Cameron's cannon fodder aims to get 'em young

Cadets in schools. First mooted during Gove's tenure at DfE and now the focus of a wodge of cash to enable state schools and academies to get their pupils into uniform and learn some discipline. Just think, the young learning how to wear a decent suit (khaki, navy or air-force blue), do up their ties and sing the national anthem - oh, and how to shoot straight should they come across some goddam liberal pinko surrender-monkeys. I can think of a many more worthwhile places where that cash could go, and none of them involve indoctrinating the young.

Academies can be as bad as LEAs - would've thought it?

Wilshaw's criticisms of multi-academy groups - and the pay awarded to senior management - highlight the danger of weakening public control over education. The government obsession in breaking local government control over schools is shown to be based on ideological, as opposed to educational grounds. The current crop of academy leaders, while doubtless keen to justify their salaries, are drawn from the ranks of teachers who have proved adept at climbing the greasy pole of school management and, as such, highly adept at 'talking the talk'; which in educational terms is another language to that of the everyday life of the classroom. Good teachers have to learn to swim in this pool of 'talent', the alternative being to remain in the classroom - promotion is predicated on management. And this is where Wilshaw is now aiming his axe. However, this is the very pool that Wilshaw - a former academy head, came from. Taking aim at his former colleagues and irritating the Tories, will probably only hasten his replacement by an American import.

Ofsted inadequate

Son's school has just had an Ofsted inspection that shows - achieving academy status AND opening a 'free school' FE vocational centre notwithstanding - that it's gone from a 'good' community high school to being so inadequate, across all four inspected areas, as to be placed in special measures.
All this decay took place against a veritable deluge of supposed good news stories pumped put at regular intervals via email and paid for mailshots. Strange, then, that notification of the Ofsted inspection was by way of a letter handed to pupils to bring home. Being suspicious by nature, I now wonder if they hoped to ameliorate the potential flow of bad news to the inspectors by using the least reliable method: after all, the Ofsted report itself mentions the low number of parental submissions. There's a parents' forum taking place in an hour, where I'm really hoping that serious questions will be answered, particularly regarding the findings of inadequate teaching in KS3 and 4 and the inadequate finding for pupil behaviour and safeguarding. But then again, perhaps I shouldn't expect too much, after all, in the (mailed) letter inviting us to the 'forum', the headteacher assures how keen they are to embark on their 'improvement journey'. From Michael Gove preserve us...

Forum update: Some very interesting questions about lack of quality homework - this is an area that the school has previously said senior management (SMT) were going to tighten up on, but nothing happened. Some parents also very scathing about internal organisation of recent Yr 10 mock exams. The new head did admit, in response to one of my questions, that attaining academy status had not worked for them. Seems to be more a case of being distracted by the 'freedom' of being run by the DoE, as opposed to answerable and accountable to the LEA, that they failed to consider the developments being made by other comparable schools in the locality. She even went so far as to admit that there had been no proper benchmarking undertaken for the best part of two years, so that the SMT were essentially 'flying blind' but happy to do so, given the nice warm feeling of being in charge of their own school and the new FE centre. All crashed down around them now. Gove not such a good replacement LEA after all. Not to worry - it's only our children's futures they're working with.

High school is just so exciting

Or so it seems at the Sports College Academy my eldest son attends. After gaining academy status a couple of years ago, the establishment seems to have appointed a large number of head teachers - each with a different job title. Makes you wonder how they managed with just a head and a sprinkling of deputies in days of yore; or whether the new appointments have all the gravitas of McDonald's employees stars - though I suspect with far better remuneration... One role of the new breed of head is to appear unaccountably excited and enthusiastic about the most mundane changes. A couple of months ago, the 'executive head' (formerly headteacher) wrote a letter that suggested pleasure of almost orgiastic proportions at a new reception desk and improved WiFi. Calm down, dear was my response. But now another head has written of her 'excitement' at the latest drivel from Gove's DoE surrounding curriculum changes. Given the response from others in the profession, her heightened state is somewhat misplaced - a feeling added to by her subsequent admission that she doesn't yet know the full extent of Gove's proposals. She signs of her bewildering - but excited! - epistle with the hackneyed phrase: "With challenge comes opportunity", to which I can only add "and with bullshit comes suspicion...".