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It’s an unusual message for any politician – especially a shadow education secretary – but it’s one that will surely resonate with other Westminster parents.

“The thing that I will always say is this, you just have to set a really low bar,” Laura Trott says with a smile when asked about how she combines her frontbench role with mothering two twin boys and a girl all under the age of nine. “Don’t aim for excellence – just aim for everyone being alive.”

Immaculately turned out and speaking in an office where everything is ‘just-so’, it’s hard to imagine Trott battling with bags and PE kits in the chaos of a school run.

She sounds genuine, however, when she expresses sympathy for her political enemies who have to combine parenting with governing: “It’s really hard… I do really feel for people who are in government at the moment, who are parents, because it is tough.”

One way Trott, a former member of David Cameron’s education policy unit, wants to make it easier for parents is for the government to strengthen its position on limiting children’s smartphone use.

“I see smartphones as the equivalent of giving children cigarettes,” says the 40-year-old Conservative MP for Sevenoaks. She criticises the government for refusing an outright ban on mobiles in schools, saying it would help make it easier for parents to deny the devices to those under the age of 16.

“One of the best things we can do for pupils’ mental health in schools is to take out the phones,” the Tory MP argues.

In March, the government blocked an attempt by the Conservatives to ban pupils from using or carrying smartphones in schools. The government argued at the time that the amendment – supported by Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform UK MPs – was unnecessary as schools can already ban phones themselves.

She is determined not to give up: “This is a real crisis going on. We must act. People will look back in generations to come and ask why we didn’t. The evidence is so clear now, and it beggars belief that the government aren’t acting on this.”

Education has been one of the relatively few policy areas where the Tories have had wide-ranging coverage in the media, and a clear line of argument. Labour’s policy on VAT for private school fees was one of the first policies the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch said she would reverse if she became prime minister.

VAT aside, Trott says that what she sees as a lack of action in the government’s flagship Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on problems like absence and behaviour is a missed opportunity. With Labour having to make an early amendment to its own bill clarifying teacher pay in multi-academy trusts amid widespread confusion, Trott is looking for more ‘wins’.

She is indignant at the suggestion – advanced by some envious Conservative colleagues – that she has been gifted an easy job.

“It’s the most important brief in the Cabinet as far as I’m concerned,” she says, though she admits she is frustrated that “people don’t pay as much attention to it as they should”.

There are some instances where what’s happening in the classroom cuts through to national headlines, with poor pupil behaviour being one.

Pupil exclusions and suspensions have soared post-pandemic as a result of disintegrating behaviour, with school leaders saying they do not have the resources to address it and its multi-faceted causes.

Trott is keen to trail some upcoming work on pupil referral units (PRUs), which provide for pupils who are not able to attend mainstream school, often due to exclusions or ill health.

PRUs featured heavily in Reform UK’s manifesto last year, with the party keen to double the number.

The shadow education secretary would like to see more focus on pupil outcomes in PRUs, and on whether the number should be upped, and says changes might mean expanding the number or properly supporting the number, adding: “It’s a complicated web.”

Whose responsibility is it to fix poor discipline, the schools’ or the parents’?

Trott insists it is both: “The two have got to work together… Most things can’t be successful unless there is a degree of co-operation from the parents.”

But getting to a place of collaboration may not be so straightforward in a sector that has seen a major breakdown in the relationship between staff and parents in recent years.

Furthermore, a real drive for schools to boost attendance to pre-pandemic levels has led to parents facing increased fines for unauthorised absences and schools in some cases turning up at front doors to enquire about a missing child.

Rows have also erupted over a small number of schools advising pupils to attend when unwell and despite period pains, unless “medical information relating” to this was provided.

Trott thinks there is one public service that isn’t pulling its weight when it comes to tackling pupil absence.

“Local authorities need to step up and be doing more,” Trott argues. She would like to change the narrative whereby schools pick up the pieces of services that are not working as they should.

“We need to make sure that local authorities are doing more on absence, and that there is more support, for example, on the social care side of things, with social workers as well.”

The shadow education secretary thinks councils should be stepping in to support earlier with absence before it reaches peak levels, adding this is something she is looking at closely.

What would she say to the argument that councils have suffered funding cuts in recent years, leading to a depletion of services?

“It’s not enough to just talk about funding,” Trott replies. “Some local authorities are doing this really well with the funding that they have. The variation in performance is quite stark.”

On attendance officers – council workers who identify attendance patterns and support for specific pupils, the number of which vary around the country – Trott thinks this is something councils should be looking at.

She also wants to take a closer look at individual council performance on delivering provision for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Councils have been crying out for more funding for SEND, as well as wider reform, in recent years. Trott points to increased funding under the Tories, but has more to say: “It’s not just a funding thing. It’s also about performance.”

Such a proposal may not be welcomed by councils across the country, who have argued for years that there is simply not enough money – or capacity – to keep up with the demand.

Trott does concede, however, that more funding is needed.

For Trott, waging the war against Labour on the education battlefield has also been made easier by criticisms levelled at Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and her department since she took up the post almost a year ago, made both outside and within her own party.

The shadow education secretary ducks a question about whether Labour has a problem with women, but she does feel strongly about Keir Starmer’s attitude towards his counterpart.

“He’s honestly derisive and awful towards Kemi at Prime Minister’s Questions. It’s really quite grim the way he behaves.”

The walls of her Portcullis House office contain a sketch of Margaret Thatcher and suffragette artwork. So, where does Trott stand on Badenoch’s recent comments that she would ask women in burqas at her constituency surgeries to remove them before she would talk to them, and that bosses should be allowed to ban the face covering in workplaces? Would she mandate the same ban in schools?

Treading carefully, Trott’s answer hints at agreement: “I am very wary of telling women how to dress, but you should be able to see someone’s face. Being able to see someone’s face when you’re teaching them is really important.”

Schools faced a row over the hijab – less concealing than a burqa – seven years ago, after watchdog Ofsted backed headteachers wishing to bring in a ban. Currently, schools are able to set their own uniform policies.

Trott says her answer would be the same for faith schools: “Face-to-face communication is something which, as humans, we need to be able to fully understand what somebody is going through, and especially for a child, where they’re not always able to verbally tell you what is going on.”

As both the Conservative and Reform leaders are caught up in a recent debate around the burqa that saw Reform chair Zia Yusuf resign and later return to the party, what does Trott see as her ceiling as a politician?

“I don’t see it like that. I see it as me wanting to do this job and wanting to do it really well.”

Does she think much about the future? “No, I think that’s always a bad idea in politics.”

For now, Trott is focusing on the task at hand, adding that being in opposition makes it hard to be heard. She describes the feat as a “guerilla campaign”.

While the Conservatives are yet to complete their review of policy, one area they have been clear on is in their attacks on Labour’s private school VAT policy. It’s a fight that many criticise the Tories for, with the impact being felt by a small number of individuals; only around five to six per cent of pupils in England attend a private school.

Trott, who herself attended a comprehensive school, insists that the drive behind the opposition is fuelled by the pressure they believe the move will put on state schools as more pupils join the sector.

“The reason that we are opposed to this is because of the pressure that it will put on state schools. And it is also a vindictive policy, but it is because it puts so much pressure on state schools, and we’ve already seen that there are more children leaving. We’ll see what happens next year.”

One area of education policy that Labour was forced to face head on early in Parliament was the crisis facing universities.

Labour is currently drawing up reforms to tackle the spiralling financial crisis, with efficiencies and improving access set to be a key part of any changes.

Trott is not sure universities are currently delivering.

“I think that we are in a situation with higher education where the amount of face time that many students are getting, I don’t think is enough. That’s not true of all universities, but it’s true of a lot of them, if you look at the fees that these individuals are paying, and I don’t think that’s okay.”

On whether domestic student fees should go up again following Labour’s increase for this year, Trott says that is a matter for the government. It’s an answer that might just do in the early years of Parliament in opposition – but won’t make the grade when voters are asked to return the Tories to power.