MORE CHAOS IS NOT WHAT EDUCATION NEEDS: WHAT’S WRONG WITH GOVE’S ACADEMIES

In the 1980s the Conservatives chose to break up local authority control over education by allowing schools to opt out & achieve grant maintained status – all at the same time as standardising & monitoring pedagogy in the form of tests & the national curriculum. Most of the changes were furthered & supported by the subsequent Labour government, a new piece of legislation every year for 13 years ……….beleaguered teachers having to reinvent the wheel every two to three years as each new policy wonk invented the next great solution to the low standards primarily caused by the inability of central government to leave well alone & give professionals the time & money to get on with what they do best: teaching our kids.

And I can tell you - & I met one at the Portland Academy meeting only this week – there are thousands of inspirational, creative, genuinely child centred, innovative leaders in our schools. But what they need is money & curriculum support – not academy status.

Andrew Adonis is such a policy wonk & his plans for the Portland Academy have led to the more hare-brained aspects of the scheme –redesigning an education system which combines 6 tiers age 0 – 21 plus community education under one umbrella - recognised as hare-brained by professionals & the community alike, because you can’t just make change happen by throwing money, buzz words & nice ideas at social deprivation - you have to plan it in detail & understand how it will work on the ground ! Adonis has been such a policy wonk then - unfortunately so also is Michael Gove.

Swedish Free Schools, recently condemned by the Swedish education secretary for having failed both in terms of breaking up the existing school system & in producing declining standards, & academy status given to outstanding schools rather than failing schools , will both lead to the privatisation of education in this country , reintroducing the two tier divide between high & low achieving institutions ( why not go the whole hog & call them Grammars & Secondary Moderns), in that worst of all worlds where there is a huge reduction in funding for those at the bottom of the pile.

It is a huge failure in the coalition for the Lib Dems not to have challenged this. Our manifesto supported sponsor led schools & local schools led by community groups or charities, but specifically NOT academies or free schools taking money away from local authorities. We did not want funding to bleed from the mainstream sector. We may holler & shout about the adoption of the pupil premium – but the levels of finance have not been set & there’ll be far less in the pot for state schools once this privatisation is finished. It’s a retrograde & dangerous step & I will do everything I can to campaign against it.

And where does that leave the proposed Portland Academy? No one knows !

If the rationale behind it was to reverse disadvantage, there is a different rationale dictating government policy now. A different academy model in Portland would have certainly worked – not all through but 11 to 18 with primaries joining at a later stage where they wanted & freedom of choice for each individual school community; a federation not a corporation. And a properly planned funding stream with a huge amount of work on growing & developing the local economy could have transformed the island. At best now I fear it will be put on the back burner.

State education has a role to play in delivering social justice – but not for advantaging the already advantaged. Leave that to the private system: if we have to have one it’s better left that way.

And yes I am angry – two Labour education secretaries have screwed up here & now I fear for the future of education not only in Portland, but for the whole country. Only the Liberal Democrats can influence this policy now: for God’s sake let’s do something about it.

Ros has been a member of the NUT & an examiner & teacher in secondary & further education for 22 years.