Gove’s Change Rhetoric: Education Secretary’s speech to ASCL

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 [...]

Picture of the Day: Tory Gove on the Picket Line

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Below, and just in case any UK public sector worker needed further motivation to take strike action tomorrow (November 30th 2011), a ‘striking’ Michael Gove. A case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’?      

‘Union attacks plan to employ ‘unqualified’ teachers’

Australian ABC News on yet more teaching union opposition to Teach for Australia: “The Northern Territory Education Union has slammed the Territory Government over its plans to employ people who are not qualified teachers to teach in Territory schools. Teach for Australia is a program that began in Victoria last year and will now be [...]

Unions Half-Price IfL Fee Deal

The latest update from the Institute for Leaving (IfL) on fees has been published. It seems that the IfL is not giving up without a fight and rather than smell the coffee they’ve brokered a deal that will see it retain union support in return for halving its annual tax from £68 to £38 (for [...]

Fighting Academy Conversions & Free Schools Conference: Sat 11th June, 10.30am – 4pm

One year on from the Academies Act – Fighting Academy conversions & Free Schools Saturday 11th June, 10.30am – 4pm Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS A major one day conference for governors, parents and staff who want help to organise to stop primary, secondary and special schools converting to academy status. Speakers [...]

It Seems Even Teach First Recruits Will Be Disposable

A very revealing story regarding the employment practices of Teach For America has emerged Stateside that has worrying implications for Teach First and other Teach For All organisation recruits. In a New York Daily News article‘Amid threat of layoffs, city is recruiting 500 new teachers for next fall‘ we are told that ‘even as the [...]

Are Free Schools A Little Rock In The Making?

A May 18th lawsuit organised by teaching union UFT and the NAACP against school charterisation in NYC has been likened to the battle against racial segregation in schools witnessed at Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950s and seen also as symptomatic of a worrying new phase in middle class flight. In language all too familiar [...]

The Intern Dogsbody Video

Teach For America & Teacher Layoffs in Kansas City

More predictable news from the US involving the redundancy of employed teachers to make way for new Teach for America recruits. In what is seen as a very deliberate attempt to undermine the teaching unions, the Kansas City School District have told over half of 200 teachers without tenure that their contracts won’t be renewed. [...]

We Told You So: IfL & Tuition Fees Review

It is not our style to engage in a round of back-patting but recent news regarding the Institute for Learning and Browne’s Tuition Fees Review was not exactly news to us. Firstly, the IfL demands for a £68 annual fee have been met with howls of derision not least because no-one can work out what [...]