Posted by Editors
Academies, ASCL, Education Business, Events, Free Schools, In The News, League Tables, Managerialism, Ofsted, Standards, Teach First, Teacher Bashing, Testing, Tories, Working Conditions
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Michael Gove, UK Ed Sec, spoke at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) conference on the the 24 March 2012 so we thought we’d run through the justifications he could come up with for alienating both teachers and headteachers with his needless reforms. There was a defence of free schools and academies. There [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Ofsted
Saturday, March 17th, 2012
Where would the UK be without the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills? Ofsted has been given responsibility for making sure everything is hunky-dory with schools and various educational establishments in the UK. Depending on what you read, recent headlines cast Ofsted either as the villain or the saviour of our educational [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, MetLife, Ofsted, PISA, Standards, Working Conditions
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
While in the UK OFSTASI’s Wilshaw spouts further drivel about declining literacy standards, across the pond in the US a very illuminating survey of teachers has attracted a lot of recent attention, not least because it shows just how dissatisfied teachers currently are. The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Teachers, Parents and the Economy [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Ofsted, Teach First, Teach for America
Sunday, June 19th, 2011
The recent publication of OFSTED data on those schools causing concern in April 2011 has given us another chance to assess Teach First’s claim that they are addressing educational disadvantage. In England and Wales there are 322 Schools in Special Measures and 252 Teach First participating schools, of which only 5 (2%) are on OFSTED’s [...]
Posted by Editors
Academies, ARK, In The News, McKinsey & Co., Michael Barber, Ofsted, Tories
Monday, February 28th, 2011
Private Eye report that Sally Morgan, new Ofsted honcho, and adviser to school privatisation champions, ARK, will work only 2 days but be paid £45K pa. Aside from the fact that no-one is worth that much for a couple of days work, it also means that the head of the schools inspection body gets to [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Ofsted, Secondary Education, Testing
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Have Gilbert and OfSTED had an epiphany and seen the light? Or knowing that her days as honcho are numbered is she getting her own back? For an organisation so determined to kowtow to politicians and hold on to power and funds, today’s Successful Science report is quite remarkable. In its report based on the [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Ofsted, Teach First
Monday, December 6th, 2010
Continuing our look at Teach First, we thought we’d look closer at how an organisation set up by a former McKinsey management consultant was able to acquire charitable status in the UK. In the UK, charities are looked after by the Charity Commission. On their website page ‘Is setting up a charity the right thing [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Media Watch, Ofsted, Politics, Research
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
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What’s not to love about OFSTED’s Christine Gilbert. The White Paper on Education is upon us and no better way to keep the inspectors in business than to tell everyone how bad everything is. What a load of nonsense. The only thing that’s really wrong with the UK’s education system – as we have said [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, Media Watch, Ofsted, Primary Education, Research
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
“Ofsted inspectors say literacy standards ‘fall short’”, the Beeb reports. This simply isn’t true. What has really fallen short are literacy test scores not literacy standards. OfSTED are confusing scores with literacy levels. A child that does badly on a test isn’t necessarily lacking in literacy. They are just unable to score high enough on [...]
Posted by Editors
FE, HE, In The News, Ofsted, Politics, Primary Education
Sunday, October 24th, 2010
The fact that the euphemistically-titled Spending Review has guaranteed an increase in money for schools is usually applauded. That this money – an extra £4bn – is coming at a time when those in FE and HE face hefty cuts will raise little cheer for those who are paying mortgages, have children to feed and [...]
