This year’s conference will be both proactive and reactive. At this stage in the Parliament we have the opportunity to revisit our values, principles and priorities and start the task of putting together a genuine and distinctive Liberal Democrat Education Policy for 2020. The working title for this is “Education for Real Life”.
We will be asking whether we can develop an education system which:
- is focused on developing the whole child, not just instilling academic learning
- enables every child to have opportunities, for example through personalized learning
- trusts teachers to act as professionals, rather than treating them as operatives in “exam factories”.
We’re pleased to have a speaker from the NUT confirmed to talk about their recent publication “Exam Factories”, and a teacher and Lib Dem member to talk about her experience of supporting wellbeing in her school.
As well as looking to 2020, we’ll also be spending some time discussing how the Liberal Democrats can be an effective Opposition to the Conservative Government, and an effective player in local government. National Funding Formulae, the cuts to Local Authorities’ Education Services Grant, and the drive for Multi-academy trusts are just a few of the “current issues” that we will debate with experts from the LGA and others.
Details
The event takes place on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th February, at the Yarnfield Conference Centre in Stone in Staffordshire. Registration is from 3.30pm on Friday and the event ends at 3pm on Saturday.
The cost to attend for 24 hours is £109 (excluding VAT), which includes registration, accommodation and all meals. There is a day rate of £30 (excluding VAT) for those attending on Saturday only.
Booking is now open at the following link:
https://lgaevents.local.gov.uk/lga/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=45251&eventID=155&eventID=155