Shadow education minister Tristram Hunt talks schools and newly-qualified teachers on visit to the Advertiser

A member of the shadow cabinet says newly-qualified teachers must be better managed and schools work together more to improve the education system.

Stoke MP Tristram Hunt, Labour's shadow minister for education, exclusively told the Advertiser the Government needs to look at career-structures for teachers and advised primary and secondary schools to collaborate more with each other to achieve better results.

Mr Hunt, 40, visited Ollerton Primary School with Leonie Mathers, Labour's candidate for the Sherwood constituency, which includes towns and villages such as Ollerton, Farnsfield, Edwinstowe, Rufford, and Bilsthorpe.

He said of his visit to the school: "We spoke about attracting talented candidates in areas that are hard to staff. We have to work out how places such as Ollerton can attract those candidates and keep them.

"We have to invest in award systems for harder-to-staff areas."

Of academies, Mr Hunt said: "We take a more value-neutral approach to school types.

"We don't think because you're an academy you're a better school than a community school or maintained school.

"If a school becomes an academy we will continue that freedom, but being a stand-alone primary academy is quite a risky place to be. Your finances can be pretty vulnerable.

"We're sceptical about stand-alone academies, we prefer academies working together, for example through a Nottinghamshire academy trust."

He said he would end the Government's free school programme, and pledged Labour would build schools where there is a need, rather than where there is a already a surplus of places available.

"The most important thing we can do is focus on teaching and teachers and that's where our emphasis will be," Mr Hunt said.

"Teachers are very clear in that they want some stability in education policy. All the chopping and changes in recent years has got in the way of delivering results that young people need.

"We lose 40% of our teachers in the first five years which is a crazy number. We have to make sure newly-qualified teachers are managed into the profession appropriately, which basically mean don't give them all the work straight away.

"We have to look at the professional development of the teachers in the system, to make sure they can improve their teaching abilities year upon year.

"If elected we will keep the primary curriculum, we will continue with changes to GCSEs, and we're not going to go ahead with A-level reforms.

"Our big passion is to end this idea of schools operating as islands and not co-operating with each other.

"We want schools to co-operate and partner each other."

Leonie Mathers told the Advertiser she will campaign on bringing more jobs to the area and extending the Robin Hood Line to Ollerton and Edwinstowe.

She said: "Despite the rhetoric at national level which is we've fixed the economy and it's rosy, people aren't feeling it here.

"People's income has been steady at best for the last five years, the cost of living is continually going up, energy bills are going up, the jobs aren't necessarily here, and a lot of people work on zero-hour contracts or the minimum wage so they don't feel like they're getting a fair deal.

"The closure of Thoresby Colliery will be a disaster, you only have to walk around Boughton industrial estate to see there's many businesses that rely on the colliery being open."

She said extending the Robin Hood Line from Shirebrook to Ollerton and Edwinstowe wouldn't cost a lot of money and that connectivity helps keep people in employment.

"It's about connecting communities that are hit being hit by bus services because the services are being slashed," she said.