SNP plan to take schools out of council control

by Mel Kelly

"SNP announced they will give head teachers and parents more say in how schools are run - while the real plan is to give businessmen control - just like Cameron."

"The SNP plan is to let businessmen, rather than elected councillors control all schools and Scotland`s £3 billion annual education budget - with the plan being, maybe a parent and an odd pupil can be on the new unelected board - with SNP saying they may allow an elected councillor to sit on the board - but the elected councillor, unlike the businessmen, will have no voting power."

"And schools are to be managed in `clusters` - the word the SNP choose to use - rather than Academy Chains - as SNP`s plan is to roll out David Cameron`s outsourcing of control of all schools - so our kids education and school budgets can be plundered and sent to the Cayman Islands - as has been happening across England since the coalition seized power."

"This is David Cameron`s policy - which was why head teachers from academy chains and Oxford academics all met in Scotland to discuss the plot."

"Combined with this is the plot to allow these businessmen to use schoolchildren, now in their hands, to work in their local business for free - under the guise of education - over a 2 year period - in a very little known scheme being piloted right now, Foundation Apprenticeships - where children are being taken out of their classrooms, over a two year period, in fourth and fifth year to be sent to nursing homes to work as unpaid labour."

http://www.whatthepoliticiansdontsay.com/#!10-things-to-know-this-week/cjds/3

"The Certificate of Work Readiness (CWR) gives young people a recognisable qualification, to show employers they have relevant experience for the workplace."

https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/what-we-do/our-products/certificate-of-work-readiness/

　Here`s the hard sell:
　

Plans to provide funding directly to headteachers

"BATTLE lines are being drawn up over controversial proposals to hand more education funding direct to headteachers instead of councils."

"Local authority leaders have warned SNP proposals to give more funding directly to schools could damage the drive to improve attainment by restricting the use of funding."

"However, Scotland's Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said the plans, included in the party's election manifesto, would give `real power` to schools."

"The row follows the publication of the manifesto which included broad proposals for a shake-up of the ways schools are run with the setting up of education regions."

"In addition, the SNP intends to give more public money directly to headteachers to use on local priorities including moves to close the attainment gap between rich and poor." 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14519827.Councils_attack_SNP_moves_to_give_more_money_to_headteachers/

How will this affect headteachers in the role of Named Persons ?

Liberia is seeking to outsource its primary school system

"Despite a long-standing public commitment to free education, Liberia recently made the controversial announcement that it is seeking to outsource its entire primary school system to a private provider."

"Education Minister of Liberia, George Werner, is planning an unprecedented public-private partnership (PPP) with US company Bridge International Academies (BIA). On the table is a five year contract worth 65 million to manage the country’s pre-primary and primary education system. If the partnership is pursued public funding will pay for BIA’s services and parents will have to fund 5 - 7 $ per term per child, excluding meals. This cost was found to be closer to 12$ to 20$ per child, entirely unaffordable for most poor households in Kenya and Uganda where BIA currently operates 400 nursery and primary schools."

"Bridge Academies delivers a highly structured, technologically driven model of education in which teachers deliver lessons from scripts on tablets. BIA asserts its approach offers students access to quality education they would otherwise not have, self-reporting significant gains in reading and maths attainment among their pupils. A one year pilot programme will be introduced in 70 Liberian schools come September 2016 before the half decade deal is struck. The pilot, not funded by the Liberian government, will be evaluated by an independent study after which the partnership may be discontinued."

"Bridge International Academies is ambitious, seeking to reach 10 million children in the coming decade. Powerful backers support their efforts including Bill Gates, the UKs Department for International Development (DfID), Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the World Bank, which wired the company 10 million dollars. This support was starkly criticized by civil society organisations across Kenya and Uganda, who have since cautioned Liberia not to sell what should be a public good. Likewise, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, characterised the decision to relinquish responsibility of public education to a commercially driven organisation as a `gross violation of the right to education` which undermines Liberia’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to free education. "

http://thefuturescentre.org/signals-of-change/7398/unprecedented-liberia-outsource-primary-education-system

A bit of doublespeak from the UN there.

See also http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/public-private-partnerships.html

High Court rules in favour of dad

"A High Court ruling supporting a dad who took his child on holiday in term time could pave the way for other parents to do the same."

"Jon Platt refused to pay a £120 fine for taking his daughter to Florida."

"He said it was the principle rather than the cost as he believed he shouldn’t be criminalised when his six-year-old had regular attendance during the rest of the year."

"The issue of the fine, which was originally £60 and then doubled because of his refusal to pay, went before the Isle of Wight Magistrates’ Court in October last year."

"Mr Platt won his case, but the local authority appealed the decision in the High Court - and top judges ruled in the dad’s favour."

"On Friday, Lord Justice Lloyd Jones and Mrs Justice Thirlwall dismissed the council’s challenge, ruling that the magistrates had `not erred in law` when reaching their decision."

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/school-term-time-holiday-ruling-11329156

Subsidy Sam livens up windfarm debate

"Tommy the Turbine has a fictional rival to liven up the debate about windfarms. A leading Highland objector has created `Subsidy Sam` to challenge a character used by the industry."

 

"Sam highlights the massive public subsidies used to finance the technology. Beauly-based Lyndsey Ward, who ... published her story online, claims youngsters have been `indoctrinated` by a host of school activities including visits to windfarms."

"`Tommy the Turbine` is already online and been used in schools in Ireland. She said: `What`s been happening is similar to what fast food and fizzy drink makers did previously - sponsoring school sports equipment and leaving us with an obesity epidemic."

"The wind industry goes into schools in Scotland and never is the other side of the story told. Youngsters are being brainwashed into thinking we`d be doomed without windfarms. It`s a cynical ploy to keep the subsidies flowing into the next generation."

"Caithness campaigner Reanda Herrick successfully fought to have turbines removed from schoolgrounds after a series of incidents involving faulty towers."

"She said: `They never tell children how turbines chop up birds, or about the thousands of trees felled to make way for windfarms or how often blades fly off, or tell children in poor households why their parents can`t afford their energy bills.`"

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2016/4/22/in-the-news-today-josh-370.html

Stirlingshire school has structural faults

"Balfron High School in Stirlingshire has been partially closed due to structural problems."

 

"A total of 440 pupils will not be attending the school in the coming week as a result."
 
"During precautionary checks, issues with walls in the stairwell, gym and atrium were discovered."

"The school was built under a private finance initiative about 15 years ago but not by the firm involved with recent problems with Edinburgh schools. "

"A wall at the school was damaged during winter storms but no-one was injured. "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-36235690

Corbyn and Cameron clash on education

"Small rural primary schools will be offered protection against closure in a concession to appease Tory MPs after a backlash against plans to force all schools to become academies."

"Ministers are also willing to listen to concerns among Conservative backbenchers over proposals to end the election of parents to school governing bodies. Explicit protection for village schools, probably with additional money after a national formula is introduced to fund all schools in the same way, will be accompanied by a charm offensive in the coming weeks... "

"However, there will be no reversal of the core policy of forcing all schools to become academies by 2020, or have plans to do so by 2022, which will feature in the Queen’s Speech. “We are certainly not on U-turn territory. That’s just not on the cards,” a Department for Education source said. “There is support for this across government.” "

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/primaryschools/article4733844.ece?shareToken=659951495f1dffdef3b7ba1323f8fce2

The core academy policy continues

"Small rural primary schools will be offered protection against closure in a concession to appease Tory MPs after a backlash against plans to force all schools to become academies."

"Ministers are also willing to listen to concerns among Conservative backbenchers over proposals to end the election of parents to school governing bodies. Explicit protection for village schools, probably with additional money after a national formula is introduced to fund all schools in the same way, will be accompanied by a charm offensive in the coming weeks..."

"However, there will be no reversal of the core policy of forcing all schools to become academies by 2020, or have plans to do so by 2022, which will feature in the Queen’s Speech. `We are certainly not on U-turn territory. That’s just not on the cards,` a Department for Education source said. `There is support for this across government.`"

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/primaryschools/article4733844.ece?shareToken=659951495f1dffdef3b7ba1323f8fce2

The Scottish Government appears to support free schools because it was reported on the Holyrood website on 1 February 2016 that:

Scotland’s local authorities should be broken up into smaller, more community-based units, according to former education secretary Michael Russell.

Education budgets, for example, should be controlled by individual schools... while community councils should be given more power.

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/former-education-secretary-michael-russell-calls-break-councils

A few days later, the Scottish Government met with the Hometown Education Learning Partnership, a charity set up to assist parent groups form state-funded autonomous schools. The government had this to say about the meeting:

"Our approach to raising standards must be based on what works and we are always open to new ideas for improving our education system. Ultimately, any decision on this, or any other, proposal would be based on the needs of Scotland’s education system as a whole."

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/3136/investigation-who-is-really-behind-the-push-for-autonomous-state-schools-in-scotland

Leaving the electorate needing clarification, as usual, but it looks like this could be the beginning of more public private partnerships.