Thankyou i belive this goverment has done great things with education, e.g student loans giving every1 a fair chance at going to college or uni, absolutely great well done

Cut traffic congestion through developing community based education facilities. I think it is wonderful we are getting more Sure Start Community Centres but we now have the technology to develop national databases for each child & to educate everyone in the Community overseen by a suitably qualified professional. We do not need children to go to central school facilities all the time. Also we do not need education to be based on the current term-times system. We could have much more flexible arrangements including assessments to suit each individual & society. Children do not need to be educated with single age classes. We could deliver life skills education, including all the usual curriculum, through creatively developed child-care & education facilities involving all the community including the children's parents & wider families.

Nowhere in the above is the teacher mentioned. Retention rates are getting worse as pay and conditions worsen. The age profile of teachers is interesting as a large group of teachers approach retirement age, who do you intend to replace these with? Cheap imports? Change most secondary schools to academies? Bypass the unions, set their own pay to attract the best? Then who do the non academies recruit? In Kent the Grammars already have an advantage over the secondaries, and even the academies as they have easier exlusion policies. So much for every child matters.

i would like to know who gave the right to schools to opt out of teaching the 2nd world war...now that is racist...not to upset a group of nutters

If we want the best start in life for our children then why do we put our children in year 6 through the stress and worry to sit SATS exams? At present my daughter is being bombarded with SATS tests, she is slowly beginning to switch off and feel stressed and low. The children do not achieve anything out of this, they are too young to be put through this, they should be enjoying there last year of primary. These are children not robots! Some of these test papers are not what i would call basic either. Why are we turning into a facts and figures culture. I shall be contacting my local MP to discuss this matter in more detail.

As a qualified teacher myself & having prepared children for such SATs I totally agree with you. Our children need to be taught Life Skills not how to pass SATs. Currently I question how readily children transfer what they learn for SATs to other situations. We are over-testing our children & switching them off! & also stressing the parents, wider family etc.

It's true, they are stupid. When was in year 6 three years ago the teacher went out of the room for ages and everyone just asked each other the answers.

Why do labour penalise the children of parents that are not divorced, both with respect to EMA and Student loans/grants for Higher Education?

Because they can Julia! easy targets like the motorist and honest working families. Perhaps the answer is to be a corrupt MP and claim 10-15K a year from our 'honourable expense agreement' and pay our children for work they havn't done in order to ease their way through College and University.

Education, education, education, from what i have read i personally believe labour party's competence on this matter shows no bounds, and i couldn't be prouder to be a member of such an impressinve party.

I'm yet to be persuaded at the Government's "Competence" in a who host of different subjects. However yanos I fear that the governnent obviously failed you, as your spelling is pretty atrocious.

Tsk, tsk, Adam. People who live in glass houses........ Anybody can miss-type.

The report, (funded by the Sutton Trust, "Recent changes in intergenerational mobility in the UK")published by researchers from LSE and Surrey University in December 2007, I believe demonstrated the comparative failure of state education. It says (less able) rich children are catching up with poorer peers in developmental tests between ages 3 and 5 and will overtake them by the age of 7. Expecting poorer parents to take on the role of educator when they have to work long hours to pay the bills is not the answer. Our state schools should be resourced sufficiently AND held to account for the children's performance. As an example; I toured a small fee paying primary school when my son was 4, I also toured the local state primary to make a comparison (even though I knew I could never afford the former). The fee paying school had classes of no more than 22 children and a graduate teacher plus a class assistant for every class. The Head Master told me that all pupils (except special needs) would be reading on their own by the age of 7. When I toured the state primary the Head Mistress told me proudly that nearly all her children could read by the time they left at age 11! In the final year of Tory government my son entered a class at that school where he was the 37th child! We (Labour) have improved the education system but it is no way near enough. When are poorer children (and the kids from middle income parents like me)going to get the state education that WE are paying for?? Why do we continue to give state and charitable support to fee paying schools to the detriment of children at state schools. In 11 years of Labour government we have done little to create equal opportunity for our most important citizens - our kids - our future. Fiona

Education, Education, Education or should I say Lotto, Lotto, Lotto! My Daughter has just been refused her first and second choices for secondary school. Instead she has been offered a School with low a OFSTED score that is further away. We will appeal but as selection has been conducted by lottery my daughter has little or no grounds other than the "dice did not roll fairly for her". I want the best for this country and all who live in it but social engineering seems to be the main objective of this lottery system. It is certainly not parental choice! It has removed most of our rights to a good education and our rights to a fair appeal. The system is even more upsetting and hard to understand when we learn that our friends who also live within our first choice schools priority catchment area were allocated a place even though it was not their first choice. They did not want it but have little chance getting to their first choice School. So we are both upset. Our family are fortunate and do not require welfare or family credits etc. However, we do require a good education for our children. I know what a struggle a poor school education has meant for myself. We now are forced to send (against my principles) our duaghter to a private school. This WE CAN NOT AFFORD and I must find another income source, use our retirement savings and cut back on clothes etc for my wife and I to pay for it. We do this not because we want our child to be better than anyone else, but because we want her life to make a difference and becasue we love her. Unfortunatley, you Lottery does not recognise people who hold these values! My family and my wifes family will not be voting Labour!!

I have criticised the Labour government on failures like immigration and welfare and have expressed my opinions on them too. But as with many things the negatives are highlighted, and positives forgotten. well here's my positive contribution! The commitments outlined above fill me with clarity and pride again, that Labour, is the party of direction. I could never imagine a conservative party have the compassion or understanding of the difficulties thousands of families have to overcome, to offer a fair start in contemporary Britain. New labour may not be as radical as the 80's but it still has collectivism and social justice at its core, thats where they belong.