Tribune reporter Dan Carrier speaking to Michael Rosen

A NEW government should draw on the advice of those who really know what the state of our classrooms are like, former children’s laureate and best-selling author Michael Rosen said yesterday (Wednesday).

Speaking exclusively to the Tribune, the writer said if he had the chance to offer any advice to the Labour shadow education minister, Bridget Phillipson, it would be simple: “Listen.”

He said: “I would ask her to listen to teachers. Hear what they say. Sit with them, look at how they work, just watch, listen and see.

“Listen to what they say about the problems with Ofsted, with recruitment and retention, the issues with the fabrics of our schools. She will hear all of that. What you must not do is come in and say: I believe in this, I believe in that, as Michael Gove did. Instead, just listen.”

Mr Rosen’s latest book, Pebbles, tells of a year in his life through poetry written as posts on the social media site X –formerly known as Twitter.

He added that the Conservative government had whittled away key artistic subjects based on ideological beliefs instead of evidence.

He added: “Talk to a  drama teacher in secondary school in inner London. Ask them: Why do drama? Whats the point? Actors are always out of work. But it’s not purely about getting jobs. Think of education as the whole child.

“Doing one subject feeds into other subjects in many ways. Drama is about cooperation, a sense of self-confidence, of self-worth.”

And he asked whoever found themselves at the Department for Education to look hard at what they want schools to achieve.

He said: “Society needs contributions from many different people, in many different ways. In terms of arts in the curriculum, it is a complete fabrication to say somehow studying the arts is ‘unpro­ductive’. It is a massive industry. Look at people who have studied the arts and see the contribution they have made. There are many, many, many.

“It is also about you, the person and your place in this world. If we don’t do this, it means you just become a passive receptacle. It’s called the jug and mug theory – the pupil is a mug, the teacher is a jug, and they just fill them up. But that is not what we are as human beings.”

Mr Rosen had, in previous elections, said publicly he hoped for a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn.

He said: “I am not a member of the Labour Party so I am usually fairly cautious about saying what they should do.

“I said in the past if this party has Jeremy Corbyn as leader, I shall vote for it. As for Jeremy standing in Islington, my first view was he shouldn’t. I thought, well, he has had a fair crack of the whip. As we know, the Labour Party made a decision that there was not a place for him.”

But he added: “He has taken a huge amount of weight of abuse, insult and misrepresentation, and how much can a bloke take?

“I thought it would not do you any good. But I have changed my mind. He is receiving a huge amount of support.

“We are in the midst of a terrible, terrible war in Gaza on which he has been outspoken.

“If I was living there, I would vote for Jeremy.”