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Tories claim improvements to the school which educated two of Keir Starmer’s cabinet ministers would not have been allowed by Labour’s education reforms
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The school which educated chancellor Rachel Reeves and her sister, the Labour chair Ellie Reeves, would have been held back by the reforms the government introduced this week, the Tories have claimed.
A row has broken out after Ellie Reeves tweeted about Tory leader Kemi Badenoch visiting her old school – previously named Cator Park School for Girls, now Harris Girls’ Academy in Lewisham – to make her case for why changes introduced by education secretary Bridget Phillipson this week were wrong.
Ms Phillipson in effect removed many of the independent powers of academies and free schools which had been credited for transforming standards in England while other parts of the UK including Labour-run Wales and SNP-run Scotland have been held back.
Ms Badenoch said on her trip to the school: “Labour’s Schools Bill is a piece of educational vandalism. It will lead to pay cuts for good teachers, lower education outcomes and reduce parental choice.
“I visited the Harris Girls’ Academy in Beckenham to see the reality of the successful reforms the Conservatives brought in for schools. Sadly, it is students like these that will suffer the most from Labour’s disastrous bill, sacrificed on the altar of ideology.”
But a furious Ms Reeves tweeted: “This really sticks in the craw. Kemi visited my old school yesterday. I don’t remember the Tories caring about Cator Park girls when I was there in the 90s when we had lessons in huts & not enough books to go round. Completely hypocritical to pretend that they care now.”
But shadow education secretary Laura Trott, who accompanied Ms Badenoch to the school, hit back arguing that it was a Tory-led government and its reforms which had dealt with the very issues raised by the Labour Party chair.
Responding to Ms Reeves’ complaints, she said: “The opposite is true. It was the Harris Academy chain which turned this school around. It was taken over in 2011, under the Conservatives. It is exactly this type of turnaround that Labour’s Schools Bill is putting at risk.”
When she spoke to The Independent last September, Ms Reeves described how the school had been responsible for both her and her sister entering politics.
Rachel Reeves had entered the school mock election in 1992 aged 13 with Ellie, then 12, as her campaign manager giving them both the bug for politics.
Ms Reeves said: “I can remember the 1992 general election, and we were at school, and they had a mock election. Rachel put herself forward for this mock election, and I was her campaign manager… She put me in charge of the leaflets, stickers and things like that to give out.”
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