The Conservatives have suggested that Academy status should be extended to primary schools, and not just secondary.
They're right, though aren't applying the principle to the correct schools: it should be weaker primary schools that can move to Academy status, not ones that are good already.
Unfortunately, Labour has opposed this. Conor Ryan points out the problem:
A clever Labour response would have welcomed the Tory embrace of Labour academies, but argued that part of the deal should be that those given academy freedoms had to work with a poorly performing primary school. Labour ought also to question how the Tories' - correct - support for synthetic phonics would work with complete curriculum freedom.
Instead we get an uncharacteristically sour contribution from Jim Knight which would leave the listener thinking that academies were not a Labour success story, but a Tory plot[.]
