An explanation of Exposure:

Pathetic Fallacy in Exposure:

Structure and Para-rhyme in Exposure:

Alliteration in Exposure and Spring Offensive:

The background to Exposure:

An explanation of Spring Offensive:

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2. Wilfred Owen’s poetry — a Prezi with links to YouTube explanations of the poems
3. The Machine Gunners — Teaching Activities, links and videos

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2. Wilfred Owen’s poetry — a Prezi with links to YouTube explanations of the poems
3. A presentation on the problems with Free Schools

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1. Michael Gove’s ruinous plans for education
2. What secondary school should I choose for my son? The comprehensive, the Academy or the Federated School?
3. The Local Network Network: a broad church

Recently, concerned by the popularity and broad-mindedness of the LSN, the Conservatives have got very worried and started attacking us, and me in particular. My crime is that I’ve changed my mind: a few years ago I used to be a strong advocate of a “voucher-type” system for schools, a bit like the one that Michael Gove is trying to institute right now. I felt at the time that this was the way to raise standards. I also sent my son to a private school in keeping with these beliefs: I felt that a free market system would solve our education problems.  I believed in selection.

Then my world began to unravel. It was clear that my son hated the private school where he was being prepped to take entrance tests for the private secondary schools. Furthermore, a huge amount of research evidence was emerging from the United States and Sweden that creating a free market in schools was not only not working, it was lowering standards, increasing social segregation and wasting huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. I swallowed my pride and admitted I was wrong: I pulled my son out of private school and — once he was at our local primary — saw how he flourished mixing with children of all social backgrounds. I also saw that the educational approach of his state primary school was much more effective in raising his attainment because it motivated him to learn, rather than creating in him an awful fear of failure.

I conducted more research into charter schools. I was (and am still) doing a PhD which trained me up in analysing statistics; I saw that the most substantive statistical research into charter schools, the Stanford Credo report, conclusively proved that charter schools and an unbridled free market system in education led to a lowering of educational standards.  These views began to surface in my critiques of the education policies of the Labour and Coalition governments for various publications and blogs I wrote.

I changed my mind. In this sense, I am a problem for the Conservatives: I used to believe that selective schooling and a free-market system would raise standards, lifting an elite above the lumpen mass of the uneducated. I no longer believe that. I would like to thank Paul Goodman, the author of the Conservatiive blog on me, because he’s carefully selected quotes from my articles over the years that have charted the change in my views. It was fascinating for me to read it to see how far I’ve come. A few years ago, I was a different person; I was convinced that the free market could solve all our woes. I was a classic Tory. Now I’m not; I am full of doubts about that vision of the world. We live in very different times.

We have a duty to educate all our children to a high standard and insist upon high standards in all schools. But we can’t do that in a selective system: schools need a mix of children of all abilities. Furthermore, schools do a better job if they are supported and celebrated, rather than attacked and denigrated.

What I like about the LSN is that it embraces people like me. I remain fairly “traditional” in other areas in that I think we do need to keep Standard Assessment Tests, I am suspicious of much of the jargon that floats around in education, and I actually believe that a lot of the Labour government’s policies, which overloaded schools with centralised dictats, were wrong. I no doubt hold some views which other LSN supporters disagree with, but that’s the whole point. We are a broad church. We are not about supporting one political point of view, we are about supporting and encouraging a school system which will educate all our children to the highest standards.

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3. Why do our politicians think American charter schools are so great?

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 fill in to get thousands of pounds worth of taxpayers’ money. Filling it in is a lot less work than getting a bank loan!

It is ridiculously reluctant to ask any searching questions, other than the obvious legal questions checking to see the applicants are not criminals or whether there are conflicts of interest.

Key questions the form DOES NOT ask but we must INSIST does:

• Is there spare capacity in other state schools? If so, with some support, can these schools meet parents’ needs much more cheaply than setting up a new school?
• Are there people involved with the setting up of the school who are going to benefit financially either directly or indirectly with its setting up?
• What assurances are you going to give that standards will be high and the curriculum will be broad and balanced?
• Will the admissions process be fair and contain children of the local community of all abilities, social classes and ethnicities?

These are the questions in more detail:

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1. Gove’s free schools policy is already in trouble
2. Why are “free” schools getting so much money when most schools are seeing their budgets cut?
3. Our analysis challenges the idea that free schools will save money or improve standards

Perhaps the DfE will deny this but the fact is that this is bound to happen when you have a system where funds follow the pupil. When pupils are taken away from local schools, headteachers have the choice but to make teachers redundant and increase class sizes because they simply don’t have the funds to run the school as before on a falling roll. What is more, these expensive free schools will inevitably take money from the overall pot of money given to schools; details about this are sketchy at the moment but the LSN is working on finding out precise figures.

While I have a great deal of sympathy with Montessori’s approach, I have seen far too many Montessori schools in the private sector that are sub-standard; these teachers need to be very RIGOROUSLY trained! If they are not, there’s chaos and no learning. Quite a few untrained Montessori teachers basically see the system as letting pupils do whatever they want. That’s why it’s so worrying that free schools will not require properly trained teachers.

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1. Our analysis challenges the idea that free schools will save money or improve standards
2. Is extending the school day the key to raising standards?
3. Is extending the school day the key to raising standards?

One of the problems at the moment is that British society is very fragmented with the rich living in their fortified bubbles and the poorest feeling marginalised and disenfranchised. Getting everyone to opt into the local school will solve a lot of problems; troublesome teenagers becomes everyone’s business, not just long-suffering teachers. I feel empowered now to talk to local youths who are causing trouble in my urban area because I know a lot of them indirectly through my son’s local school. And talking to them works: youths know that they are being watched, that there are boundaries, that their school will know if they are badly behaved outside it. It’s when you start saying hello to the hoodies that things begin to change; you don’t have to hug them or love them, but saying hello and having a word makes a big difference.

Obviously, this isn’t the only solution. The Families and Schools Together Programme has shown that getting parents more involved in school life really helps the behaviour of problem children and improve their life prospects immensely.

I was talking on BBC News about these issues on Sunday 31st October.

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1. Local schools should be at the heart of the ‘The Big Society’
2. My joy that my son is going to the local, much-improved comprehensive
3. What secondary school should I choose for my son? The comprehensive, the Academy or the Federated School?

It’s fascinating that the chief schools adjudicator has spoken out; he’s basically initiated a one-man battle against the government and its double-dealings in education. Who will win? Will the Lib-Dems, who hate these policies, demand Gove’s head now that someone so eminent has spoken out and his policies are so unpopular?

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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 he was wrong to smash bottles on the ground. He wasn’t in school uniform — it was a Saturday. I told him that I knew where he went to school and that I knew the teachers there.  Having been rather truculent and cheeky, his whole demeanour now changed. I was no longer an ‘alien’ that he had no connection with but someone who knew people he knew. He grumbled an apology and he and his mates moved on. It was a telling moment because I’ve spent years observing such behaviour in my area — having lived here for fourteen years now — but never dared to intervene. I intervened because I felt connected to the local school, his school. I knew that they kept good order there and that they would address the problem if I phoned them. He knew that too. There was a sense that the boundaries, the values, the discipline of the institution had some value outside the school gates. I haven’t seem him or his mates behave like that again in and around the estate where I live in east London.

It made me see that the local school should be at the heart of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’; they could be the engines for addressing problems and arriving at solutions. If every child attended the local secondary school instead of migrating to various academies and private schools as those with the know-how or money tend to, the community here would certainly be much the stronger for it. I’ve noticed that since having my child in the local school that I feel much less fearful on the streets for the simple reason that I know a lot more people; the community is no longer the ‘other’ — I am part of it. ‘Free schools’ will increase social divisions even more here; religious and social groups will seek to set up their own schools, taking their children away from the poor children in the area, and thus ghetto-ising things even further.

I think we need to be even bolder and make local schools entrepreneurial hubs, locus points for innovation, ideas and regeneration.

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3. The councillor in charge of my LA’s schools will tell parents not to send their children to my local comp if it becomes an Academy…

And yet, if you actually go around the schools, which one comes out best? The local comp! Why? The facilities are great, the teachers are approachable and the pupils seem very nice. The results are good as well! It has some of the best value-added results in the country.

The rumours are difficult to believe. And yet, they persist. Somebody’s brother taught there and says it’s monstrous, so and so’s sister went there and had a rubbish time and so on. They all create an atmosphere of panic. I think parents need to calm down and stop feeling that there is a magical school out there that doesn’t have “issues”; they all do. It’s a school’s ability to be honest and straight-talking with parents that is most important; that way problems can be sorted out.

My son liked the local comp the best: he felt he could get on with the teachers, he liked the fantastic sports’ hall, and thought the lessons seemed good. At the Academies, it felt a bit “wannabe” public school and like there was a bit of “wall” between parents and staff. A defensive attitude.

I want my son to go to the local school where I believe he will get the best education: I believe he will be well taught there, that he will be motivated to learn, and he will feel part of the local community. Overall, I firmly believe he will be happiest there.

However, the warnings are coming thick and fast from parents. I feel though that if there are problems at the local comprehensive, I’ll be able to talk to the teachers about it: it’s closeby, the teachers are very responsive and they seem to care. Moreover, my whole family will become part of the wider community if he goes to the school: we’ll know everyone. Once you are part of a wider community, problems can be solved.

I feel that the school can bring a lot to my son and he, in turn, can bring a lot to the school.

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3. My joy that my son is going to the local, much-improved comprehensive