parents can make a choice about the teaching and the standards that are being achieved within that school. HUMPHRYS: Gillian Shephard clearly is aware of what you're trying to do. No doubt you've consulted her as a former Secretary of State and she said in that film as you heard, before the national curriculum there was a generation of educational cripples. Well now the danger clearly is that you're going to return to that if you're going to chuck things out the way you're talking about it, if you're going to radically simplify things as you put it. MAY: No, I think you're confusing two situations. The situation where there wasn't a national curriculum with the situation that I want to move to where there is still a national curriculum but it is simplified and brought back to a core national curriculum so that we don't (both speaking at once) HUMPHRYS: The original national curriculum as you say was not much more, I bit more but not much more than the three 'R's..... MAY: It was more than the three 'R's..... HUMPHRYS: But not a great deal more than that and it's not quite clear what you are going to do with it if you're not going to return to something as basic as that. I mean is music going to go for instance? Is science and bits of science going to go? What's going to happen? MAY: The exact framework that we're going to have in the national curriculum is something that we have yet to fill in the detail of and that will be a process of consultation and discussion with people who are actually involved in providing the national curriculum..... HUMPHRYS: with teachers.....? MAY: .... With teachers and with others, with parents and with others about what it is that actually we should actually be expecting our schools to provide for children. But the initial problem that time and again is raised with me in the classroom is about the amount of prescription we have in the national curriculum currently, about the way in which, again, David Blunkett is starting to overload the national curriculum so teachers find it difficult in terms of timetables and what they're expected to do within the school day and what they're expected to provide for the children. So we actually need to look very closely at that to simplify that national curriculum, I'm not talking about getting rid of it (both speaking at once) I'm not going to give you - yes it will have this and this and this because that's a matter that has yet to be consulted on and fully discussed. HUMPHRYS: But I'm still slightly worried about what this word simplify means. Indeed many people are worried, people who you heard in that film including some of your own Tory councillors. And you have attacked the Literacy Hour for instance. Let's have a look at the Literacy Hour which is not actually, formally a part of the National Curriculum as it were, but it's an add-on and you said it takes away from the professionalism of teachers. Now, a lot of people regard the Literacy Hour as having been a huge improvement. OFSTED themselves have said it has a positive impact on children's literacy, so you know? MAY: It's important to focus on literacy and numeracy and that's absolutely right. HUMPHRYS: So why terminate the Literacy Hour? MAY: Well, because there are problems with the Literacy Hour. There is evidence that it's actually not achieving for children across the whole range of spectrum of abilities that it's not achieving for children who are more able, or for children who are less able. There is concern and we saw it recently in the test results that came out only a week or so ago, teachers say to me that there isn't enough time in Literacy Hour for extended writing, and we see the writing performance actually lagging behind on the reading, so there are issues like that that have to be addressed in terms of what we're actually providing for children in the classroom. I think it is right to say when we see that there are problems that are being raised with me by teachers in the classroom that we would raise those problems. That's not to say we don't believe in focussing on literacy but there may be better ways of doing it. HUMPHRYS: Let's have a look at the competition element in all this. You want better schools, the better schools to expand, but clearly and therefore unleash competition into the system as William Hague has put it, so what about the poorer schools that will suffer as the result of the expansion of the better schools inevitably? MAY: One of the problems that is raised by parents is the incredible frustration they feel when they see that a good school is over-subscribed, their child perhaps can't get into the good school, has to go into a school that is not so good because that has spare places, and the one that is good and is over-subscribed isn't able to expand because of this rule that we've had for many years about surplus places. And our aim is to get rid of that surplus places rule to enable good schools to expand where they want to expand. HUMPHRYS: At the expense of the poorer schools, and then you enter this what your man in Kent says is a spiral of decline. MAY: Not at the expense of the poorer schools. And I think one of the things that I find slightly frustrating is the assumption always that those schools where they are not perhaps achieving such good results and not being perceived by parents as being so good are automatically the ones where parents have no interest in what's happening in the school, and I think that's wrong. I think all parents actually want the best for their children. It slightly came through in some of the comments in your film. That's why we're giving - sorry? HUMPHRYS: No, no, I was going to make the point that, because we don't have all that - that if you take more pupils into the better schools, which is what you're advocating, they have to come from somewhere. Now, you have a struggling school a bit down the road that is just about holding on, just about managing. You take just a dozen pupils away from that school and it can no longer survive because of the reasons that we heard in that film. That's what competition means isn't it. There are always victors and there are losers in competition. That's what it's about. MAY: But what you are suggesting, what I want is a situation ....( both speaking at once).... which is a situation which is freed up so that we have much greater ability for good schools to expand and for new schools to be set up, and for other people perhaps to come in to run schools which aren't providing the standards that parents actually want. It could be the private sector, it could be others, increasing the..... HUMPHRYS: Why would the private sector invest in failing enterprises. They don't do that, they look to make money in successful enterprises. MAY: Well, perhaps you ought to look at what's happening in Surrey where in fact David Blunkett has just endorsed this particular policy where Surrey County Council had a failing school, they went out to tender and parents were consulted and a private company is coming in to run that school. Now that's happened because there's a good Conservative controlled county council which has taken the decision they had to do something and has put action into practice. HUMPHRYS: So... MAY: Sorry, can I just say - so many parents find that their council isn't taking action, that their local education authority isn't taking action they want to see taken. That's why we've put into place the process under the parents' guarantee where parents can trigger a mechanism which if the standards aren't what they should be at the school will lead to action being taken, the local authority will have to do that. HUMPHRYS: So the Tory vision is that every time a school looks as if it's a failure or manifestly is failing and pupils are deserting it for the better school down the road, as you would encourage them to do, a private company will come in on its winged chariot and rescue it - all across the country. You said it worked for one school in Kent so therefore it's going to work right across the country, is that it? MAY: That's not the aim that a private company is going to come in for every school that hasn't been delivering..... HUMPHRYS: And then what happens to all those other failing schools where private companies don't come in? MAY: There is a variety of ways in which schools which are not achieving standards in which the management could be changed and in which some people might come in to try to change those schools and to improve those standards. Yes, there will be some that private companies will be interested in. There will be others where perhaps a good school that is over-subscribed that physically finds it difficult to expand on its site might want to work with the school down the road that isn't doing so well, and share expertise and we could see that sort of situation happening. We may very well see voluntary groups and others coming in, even parents. I mean I read this morning that there are some parts of the country where increasing numbers of parents are actually holding children back from their local authority schools because the only option the local authority is forcing on them is to send their child to a school they don't believe is achieving high enough standards, and they're setting up small groups effectively setting up small new schools to provide education in a home environment for those children. If the system is opened up it would be possible for parents to be coming in and to setting up those sorts of arrangements more formally under the structure to give increased choice, increased choice for parents. HUMPHRYS: You clearly don't accept what your former deputy leader said, Peter Lilley, who said that there are clear limits to applying free market solutions to the public services, this is the kind of thing he was talking about, isn't it. MAY: What I am saying is that we want to open the system up to increase choice and diversity, increase diversity of provision of schools.. HUMPHRYS: ..it's not a business..running schools isn't like a business.. MAY: ..no it's not a business, it's about providing high quality education for children. But what parents are frustrated about in many parts of this country is that they are not getting high quality education for their children because the system is so restricted. They want the system to be opened up so that we do get wider diversity so that parents can exercise choice among schools, all of which are providing high quality education for children. At the end of the day that's what matters. HUMPHRYS: Theresa May, thank you very much indeed. MAY: Thank you.