The count down to free schools begins
Whitehall emails reveal the hidden costs of promoting free schools
A shocking collection of emails leaked to the Guardian show that Michael Gove arranged for a £500,000 grant to the New Schools Network (NSN) to be fast-tracked. NSN is the charity, headed by a 25-year-old former Gove adviser, that provides guidance to people who want to set up free schools. Gove urged civil servants to give NSN "cash without delay". Since its inception Gove's free schools programme has often appeared to be in jeopardy as many of the schools struggled to get the requisite planning, permissions and funding. In one email, Gove's confidante Dominic Cummings says:
"Labour has handed hundreds of millions to leftie orgs – if u guys cant navigate this thro the bureauc then not a chance of any new schools starting!!"
Lisa Nandy, a Labour member of the education select committee, said the email indicated the NSN had been given public money to act as "a propaganda machine for a political agenda".
"What they are asking for is a way to play down the negative impact of free schools. They gave this contract to the New Schools Network to provide independent, impartial advice to people setting up free schools. That should surely include advice on the downside of setting up new schools, not just the positive. They were given taxpayers' money in order to act as a propaganda machine for a political agenda."
Liberalconspiracy.org echoes her sentiment:
"how many other charities get £500,000 from the government to implement the very policy they've been lobbying for?"
Unsurprisingly, Toby Young doesn't agree. Young has long been a champion of free schools and will open his own this September. He says the fast-tracked £500,000 grant is a "non-story", and adds:
Isn't it time the Guardian got with the programme? It now finds itself almost alone in opposing Michael Gove's education reforms, isolated in the dunce's corner with only the Socialist Workers' party and the antediluvian teaching unions for company.
Read the full story of the leaked emails here.
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In today's EducationGuardian
• Peter Wilby interviews founder of the Local Schools Network, Melissa Benn (yes, she's Tony's daughter) a few days before the publication of her book School Wars. Benn still believes the public can see the benefits of comprehensives, and argues passionately that we should unite behind local comprehensives run by elected local authorities.
• Chris Arnot visits the UK's first university technical college (UTC). The JCB academy provides hands on training for the young engineers needed by the industries of tomorrow. It's the first and it certainly won't be the last - UTCs are the brainchild of former Conservative education minister Lord Baker. George Osborne has immediate plans for a further 24 colleges and Baker envisages there being between 200 and 300 in 10 years' time.
• Phil Beadle asks: Would young people have dared to riot in term time? Teachers were among the first to be blamed for the riots but didn't anyone twig that the riots happened in the school holidays?
Had [the riots happened] in term time, each maligned educational institution would have mobilised with military precision, keeping kids in school, texting parents to pick them up, arranging transport, and calling assemblies in which no one would have been left in any doubt about the potential consequences of dangerously irresponsible behaviour.
The buzz about... beekeeping in schools
When a swarm of bees descended on Charlton Manor primary school in Greenwich the teachers' first reaction was panic. Some were afraid they would have to close the school. But what struck headteacher Tim Baker was how calm the pupils were – and how fascinated. Three years on beekeeping is now part of the curriculum at Charlton Manor and an abundance of honey isn't the only positive side effect. Involvement in beekeeping transformed the behaviour of some of the school most unruly pupils. There are some lovely photos of the school's beekeeping club here.
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