Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Exporting academies won’t benefit English children
You have to hand it to the coalition; it would appear that nothing will deflect ministers from their pet plan to make money from schools. It is less than a month since David Cameron’s plan to allow English academies and free schools to sell places to overseas students was leaked then promptly disowned largely due […]
The Headteachers’ Roundtable Alternative English Baccalaureate
Late last year, Education Secretary Michael Gove conceded that, while he was determined to stick to his timetable for qualifications reform, if a “red light” flashed, he would take account of it. It is hard to imagine a brighter “red light’ than last week’s Education Select Committee report on Mr Gove’s cherished English Baccalaureate Certificates. […]
Gove must rule against any new grammars
If I were Michael Gove, the decision I would least relish at the moment would be having to rule on the fate of the Sevenoaks grammar school. This little time bomb was lobbed into the Secretary of State’s court around 18 months ago when the county council in fully selective Kent decided to approve the […]
Labour should subvert the Tory academy programme to end selection
A shorter version of this article appears in the Guardian today I am sure I wasn’t alone in feeling a profound sense of gloom on hearing that the go-ahead has been given for what will effectively be a new grammar school in the Kent town of Sevenoaks. For the last fifteen years too many people, […]
Ed Miliband ought to re-start the debate about charitable status for private schools
Which school sector has most reason to feel quietly satisfied as we start 2012? Free schools benefitting from a high profile and capital investment at a time of cuts? Early converter academies with their artificially pumped up budgets? The good fortune of both must surely be trumped by that of the private sector. No mainstream […]
Why we should support the parents at Downhills Primary School
Earlier this week I went to speak at a public meeting at Downhills Primary School in Tottenham. The school is being faced with ‘forced academisation’ by the government even though according to several external indicators (HMI visit and league tables) it is starting to improve. Between 2009 and 2011 the schools KS2 SATs results increasing […]
Sneaky changes to the Admissions Code herald a return to the bad old days
First published in the Guardian Some months ago the Government began a consultation on the new School Admissions Code. It came after months of nods and winks about the need to streamline the overly bureaucratic regulatory framework of the Labour years. Since its introduction in the late 1990s, the Admissions Code has undergone several incarnations. […]
