I want every child to be as lucky as I was in education

Exam season is almost upon us. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of children are nearing the end of Year 11 and getting ready to take their GCSEs.

- BRIDGET PHILLIPSON

Five years pass between joining secondary school in Year 7 and leaving at the end of Year 11. And those five years are some of the most important in life. They certainly were for me.

I was also incredibly lucky to have a family who valued education – a grandad who read with me and insisted on helping with my times tables.

But life shouldn’t come down to luck. Every child, in every school, in every corner of the country should have a brilliant education, regardless of their circumstances or background.

And there are fantastic schools all over our country, transforming lives.

But not for every child. Indeed, there are still more than 600 schools that have not improved quickly enough in recent years. And so, every morning, more than 300,000 children get up and go to schools that, to put it simply, are stuck.

Children only get one chance at school. They can’t come back again in six years for another go. So, this is urgent: we need to get these schools moving

These are schools that receive one poor Ofsted judgement after another, struggling to shake off stagnation and provide the quality of education every child deserves. And the average time those schools are stuck? Nearly six years. Children can join in Year 7 and leave in Year 11 – all while their school remains stuck in the mud.