Introducing: Gove's 'chancellors'

So Gove is now planning a third tier to oversee free schools and academies. Isn't this duplication of what local authorities still do for most of our primary schools and half of secondaries? DfE can't cope, so let's create more confusion and more cost to the tax payer!

Guardian, Richard Adams and Warwick Mansell, 20th November 2013

Michael Gove to appoint new regulators to oversee free schools and academies

'Chancellors' to run eight English education regions in system which echoes model of school governance in US

Michael Gove a zealot, says shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt

Guardian, 15th November 2013

Labour's Hunt criticises Gove for 'crazed, burned-out investment banker model of teaching' where job seen as short-term career


Tristram Hunt has described the education secretary, Michael Gove, as a zealot and said that a string of recent high-profile failures – including the controversy over the Al-Madinah free school in Derby – meant that the public had turned against the coalition government's changes to the education system.

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Another flagship free school in trouble

Flagship free school 'misused funds'

Guardian, Richard Adams, 26th October 2013


More dodgy financial goings-on, more mismanagement. Guess what? It's another free school! 
"It proves yet again that it is not possible for thousands of schools to be run directly from Whitehall". Hear, hear!

Special report: Coalition in crisis over free schools and academies

Indpendent, 20th October 2013, Jane Merrick



Look at the Independent front page today! At last the Lib Dems speak out against Gove and some of the free school and academy policies. But is this enough to stop the rot?


Lib Dem leader attacks Conservative policy on educational institutions that don't have to meet core standards

Mirror: Gove is the dunce in the classroom

Mirror, 19th October 2013, Fiona Phillips

Michael Gove is the dunce in our classrooms

Teachers are protesting his plans to increase workloads, bring in performance-related pay and change their pensions - all while slagging them off

West Sussex free school in trouble. Headteacher stepping down.

Head of failing free school to step down

Crawley and Horley Observer, 16th October2013

The headteacher of Discovery New School has agreed to step down as soon as possible after failing to create an adequate improvement plan for the school.

The Broadfield school, set up in September 2011 as one of the country’s first free schools, was judged as needing ‘special measures’ in its first Ofsted inspection in May.

This meant it would be subject to regular unannounced inspections.

Ofsted’s report of its inspection in September stated headteacher Lindsey Snowdon had agreed to step down from her role ‘as soon as a new headteacher can be appointed’.

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What's going on in Worthing?

What's going on in Worthing? Shortly after Davison School for Girls wrote to parents before the summer holiday, advising them of its interest in seeking academy status, Durrington High has done the same. There are also plans for a new secondary school in Worthing which will be an academy / free school. Is this more than a coincidence? What is the rationale behind this apparent new interest in academy status?

Davison and Durrington High are rated 'outstanding' and 'good' schools by Ofsted, respectively. Why do they feel it necessary to action this move, in addition to the massive transition that the change in age of transfer poses in 2015, as well as huge pressure on the number of school places going forward?

Parents at Davison and Durrington High, we urge you to write to the Heads / Governors and make your feelings heard. Ask questions and demand a public debate on these plans before irrecoverable decisions are made. Surely nobody wants a rerun of the Worthing High debacle!