Labour U-Turn on Free Schools and Welfare

Any central governments will want to reduce LAs as it cuts central costs.

Not unexpected but disappointing.

Weird, because I saw something completely different on the news. Hunt said he wasn't going to close down the free schools that Gove opened, but the local authorities would have oversight and the teachers would have to be qualified. Also there would only be new schools opening up in areas where there was identifiable need seen by local authorities.
That's what I thought I heard him say, anyway.

POGS Which Shadow Secretary made that ungrammatical statement and who was speaking on behalf of the Labour Party?

And Stephen Twigg has been saying exactly the same about existing free schools for two years. Not much of a u-turn really.

jen - yes, that's what I heard

Yes that is what it says on the BBC website jen - very qualified support and not as "free" as they are now.
Grant Shapps is quoted as saying that free schools are driving up standards. I would have thought it was too soon to assess the progress made by pupils.
You would only really be able to say this after a group of students had gone through the 5 years to GCSE - and even progress data needs a couple of years to see if they are making more or less than expected progress. This is what OFSTE will be looking at currently in the first batch that opened.

Durham Free School has just opened. It has 31 year 7 pupils and 9 staff. If that does not do better than the local authority school it took over from, it will be a pity for those kids.
It opened up in a sports academy and college that got closed down because of falling pupil numbers in the area. It's still not a permanent site, but if it moves and the building is sold off, the community of over a thousand will lose all the sports facilities. However, 31 pupils will have the equivalent of private education, so that's alright then!
The head looks like he could be Lembit Opik's brother.

the economics of that sound highly suspect, even with free schools being given extra cash. Not 9 full time qualified staff, I'll bet. And I wonder how they will manage when it's time to turn the heating on - school boilers not designed for heating one classroom.

I think they've split them up into 2 tutor groups. At first it was for 60 pupils. Then it was 40 they were expecting to sign up, split into two groups. Now there are only 31. The ads for teaching staff are fte, so it does not say how many fte there are. But they have to be able to cover a range of subjects. I wonder if they are all heads of departments.

Just watching Meg Hillier on Daily Politics and she was turning on a sixpence on Free Schools. Agreed one minute and then against the other, very confusing. They reiterated Tristram Hunts views, listen for yourselves.

I will stand by my OP. If you want to hear what Hunt said watch Andrew Marr, Sunday 13th. Also read the interview with Tristram Hunt in the DM Sunday Oct 13th., I have no idea how to 'blue' the doo da.

Absent.
It was Rachel Reeves, Shadow Works and Pension Secretary, who has said Labour will be tougher on Welfare than the Government and I believe Liam Byrne said it during the Labour Party Conference. Yes, surprise, surprise I did watch ALL the Conferences.

Jendurham. Which news channel showed Tristram Hunt saying he would close down Free Schools?

As for the matter of using non-qualified teaching staff I find this highly amusing. Tristram Hunt did/does exactly that. This is not a new phenomenon surely.

It's true pogs that some schools use staff without teaching qualifications. In my experience this is for vocational subjects such as building, where the qualified teachers are pretty hard to come by, or people who are employed as TAs but are training as teachers.
I also know that getting 1/5 of a qualified maths teacher, English teacher or science teacher who will slot into your time table is extremely difficult. But maybe slightly easier if you only have to timetable "one class" ?
There may be lots of people out there who have the subject knowledge, but understanding how to teach within the confines of todays requirements is another thing altogether. I would not need to go on a refresher course for the science, but I would need to go on a refresher course for the methods that are currently deemed essential by OFSTED, if I was even to get a sniff at a satisfactory rating for a lesson.

Pogs, I assume you are quoting from this Toby Young article in the Telegraph.

"Perhaps the reason Hunt has maintained a dignified silence is because he has taught in various state schools himself, in spite of not having a PGCE. As the Daily Mail pointed out earlier this year, Hunt boasted in a Guardian interview that he regularly drops in to the schools in his constituency to deliver history lessons. "I teach in schools in Stoke when they allow me, to make sure I know what's going on," be said. "I do a class at the FE college about Cape Town as a city of empire. And I do an industrial revolution class at the sixth form. And I taught a class on the Spanish Armada to a primary school."
Nothing wrong with Hunt doing some teaching, of course. I'm sure he's very good at it – just as I'm sure David Miliband was when he taught a class at Haverstock Comprehensive. It's just a tad hypocritical for Kevin Brennan to condemn David Cameron for "allowing unqualified teachers into our classrooms" when those "unqualified teachers" include Labour's Shadow Education Secretary and the brother of the Labour leader."

I think you will agree that a highly qualified academic historian teaching occasional "special" history lessons and a former Foreign Secretary working with sixth formers studying politics, can only be beneficial. I am sure that both were working with the full support of the teachers in the school.

I think you must surely be able to see that this is quite different from a 27 year old with no experience in education becoming head if a primary school.

I think you need to read what I wrote again, POGS.
I said that Hunt said he was NOT going to close down free schools.
I do not need to read the DM. Here is the Guardian one.
www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/13/tristam-hunt-labour-free-schools
There is nothing wrong with Tristram Hunt going in to schools and taking lessons on things he knows a lot about. Parents do that quite regularly. I would love to see Gove being left in charge of a year 9 class.
However, the teacher would have been there in the primary school and the secondary school. You did not need teaching qualifications for FE, not sure about now.

Point of interest; does anyone know if all MPs have to have police checks?

Mamie.

No I was not quoting from the Telegraph, I remembered watching Hunt blush when he was attempting to accuse the government of bad practice by using unqualified teachers in Parliament, he was rightly shown to be a hypocrite as he had done exactly what he was criticising. That happens often.

I agree with your last post entirely! I have to say that I do not think however a 27 year old with no experience of education would become a Head of a primary school though.

Absent
Enter 'Rachael Reeves on Welfare' in your search engine and you can read The Guardian on her comment.

I must get out more.

Here is the link to the story of the 27 year old unqualified head of a Free School, who has resigned after six months.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24466928

There is a huge difference between appointing an unqualified teacher to teach full time and using an expert in a particular field to give voluntary, occasional, special lessons, with the full support of the school.

Yes quite - a visiting person like that is not employed. And if you do take non-qualified staff in a big secondary school, there are the resources to support them.
Appointing an unqualified head was patently batty and I am surprised the Department was happy to let this go through. It is symptomatic of the mad rush over the last 2 years to maximise the number of free schools and academies to keep the sec of state happy.

Mamie

I stand corrected. I have just read about Pimlico Primary School as you suggested, thank you.

It is interesting that Pimlico Primary is connected to Pimlico Academy. The site I read said Pimlico Academy was formed in 2008 after the original school was placed under special measures in 2006. In 2010 the Pimlico Academy was rated as 'Outstanding' by OFSTED.

Mamie

I stand corrected. I have just read about Pimlico Primary as you suggested, thank you.

It is interesting that Pimlico Primary is connected to Pimlico Academy. The site I read said Pimlico Academy was formed in 2008 after the original school was placed under special measures in 2006. In 2010 the Pimlico Academy was rated as 'Outstanding' by OFSTED.

I agree, JessM. I think that Pimlico Primary is one of the few Academies in the primary sector and can therefore appoint whoever they want without needing to go through any Department.
Unfortunately in many primaries, the head has to teach as well as do admin. It would be interesting to know who was supposed to be her mentor.
It happens in secondary schools that there are non-teaching heads without qualifications. You never hear what happens to them. I wonder if the information would be available through a freedom of information request.
When I was teaching, I used to have people coming in to my classrooms, just like Hunt did. I would think that any school would want a historian to come in and teach the kids, to give them some idea that you do not just learn from teachers. In history in particular there were often grandparents coming in to talk about the war, etc. He probably made a mistake in using the word teaching, but that's what he was doing. I was often asked if I regretted giving up teaching, and I always said I still was, just about different things, like food and nutrition and vegetarianism instead of English and maths.

No Jen, it is a free school not an academy. It is on the site of the secondary academy. Free schools can indeed appoint who they like, though. As far as I know primaries can convert to academy status, but I haven't heard of any new ones being created.

A free school run by the academy on whose site it sits, with the same chair of governors who has now been made a lord and is an education minister, after he and his wife have given over £300,000 to the Tory party.

I love to see that toadyism is alive and well!

Jendurham

I am sorry I have only just posted, Granny duties. You did not say Hunt was going to close down Free Schools. For that I apologise, I read your first sentence and misread it's meaning with regard to my OP.

Can I say something with regard to your point about a Tory donating £300.000 and the post which calls it toadyism.

If the school was under special measure in 2006 and became an Academy in 2008 that would have been whilst Labour were in government. I am sorry but if it is a choice of a school failing it's children just to keep a wealthy Tory in his 'box' or taking his money to provide a better education I think I know which I would prefer.

Does it matter? Cash for Honours comes to mind!. They all do it but if is done for good intentions does it really matter whether it is Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Monster Raving Loony money.