In 2024, in the run up to the general election, Class Divide published a manifesto. Five things the next government had to do so that children from low-income families and communities could thrive in education. Two years on, the country has a new Prime Minister. Andy Burnham has arrived in Number 10 talking about the cost of living and about devolving power out of Westminster, and this week his government capped bus fares at two pounds. So Curtis and Carlie got the manifesto back out and marked their own homework.
They go through it ask by ask. Admissions, where Brighton and Hove has done something no other council in the country has done, and where national policy still has not followed. Transport, where Class Divide's own research found parents going without essentials and borrowing money to pay school bus fares. Pupil premium, and where that money really ends up. And getting more people from working-class backgrounds into teaching.
Then a sixth ask, one that was not in the 2024 manifesto and probably should have been. Devolution moves decisions closer to places. It does not change who is making them.
Links
Class Divide
The 2024 manifesto
https://www.classdivide.co.uk/news/introducing-our-new-manifesto
Ask one: admissions
Ask two: transport
Ask three: school funding and the attainment gap
Ask four: working-class teachers
Listen back to Series 1 and Series 2
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