The Guardian view on schools: the hardest questions for Lucy Powell are about priorities | Editorial

<p>The education secretary is right that her job is not to ‘polish the status quo’. Next, she must decide what to change first</p><p>There is a good case to be made for the increased importance of speaking skills in our new age of machines. With the UK economy’s stronger-than-expected recent performance widely linked to AI investment, it is vital that people are equipped for the kinds of in-person, public-facing jobs that are least likely to be automated. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/28/high-screen-usage-in-children-linked-to-poorer-outcomes-major-study-suggests">A concerning decline</a> in children’s language development, both in the UK and internationally, has been linked to high screen use. There is a grim irony in a situation where tech companies both compete with humans for contracts and undermine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/16/teach-children-maths-speaking-education-secretary">our ability to talk to one other</a>.</p><p>The Guardian has previously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/27/the-guardian-view-on-talking-in-class-the-writers-speaking-up-for-oracy-education-are-right">backed efforts</a> to more strongly embed speaking skills, or oracy, in British schools. In a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-speech-at-cst-conference-2026">speech</a> on Thursday, Lucy Powell promised to give them equal status to reading and writing in English (education is devolved, so her main responsibility is for England, but there are parallel initiatives in the other nations). Yet with promised updates to the national curriculum postponed, and plans for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/oct/13/english-councils-catastrophic-send-debts-forecast-2028">special educational needs reform</a> causing deep anxiety to fa