Blog
Private gain, public pain
This weekend I will be speaking at the Battle of Ideas in a session called Public Education; private harm? I re-named my speech “Private gain, public pain” An outline of my contribution ( improvised on the day) is below: Private gain, public pain Quite clear that fee charging schools are very good for some people.At Eton for […]
Tristram Hunt’s challenge
I have a general rule of thumb when watching education ministers and their shadows perform in public. Remember the audiences, because there are two. The first, is comprised of parents, pupils, heads and teachers. In spite of the best efforts of politicians to divide them, this group generally has a common interest in ensuring their […]
Private schools see themselves as businesses. Lets treat them that way.
Every so often I check in on one of the longest running sagas in the education world – that of the charitable status of fee-charging schools. It is an epic tale going back 800 years to the foundation of charity schools like Eton and Winchester. The intricate web of endowments enjoyed by some of these […]
A new model of parent power for the future and an idea for Labour
This article first appeared in the Guardian All eyes will be on Labour leader Ed Miliband today. With just over eighteen months to go until the General Election, expectations are high that he will use his conference speech to flesh out a programme for government. It is a year since the announcement of the “Tech […]
Radical action is needed now to stop cheating
If I were a head who did everything strictly by the book, I think one of the things that I would resent more than anything else is the suggestion that others are less scrupulous. There is no doubt that many schools do an excellent job of building and sustaining improvement over time. But some have […]
Planning of school places should rest with local, not central, government
Children packed like sardines, foreigners flooding in, temporary classrooms crowding out play space. The language used to illustrate the current chronic shortage of primary school places in England is emotive. And understandably so. The fear of not getting a school place for your child strikes at the heart at every parent. The fact that we […]
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 […]
Whitley Bay High School – a real outstanding comprehensive community school
Today I visited Whitley Bay High School in the North East. I gave a talk about whether there is a different way of reforming schools than the one being pursued by the coalition government. The school itself was a very good advertisement for what could be done – it is a community comprehensive, still within […]
Gove and Glasman at the LSE. Is the stakeholder model of governance coming back?
Last night I went to an interesting debate at the London School of Economics. The Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove and Labour peer Lord Glasman , author of Blue Labour and involved in the party’s policy review, were discussing who “owns” the concept of One Nation, originated by Benjamin Disraeli and appropriated by Labour leader Ed Miliband […]
Talk at the Cambridge Fabian Society
Last night I went to speak at the Cambridge Fabian Society about alternatives to the current education policy. Details of the meeting are here. These are some notes on which my talk was based. 1.Education policy matters. One of the best ways to judge a society is by its education system. Does it offer equal […]
