Priorities for our new PM as he takes over next week. (After sacking the entryist pantomime bad guy Lord Adonis). Stop the academies programme spiralling out of control. Today we read that a religious sect who believe TV and computers are the "realm of the devil" have actually been allowed in the front door of the Department for Education to discuss setting up academies with schools minister Jim Knight. Is no belief too batty, too deranged to exclude an organisation from being handed control of our local schools?
This comes on the same day that we hear of an academic study which claims that pupils at academies are
increasingly being forced on to "easier" courses to inflate results
The Edinburgh University study analysed the results of the first 14 academies and compared them to standards achieved at the comprehensive schools they replaced. It says that "because of political pressure to improve results" the number of children taking GNVQs had increased 12-fold. In 2002, there was one GNVQ entry for every 10 pupils compared to 12 for every 10 students last year.
But it doesn't stop there, we also learn today that all teachers who want to work in Catholic schools in Glasgow will have to seek personal approval from the Church under confidential plans drawn up by Scotland's largest local authority. What used to "our" schools are increasingly under the control of bigots and proselytisers who are becoming ever more cocky about their ability to use that control to ram their beliefs down the throats of children, their parents and their teachers. Do something about it Gordon!
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