'The Department for Education has announced ten new religious Academies that will be built as part of its Targeted Basic Need Programme (TBNP), which is intend to establish new schools where there is a shortage of places. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has questioned how religious schools can seek to meet the basic need of the whole of their communities.'

More here.

As I just posted on the BHA FB page, I should have thought that promulgating superstition was the opposite of education. Very upsetting indeed.

i just posted that in the UK coalition thread and compared it with this article

http://www.theguardian.com/education/20 ... es-figures

More than half of new free schools opened with spare places, figures show
Nearly one in four opened with only 60% of the number of pupils they hoped to attract

are "free schools" and academies different types of schools?

WTF is the UK guvinmint opening religious schools for?

Made of Stars wrote:WTF is the UK guvinmint opening religious schools for?

David Cameron's conservative party "Does God", didn't you know.

It's part of Gove's agenda to take education wholly into the private sector. The Tories will privatise everything they can before 2015, and the LibDems are quite happy with that. After all, enabling businesses to make profits at public expense, means that their own opportunities for financial gain increase too.

Aca wrote:i just posted that in the UK coalition thread and compared it with this article

http://www.theguardian.com/education/20 ... es-figures

More than half of new free schools opened with spare places, figures show
Nearly one in four opened with only 60% of the number of pupils they hoped to attract

are "free schools" and academies different types of schools?

Who knows anymore!!!

Existing state schools that are deemed to be failing get turned in academies so they will become at least 'good'.*

Free schools are 'brand' new schools that can be pretty much set up by anyone.

*an interesting point here - a previously OK school that was taken over my academy chain has now been deemed 'special measures'. Does that mean it will be turned into a 'meta academy'?

chairman bill wrote:It's part of Gove's agenda to take education wholly into the private sector. The Tories will privatise everything they can before 2015, and the LibDems are quite happy with that. After all, enabling businesses to make profits at public expense, means that their own opportunities for financial gain increase too.

Indeed.

The academy chain I work for is just dying for the word to be given that they can become profit making. They've even registered at company house; the description of the business along the lines of 'to provide educational services etc...'.

Funnily enough, only a few months ago now, my academy chain were in the news because of spending £thousands on wining and dining. Also the 'trustess' were providing academy services via their own businesses.

Another interesting point; the whole idea of academization was to take schools out of LA control and for them to be directly accountable to the education secretary. Now that the LA's are pretty much decimated, Gove announced the other week that he wanted to set up authorities across the country to take control of the academies.

eta - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ee-schools

campermon wrote:... Now that the LA's are pretty much decimated, Gove announced the other week that he wanted to set up authorities across the country to take control of the academies.

Makes sense - distance these places from the Secretary of State, and when things go tits up, as they seem to be increasingly doing, it's not his fault, and fingers must be pointed at the new authorities.

chairman bill wrote:

campermon wrote:... Now that the LA's are pretty much decimated, Gove announced the other week that he wanted to set up authorities across the country to take control of the academies.

Makes sense - distance these places from the Secretary of State, and when things go tits up, as they seem to be increasingly doing, it's not his fault, and fingers must be pointed at the new authorities.

Aye! It's a fucking disaster waiting to happen.

When my place became an academy a couple of years ago we were instantly cut off from the resources of the LA. For me, it meant losing access to our subject advisors who had a view of what was happening across all the schools in the city. These were the guys who were up to date with all the changes to assessment / curriculum etc often before it became public knowledge because they were involved in national policy setting themselves. They would deliver excellent training sessions at subject leader meeting where we all got to meet together on a regular basis. They also had the clout to bring exam board bosses / senior Ofsted subject inspectors to our meetings to be grilled about changes etc.. Their most important role was to go in and advise and support departments who needed it.

In a meeting with my boss the other day I was astounded to find out that there is nobody at the top who is in charge of monitoring curriculum / advising departments across the chain. Any advisors we want, we have to buy in at great cost. In a recent review by an Ofsted inspector my department got a good ( ), but I want to do better! In the past, I would have asked for LA advisor time, but now I have to buy it in. The Ofsted dude is freelance, and I want his expert advice. I'm estimating it's going to cost the academy £1000's to buy his time.

campermon wrote:... I'm estimating it's going to cost the academy £1000's to buy his time.

Ah, but a private company/individual is thus making a profit at the taxpayer's expense. Or to put it another way, it's about helping private companies suck from the public tit.

chairman bill wrote:

campermon wrote:... I'm estimating it's going to cost the academy £1000's to buy his time.

Ah, but a private company/individual is thus making a profit at the taxpayer's expense. Or to put it another way, it's about helping private companies suck from the public tit.

Yup.

It's been going on for years. For example; Many years ago, the Birmingham LA used to have a supply teacher pool, so if you needed one, you went to the authority. That disappeared because it was so badly run and the teachers they had were crap, So if you need supply staff you have to go to the agencies. A lot of public money has gone to these agencies over the years I've been teaching.

Yes, the whole system is chucking money at the private sector. Even Ofsted inspections are carried out by Serco.

It'll all end in tears.

For us plebs, that is.