LABOUR’S plans to improve primary school maths teaching are better than the Tories’ focus on post-16 education but need more funding, unions said today.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson unveiled her party’s plans to boost “real world” numeracy skills “right from the start” at the Labour conference.

A Labour government would reform the Tories’ Maths-to-18 working group so it focuses on primary maths and investigates the maths equivalent to phonics, upskilling primary school staff’s maths teaching skills through its proposed Teacher Training Entitlement — which will be paid for through Labour’s proposals to end private schools’ tax breaks, the party said.

Today National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said a curriculum review should be “rounded and forward-looking, rather than a series of subject-by-subject attempts at reform.”

It however made “more sense” to focus on numeracy skills in primary, he said, referring to Prime Minster Rishi Sunak’s education reform plans to teach maths and English until 18.

“But this will require grappling with the funding issues and putting nursery schools on a sure footing,” Mr Kebede added.

“The recruitment and retention challenge simply must be solved — and this means making teaching, and the leading of schools in these times, much more attractive.

“We had hoped to hear more today on a medium-term plan to restore pay to competitive levels and to work our way back towards the OECD target of 5 per cent of GDP spent on education.”  

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Ensuring that primary schools have the funding for the resources they need, and that primary teachers have the time and capacity to develop their maths expertise, is vital to improving attainment.”