In a special episode of the podcast, Mr P has a chat with the shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson. Unfortunately, The Other Mr P is away on a residential and therefore couldn't join, so Mr P is having a more serious chat with the potential new education secretary. With the general election less than a month away, he was keen to chat to Bridget about some of the policies announced and hopefully provide teachers and schools staff an opportunity to hear about what changes would be made if Bridget was to become the next education secretary. They were able to cover a range of topics from the levels of child poverty, school funding, the SEND crisis, recruitment and retention, Ofsted, workload, support staff and curriculum reforms. We hope you find it useful and we would love to hear your feedback. Mr P came away from the chat hopeful, with the feeling that Bridget would do what we don't think any Education Secretary has done in the past decade which is engage, value and listen to the profession.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices