The Local Schools Network

local schools, education reform, government policy

  • How to analyse a poem: a Gilbert vodcast on “The Sick Rose”

    Motivated by the £10K offered to my school for winning The Dream Teacher competition, I’ve decided to start videoing little sections of my “teacherly” explanations and uploading them to YouTube. My videos are not of great quality, but I think my enthusiasm comes through! Like thousands of teachers up and down the country, I do this […]

  • The omens don’t look good for Gove’s Troops To Teachers programme

    Guess how many military personnel have applied to become teachers as part of the Teach First Leadership Development Programme this year? Five. And guess how many have been hired? Zero. The Teach First figures for last year are similarly dismal with eleven military personnel applying, and two being hired. To put these figures in context, […]

  • Birbalsingh has changed her tune since she was Head of Languages

    IMPORTANT NOTE: “Katharine Birbalsingh has asked us not to name any of her previous schools in our blogs and comments  as the ‘Ordinary School’ featured in  ‘To Miss with Love’ is fictional.” Since reading her fictional diatribe against state education, To Miss With Love, and writing a review of it for The Observer,  I’ve been starting to investigate […]

  • Should the state be funding schools which were founded by a racist mystic?

    The news that there are 25 Steiner schools seeking to be funded as “free schools” and that there is already one which has state funds should be deeply troubling for most right-minded people. Steiner schools have the reputation in this country for being rather progressive, liberal schools with some quirky ideas, but basically perfect for […]

  • Our analysis challenges the idea that free schools will save money or improve standards

    Exclusive analysis conducted by the LSN shows the free schools project is going to be a very inefficient use of resources and will not, in all probability, raise standards. This is because the vast majority of free schools that are going to be set up will be small in size and our analysis of the […]

  • The hippest, edgiest pop stars attended state schools! (Only the wimps went to private schools)

    The biggest rock and roll acts of the past twenty years attended state schools. Robbie Williams, possibly the most successful pop act of the last decade attended Mill Hill Primary School at Stoke-on-Trent then St Margaret Ward Roman Catholic School in Tunstall, both community schools. The edgiest, hippest band of the past few years is […]

  • Is extending the school day the key to raising standards?

    Braving the ice and snow on my bike, I cycled down to the King Solomon Academy (KSA) near Marylebone station today. Behind the black gates of the entrance there’s a huge banner proclaiming  ”Climbing the mountain to university” which told me a lot straight away. This Academy, run by ARK, an education charity, is all about instilling high […]

  • Now the Lib-Dems have got their way over sports funding, can we have more of their education policies please?

    It’s brilliant news to read today that the government is now considering saving specialist sports teaching in our state schools. The general outcry against the axeing of sports’ provision in schools should make the Coalition think again about their policies. It appears that Cameron is now intervening to save the funding, essentially over-ruling Michael Gove, […]

  • 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 […]