Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Excellent.

Is there still the anti-Tory alliance there?

UKIP are awful but at least they don't worry about keeping in with Tory Central Office. Kingston Council, by contrast, seem to have found £600k to bail out a free school muck up. Watch out for their leader getting a safe Westminster seat.

As an aside, the new MP for Fareham is an awful free school sycophant, involved with Katherine Birbalbollocks' free school. Hilariously, given that they're "just a group of teachers and parents", I see they've got couple of Edubusiness people on the governing body.

The DfE might not trust Birbalbollocks' competence...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Nicky Morgan trying to pretend a selective sixth form, with a stellar governing body, taking pupils from all over London, is successful because it's a free school.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11699335/Tories-flagship-free-school-outperforms-Wellington-and-Marlborough-in-A-level-results.html

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

The DfE remain nasty despite the presence of Nice Nicky.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11701507/Investigation-into-Trojan-Horse-scandal-undermined-efforts-to-tackle-extremism-government-says.html

The all party select committee (chair, Tory Graham Stuart) were critical over the Trojan Horse response.

The DfE respond. Don't just disagree- accuse the committee of "undermining efforts to tackle extremism".

Imagine that. Powerful old Gove/Wilshaw, cheered on by the press, thwarted by this committee that no-one's heard of.

[David Agnew]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Tubby Isaacs wrote: Excellent.

Is there still the anti-Tory alliance there?

Yep.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Not sure I want UKIP to establish themselves as credible in local government, but fair play here.

Interested to see the Guardian's scoop about Inspiration Trust schools getting advanced notice of Ofsteds is still up.

I don't normally do the "haven't sued, must be something in it" logic. But I can't imagine Theo Agnew and all are chilled out people who believe investigative journalism needs space to make mistakes....

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Morgan belatedly comes up with a definition of coasting....

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/30/nicky-morgan-coasting-schools-criteria

Under the current framework, secondary schools are classed as falling beneath the government’s floor standards if fewer than 40% of children achieve five or more A* to C GCSEs, including English and maths.

In addition to the 60% GCSE benchmark, schools will also be judged on pupils’ progress. From 2016 onwards, secondary schools that fail to score highly enough over a three-year period on “Progress 8” – the government’s new accountability measure that shows a child’s progress between the end of primary school and their GCSEs – will also be classed as coasting.

Primary schools will similarly be deemed to be coasting if, over a three-year period, fewer than 85% of 11-year-olds achieve a level 4 in reading, writing and maths, and a higher-than-average proportion of pupils fail to make expected progress. Currently, the threshold for intervention in primaries is if fewer than 65% of pupils get a level 4.

These "coasting" schools get prompt intervention. As do failing schools, no doubt.

How many prompt interveners do the DfE have up their sleeve? They don't even have enough competent academy chains now.

[David Agnew]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Are free schools being honest with their applications?

Inspiration Trust school application form: "The mathematics curriculum will be academic led, developed with and supported by Cambridge University, King’s College mathematics department."

King's College: "They were obviously confused when they filled in their application form. Their association is through the Cambridge Mathematics Education Project, a DfE-funded project based at the university’s centre for mathematical studies." Neither the university nor King’s College, Cambridge, had been involved in writing the school’s curriculum.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/30/isaac-newton-free-school-partners-education?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Academies- introducing private sectors standards (of marketing) into state schools.

Warwick Mansell is excellent, isn't he?

Schools Week are having fun with Nick Gibb's "questioning" of Sir Daniel Moynihan of Harris. It's basically football tunnel interview standard. "Kenny, what pleased you most about the brilliant performance today?"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Posted your link elsewhere. Will report back on any comments.

There's an interesting post BTL about another Norfolk academy.

NeilB73 43m ago

0
1
I've not got a good thing to say about Right for Success. They've taken over my sons school and since then it has just become impossible to talk to anyone anymore. The teachers used to be approachable, now you're not allowed to talk to them. Play ground was supervised, not anymore. We've asked several times to see their complaints procedure and have constantly hit a brick wall.

That's "rip off merchants featured on Watchdog" standard, by the sound of it.

Neil goes on:

NeilB73 43m ago
I am just pleased we have Clive Lewis as our MP for Norwich South because he's happy to tackle these corporate 'not for profit charities' head on.

Like.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

In 2017* the students will be taking GCSEs in many subjects where there will be no coursework any more, it will just be straight exams. Expect to see a massive dip in the grades for English and other subjects that currently rely heavily on coursework.

*This is for students currently in Year 9.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

I'd forgotten the harder exams. Christ. And the kids being pushed into academic subjects they don't like. If I were a modern language teacher (of which there's a shortage), I wouldn't fancy having to teach French grammar to a load of kids who don't even want to be there.

There are going to be so many failing school created by this. Harris and ARK will pick up schools already pretty good, with perhaps one bad year, and add to the empire.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33325654

In which Nicky talks about "extreme homophobia". No indication of what homophobia is OK.

Nicky's party of course were prepared to go into government with UKIP and the DUP.

[David Agnew]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Nicky Morgan of course voted against same-sex marriage.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

She did.

Never mind, I'm sure Ofsted can make the judgement itself, with its track record on this issue.

[NickSTFU]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

The new GCSE exams are going to create some major disadvantages for a lot of young people.

It's a crying shame.

And a fucking disgrace.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Yep. Lots of good work has been done using alternative types of assessment which can bring out potential in working class children. Fuck that, back on the essays and 2 hour exams.

Going to be some rather frustrated teachers, stuck with kids who aren't suitable for their subject but forced to by targets.

Not to mention shortages of teachers in modern languages already."Hey, Mr Art teacher, I here you have French A level, and I was wondering if..."

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Credit to OP.

This is incredible.

RogerOThornhill wrote: Talking of academy chains...two reports from yesterday.

1. South Shore Academy.
Last Ofsted in Jan 2013 - Inadequate
Sponsored w.e.f. 1st Dec 2013 with Bright Futures
Latest Ofsted - Inadequate and in special measures

Leadership is inadequate and has been so since the academy’s opening.
The governance provided by the trust and the local governing body is inadequate.

2. Manchester Creative and Media Academy
Sponsored since Sept 2009 by The Manchester College (although Ofsted says Microsoft and Manchester City Council which is a bit odd)
Last Ofsted in June 2013 - Requires Improvement
Latest Ofsted - Inadequate with serious weaknesses

Wait for it...

The sponsorship of the academy is in a transitional phase. Current sponsors, Microsoft and Manchester City Council, are in the process of handing over to the Bright Futures Educational Trust.

Doh!

[Antepli Ejderha]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Tubby Isaacs wrote: I'd forgotten the harder exams. Christ. And the kids being pushed into academic subjects they don't like. If I were a modern language teacher (of which there's a shortage), I wouldn't fancy having to teach French grammar to a load of kids who don't even want to be there.

There are going to be so many failing school created by this. Harris and ARK will pick up schools already pretty good, with perhaps one bad year, and add to the empire.

That's what's going to happen Tubby, you forgot to mention Oasis. They've just had a really awful set of inspections.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Next year is progress eight, buckets and averages. The move to pushing kids into academic subjects has already started with the return of the ebacc.

The next few years are going to be terrible.

I think a lot of state schools in LEA control are going to rush to become academies or risk being picked off by Ark, Harris et al.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

I'd forgotten the harder exams. Christ. And the kids being pushed into academic subjects they don't like. If I were a modern language teacher (of which there's a shortage), I wouldn't fancy having to teach French grammar to a load of kids who don't even want to be there.

There are going to be so many failing school created by this. Harris and ARK will pick up schools already pretty good, with perhaps one bad year, and add to the empire.

That's what's going to happen Tubby, you forgot to mention Oasis. They've just had a really awful set of inspections.

I didn't know that. Poor old Warwick Mansell could get a column a day out of academy fiascos.

Don't know the background there, but there was going to be a crunch with some academy chains, who were very keen on the "soft subjects" now out of favour.

Harris and ARK so far have got their speed of expansion basically right, as you might expect with their doubtless bright business backers.

I wonder now though if they'll think they might as well go for it full on, like AET and the other less savvy chains?

[Antepli Ejderha]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/25/ofsted-report-lambasts-limited-leadership-oasis-academy-chain

Here is the Oasis report

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Cheers.

Looked up where there schools are on wiki. Ridiculous geographical spread. I should think about half the budget goes on managers' train fares and hotels. Like Gove, I reckon- thought there was no need for local oversight and Ofsted every 5 years would keep up standards.

Shamefully for Labour that silly spread was there from the very beginning. Guess Adonis did his usual "you like nice religious folk, have some schools".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

God that's awful for Oasis. You can tell they're bad from the fact Morgan let Ofsted inspect them. Holed below the water.

Interesting to see this.

One of the schools visited, Oasis academy Skinner Street, was rated as inadequate and placed in special measures by inspectors, who said the school’s management “have an unrealistic view of how well the academy is performing”.

Wonder if they were trying to brazen it out or whether they really have believed the academies hype.

[E10 Rifle]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Oasis were one of the first free-school parasites to descend on our borough, and were chased off. Though we do now have one other free school and three in the pipeline.

It's really hard to fight any of this at the moment, given the facts on the ground established by the ideologues and the obvious need for school places. We've been trying to promote this charter as a benchmark to assess new "school providers"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

Excellent work on chasing them off too.