The election campaign is now in a bygone decade but we are still not much clearer about what the Tories have in store for education over the next five years.

The relevant section of the Conservative manifesto was, at just 646 words, deliberately vague, and seemed oriented towards perceived Labour policy weaknesses – on Ofsted and discipline – rather than on any real plans for education. Not a word on the future use of the pupil premium, nor the burden of the teacher workload, or on university fees, or grammar schools.

That can’t be it. Not from a government that has, at its heart, two of the most flamboyant players from the coalition years, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, and a circle of advisers – including Munira Mirza, head of the No 10 policy unit, and Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the election manifesto – with an interest in (and distinct approach to) education. And don’t forget that whopping majority of 80.

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So what do we know about Boris Johnson’s intentions? The early smoke signals out of Downing Street – considered much more strategically significant than Gavin Williamson at the DfE – indicate a sober commitment to deliver major, visible change, particularly in the newly won northern seats.

The biggest push will be on technical and further education, which has been starved of money and effective reform for decades. At the end of his first term Johnson will want to point to a plethora of shiny new projects, from souped-up further education colleges to brand new institutes of technology and selective sixth forms, in newly Conservative areas such as Bassetlaw and Bishop Auckland.

Tory insiders also believe there is the appetite to complete the structural revolution that began in 2010, reflecting a long-held feeling in rightwing circles that no education secretary has been sufficiently radical since Gove. More free schools have been promised and there will be a concerted push to convert all schools to academies over the next five years, mostly by herding schools into larger multi-academy trusts.

Yes, school funding will rise, but not enough to reverse the cuts since 2010. Given the emphasis already being put by Johnson’s government on heeding public opinion, it is salutary to remember that both the funding promise, and more discrete commitments such as the new arts premium, were not the product of sudden Tory largesse but the result of sustained campaigning by local communities, teachers, heads and the teacher trade unions, which won public sympathy.

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There will be no wholesale return to selection at 11 but the slow, steady expansion of grammar schools will continue to wreak damage on comprehensives, and on provision for disadvantaged communities, in the areas that have selection.

Even in its short manifesto, heavy weather was made of strong discipline and a knowledge-rich curriculum – buzzwords of increasingly influential traditionalist groups, such as the Parents and Teachers for Excellence. This government is convinced that parents thrill to such old-fashioned ideas, even if the resultant regimes don’t actually suit their children.

The trouble is, none of the above addresses the most intractable problems. According to one Tory insider, there are no substantive plans to reduce teachers’ workload, a key cause of recruitment and retention problems. And rumours of a pilot of “no-notice” Ofsted inspections will not ease the justifiable resentment among school leaders, particularly those serving poorer students, about increasing accountability pressures.

Any tough talk on standards just looks dubious set against the fact that a third of children still fail to reach the pass mark in the new tougher GCSEs, while the latest Pisa results show England as still only a middling performer internationally, while charting a precipitous decline in student wellbeing.

Johnson’s government would do well to recall that David Cameron had to sack Michael Gove in 2014, so toxic was the education secretary to teachers and school leaders. Gove’s ideological successors should take note: the education profession does not take kindly to reckless or eccentric political leaders who, for all their claimed preoccupation with public opinion, ride roughshod over the very people they rely on to deliver their often ill thought-out plans.