Archive for the ‘Out and About’ Category

Out and About Fri 18 Oct

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 […]

Out and About Fri 5 Jul

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 […]

Out and About, Policy Thu 16 May

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 […]

Out and About Wed 15 May

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 […]

Out and About Mon 29 Apr

Why for profit is a bridge too far

Earlier this month I spoke at the Spectator Schools Conference on the subject of for profit schools. I argued that the the evidence doesn’t prove that they are guaranteed to raise standards, and there are considerable risks attached to putting financial incentives ahead of educational aims. You can watch my speech here thanks to my colleague […]