Opinion

Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.

  • The Coalition’s Academy Plans backfire

    A new report shows that the Coalition’s education policy of allowing all schools to become Academies has seriously backfired. The stated aim was to raise standards across the board, particularly in our most socially disadvantaged areas. A new report published by the Centre for Economic Performance shows that the majority of schools who have become […]

  • The Local Schools Network: a broad church

    The aim of the LSN is to support and celebrate local schools. I was talking at an Academy, Barnfield South in Luton, yesterday as a guest speaker at their prize-giving. It was very clear to me that this was an excellent local school, with fair admissions and a staff committed to their local community. All […]

  • Vital questions we must insist go on the proposal form for Free Schools NOW!!!

    There are serious problems with the Department for Education’s application form for free schools. These are the questions we MUST insist the DfE must put on free schools application forms, otherwise the process will not be honest, transparent or correct. Take a look at the proposal form yourself! This is the form that applicants have to […]

  • Free school looks set to increase class sizes, cause redundancies and lower standards in Crawley

    The Discovery New School in West Sussex plans to open as a Montessori Primary School in the Crawley area in 2011. It aims specifically to have small class sizes. This is bound to be at the cost to neighbouring schools in this area. There are already 28 primary schools in this area and clearly extra […]

  • Why local schools are the solution to knife crime

    Brooke Kinsella, the Eastenders’ actress, whose relative, Ben Kinsella, was stabbed to death in London recently has produced a report for the government arguing that we must have lessons in school on knife crime. This is an idea I supported in my book,Yob Nation, but since then my thoughts have developed, having examined a great […]

  • Watch out more school selection is on the way…

    England’s chief schools adjudicator, who oversees admissions to schools, is obviously very suspicious about the government’s intention to “slim down” the admissions’ code. He clearly thinks Gove and co are intent upon allowing schools more ways to select pupils by ability and ethnicity. Gove says that he wants to make things “fairer” but as we […]

  • Local schools should be at the heart of the ‘The Big Society’

    The boy smashed a bottle right in front of me and then snarled. I thought for a moment whether I should confront him. Then I recognised him; he attended the local school — the one my son will go to soon — and so I decided that for once I was going to say that […]

  • What secondary school should I choose for my son? The comprehensive, the Academy or the Federated School?

    My son is in Year 6 of primary school in Tower Hamlets; there’s real anxiety amongst the parents at his school about choosing a secondary school. The local comprehensive, within LA control, despite being radically improved, has a “bad” reputation. All sorts of rumours are floating around about it; students being stabbed there, rampant bullying, […]

  • Are too few incompetent teachers being sacked?

    Some commentators have felt that there are as many as 17,000 incompetent teachers in our schools, and yet only a handful of them have been sacked officially. A recent Panorama programme suggested that these teachers are passed from school to school because headteachers are too frightened to sack them. It’s basically easier for a head […]

  • It’s The Parents, Stupid — Re-thinking the issues surrounding private and state education

    There was a good turn out at the Wellington Festival of Education, making me think there’s a real value in running something like this in an environment which is less loaded with privilege and dripping with elitism. Wellington College’s grounds are stunning: it has huge grounds, hundreds of acres of playing fields and lots of […]

  • The National Scandal! Teaching Reading — my correspondence with Susan Godsland at the RRF

     Speaking at the Reading Reform Foundation conference has really crystallised my thoughts on the teaching on reading. I found it both positive and depressing. Positive in that the RRF is offering concrete solutions that appear to work, but depressing but they’ve been ignored for too long. Here is my correspondence so far with Susan Godsland. […]

  • Have government policies failed to teach our nation to read?

    I spoke at WAVES — the Reading Reform Foundation Conference — today, giving my views on twenty years of teaching — and sometimes failing — to teach reading. I spoke about the changing times: how when I first taught there was no internet, no mobile phones, no social networking sites, and how the class reader was […]

  • Is it harder than ever to be a teacher?

    There’s a crisis of identity at the heart of the teaching profession. We don’t know exactly who we are or what our roles should entail. Are we the founts of all knowledge who pour it like milk into the empty vessels of our pupils? Or are we merely facilitators of learning, guiding our pupils through […]

  • Exciting developments in the E Book world

    There are lots of new opportunities in the world of E-Books, which I’m just getting my head around. Here are some interesting sites: Follow these links for a flavour of what’s happening in the world of digital texts: www.futureofthebook.org.uk www.bookfutures.com www.fictional-stimulus.ning.com www.ifsoflo.ning.com www.insearchoflosttim.net www.songsofimaginationanddigitisation.net www.thegoldennotebook.org

  • Should teachers use force to break up pupils who are fighting?

    The question is a tricky one. As a young teacher, I got into trouble for pulling two pupils apart while they were scrapping on the floor. One of the pupils claimed I’d manhandled him and complained to a senior member of staff. Luckily, my manager knew what the child was like and didn’t believe his […]

  • Should we get rid of exams?

    There’s a lot of evidence that exams actually help children learn if they are properly designed and executed. The problem at the moment is that there are far too many exams and what’s being tested is far too narrow. I think we should set more real tests in our exams, using ‘real-life’ facilities. For example, […]

  • Are truants overwhelmingly from poor backgrounds?

    Recent research completed by the Tories suggests what we’ve known for a long time that kids from socially deprived backgrounds are much more likely to bunk off school than their middle class peers. I appeared on BBC Breakfast talking about the issue. I categorised children who bunk off into three categories: the arrogant, the alienated […]

  • One of the most important books of the Noughties

    It’s getting to that point when we’re all looking back at the decade and thinking about what are the really important books. My vote goes to Sathnam Sanghera’s The Boy With A Top Knot, a brilliant memoir about Sathnam’s quest to find the truth about his father’s madness. Satnam grew up in Wolverhampton in the […]

  • Abu Dhabi — The only city thriving in this recession

    Abu Dhabi is not suffering like Dubai because this Emirate has cash reserves of billions, built up over the years by storing the profits from its oil. Now it’s beginning to spend it, building Dubai-style malls and hotels. I’m here visiting a friend who is the Business Editor of the National, a new newspaper set […]

  • Why have we gone so wrong with the way we educate our children?

    The Cambridge Review of Primary Education is speaking sense to me. We have constructed a curriculum that fundamentally alienates our children with its emphasis upon attainment and its lack of thought on how we intrinsically motivate our children. Document 1 Document 2