Heaven knows what it must be like to be among those parents with children at Headlands School in Bridlington, East Yorkshire. And who could blame them if they feel utterly betrayed by an education system that would seem to have failed lamentably in its duty of protection and care? In just three years, three male […]

Rising school standards were meant to be at the heart of the New Labour project. "Education, education, education" was the famous mantra of Tony Blair, who promised that his Government would transform the quality of British schools.  When he succeeded Blair in the summer, Gordon Brown promised exactly the same driving commitment.  "Education is my […]

Labour Ministers are fond of telling us that education is one of the Government’s success stories. They boast of soaring investment in schools, ever rising standards, record-breaking exam results and huge improvements in literacy and numeracy. We are informed that, thanks to eleven years of Labour rule, Britain now has “a world-class” education system, equipping […]

The concept of choice has long supposed to be one of the central plans of the Government’s education policy. Over the last decades, Tony Blair and a succession of Labour education secretaries have trumpetted their commitment to increased parental power over schools admissions. So in a much hyped speech in 2005, the Prime Minister heralded […]

Her words are enough to make Jamie Oliver tear his hair out. Joanne, 14, a pupil at a large comprehensive in London, is sucking her Triple Power Push Pop as she explains to me why she insists on stuffing her mouth with such sweets. "I don’t buy any of the stuff in the canteen, it’s […]

You might expect John Reid to know a lot about the vile culture of violence that has disfigured our country and made it feel less safe than at any time in living memory. Parts of the Home Secretary’s constituency on the eastern edge of Glasgow are notorious. Gangs of adolescent louts with knives have created […]

Bill Pitt, the former head of Manchester council’s Nuisance Strategy Unit and now the leading expert on asbos in the country, is a wiry and intense man. ‘The yobs in Manchester are frightened of us,’ he says proudly. ‘We have a reputation for being callous, brutal, obsessive and single-minded. This is an important myth to […]

The firework exploded at our feet in the grotty north London playground. Three white boys snarled with laughter from behind the hoods of their green parkas. One of them chucked another firework in our direction. It fizzled and snapped. My brother and I retreated, but my father, in a tough-guy Marks and Spencer anorak, approached […]