Fiona Millar
Fiona Millar is a writer and journalist specialising in education and parenting issues. She was educated in London and graduated from UCL in 1979. She started her career on the Mirror Group’s graduate training scheme in Devon in 1980, then worked on the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express, as a news reporter, lobby correspondent and freelance feature writer. Between 1989 and 1994 she wrote the MP’s profiles in Parliament’s The House Magazine and in 1993 she co-authored a book of interviews with prominent women, By Faith and Daring with Glenys Kinnock.
Between 1995 and 1997 she worked in the Leader of the Opposition’s Office and between 1997 and 2003 she worked for Prime Minister Tony Blair as a special adviser. She now writes a column in Education Guardian, is a contributor to Commentisfree, the Guardian‘s online comment page and takes part in television and radio debates about education, parenting and family policy.
In 2004 Fiona wrote and presented a film The Best for My Child about parental choice for Channel Four. She has also presented several programmes for Teachers TV about parents and schools and has taken part in the Teachers TV Big Debate series. She recently co-presented The School Report, a documentary about the end of the 11 plus transfer test in Northern Ireland, with former Ofsted Chief Inspector Chris Woodhead. In 2006 she published, with Melissa Benn, A Comprehensive Future. Quality and Equality For All Our Children for the campaigning group Compass.
In 2009 she published The Secret World of the Working Mother looking at the experiences of women from all walks of life around the country as they juggle work, home and childcare.
Fiona recently stepped down as chair of the Family and Parenting Institute, a leading centre of expertise on family policy in the UK. She is currently chair of Comprehensive Future, which campaigns for fair admissions to secondary schools. Her own children, have all been educated in their local state schools in Camden, North London where she lives with her partner Alastair Campbell. She is currently a chair of governors of a local secondary school, the chair of the governors’ forum which oversees a post 16 consortium of four local secondary schools and is the vice chair of the Camden governors’ association. Fiona also regularly blogs on her website, thetruthaboutourschools.com
Related posts
No related posts.
Join our growing network
By registering, you can share experiences and advice, connect with other local parents and take part in the state education dialogue
Register now →Comments, replies and queries
Reply
Hi Fiona,
I wondered if this letter, which appeared in the Frome Somerset Standard, may be of interest to you.
Keep up the excellent work.
James Lock
http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Free-education-children/article-2932639-detail/article.html
Yes very interesting to see that these policies aren’t only going to upset what Ted Wragg used to describe as the ‘local ecology of schools’ in urban areas.
I will write to the local paper telling people about our site!
Fiona
Thanks for the recent article in the Guardian. My wife recently took a group of her pupils to a Public School and I was astonished to learn how much were the fees. Good luck with the review.
PS The ERG website link to support your campaign seems to have an error and may be worth checking
I am sorry the link to the Education Review Group didn’t seem to work. Try again here.. Their work is very well researched and should be supported.
Dear Fiona, i listened to you being hosted on BBC. got so interested in what you are doing.
your are so great. I am a teacher in Rwanda, a country that is rebuilding its education system. I think your approach is the best in unification of education in local school. Extend your hand outside UK Please!
Thank you. We would be very pleased to see our message about local schools being spread in other countries. Please let us know more about your experience in Rwanda and encourage others to log into our site. Fiona
Hi Fiona
We are a free school group and need some advice and help on our specific problem. I could not find an email address for you so enclosing mine. Please get in touch when you have a minute. I am the chair of trustees
thanks
Nick If you want to make direct contact with us – you can e-mail info@localschoolsnetwork.org.uk
Hi Fiona
I’m a former collegaue of Christine Phllips looking to follow up on her story and look at the London-wide figures. I need a case study though. Can you help?
Please contact me on my email: anna.oneill@bbc.co.uk or 07802 440 424.
Thanks!
Anna
Fiona,
Have you ever considered running for shadow education secretary..? A lot of people would back you, I’m sure.
Hi Fiona,
Our daughter’s school in Bromley, Royston Primary failed its Ofsted last term because of its Maths results. Parents were informed that the school will be looking at the situation and keep us informed. Yesterday, we have received a letter from the Chair of Governors telling us the school was going to become an Academy. Aren’t parents supposed to be consulted? The school seemed to be progressing well and was amongst the top 10 in the Borough. We feel we have been set up and given to choice. The letter is on the school website: http://schoolswire.org/public/royston890.html.nocache
Hi Laurence,
If a school fails its Ofsted the Secretary of State does have powers to intervene and order academy status, but there should be a consultation with parents not least because the choice of sponsor is very important. This letter feels a bit inadequate to me. I would be asking for an open meeting with parents ASAP to discuss. Do keep us posted.
Hi Fiona,
I wasn’t what the best way to contact you was so I thought I’d try here. I am a Sabbatical Officer at Warwick Student’s Union and we are running a wide range of events/talks/debates on issues relating to education in the run up to the National Demo organised by the NUS. The idea is that we get our students debating and talking about a whole host of issues and are thus better informed etc. I am organising events relating to widening participation and social mobility etc and I was wondering if you would be interested in speaking? I have seen you speak on a number of occasions including Labour Conference Fringe events and am always very impressed with your thoughts and views on education.
When are these events?
We are really flexible with times and are looking between Mid-october and early november.
Maybe you could e-mail me via the LSN site ( address on the home page)?
Hi Fiona,
I wondered if you were aware of the enormous hike in interest rates that kids are having to pay on their now very large loans as they go to university this year?
They have sneakily raised the rate to 6.6% payable as soon as the loan starts. we thoguht it was 1.5% and lots of people are totally unaware of this!! – Id love to hear your views?
Please see letter to my MP
I would appreciate you raising the issue of the current interest rate of 6.6% which now applies to student loans effective from the day they start studying for all students commencing study from 1st September 2012.
Apparently this new rate was discreetly brought in on the 22nd August 2012 and all the parents and students I have spoken to do not know that their children will not only have incurred a huge debt as a result of paying the raised tuition fees, but that this will be compounded astronomically by the interest rate now calculated at RPI plus 3%.
I have a son who was lucky enough to start studying last year and not only has he to pay less tuition fees, the rate of interest on his loan is 1.5%. His sister however, starting this year, is facing a huge, ever growing debt.
I would really appreciate this matter being raised in question time as I, and I suspect many others are appalled by the fact that for many students this will simply mean they have no hope at all of paying off their debts. For me it seems that this government is hell bent on a type of apartheid higher education system where only the middle and upper classes can afford to send their children to university.
….for many students this will simply mean they have no hope at all of paying off their debts.
I shouldn’t be too alarmed, Louise.
Your daughter will have to pay nothing until April 2016.
Thereafter, she will pay nothing at all if her earnings are under £21,000 per year.
If, as seems more likely, her earnings are £25,000 per annum, then she’ll be paying back her student loan at the rate of £30 per month.
If, though, she gets a job as an investment banker or something and is earning £60,000 a year, she’ll have to pay closer to £300 per month – but then, she”ll be able to afford it, won’t she?
Although the loan is called a “loan”, it isn’t really. It’s a graduate tax (and a very progressive one) in all but name.
If someone never earns more than £21,000 pa, they will never need to pay back a penny.
£30 per month (what most will pay in the years immediately after graduating) isn’t really so burdensome.
Oh its a tax now. Perhaps of the 300,000 highest earners (including Cameron if his aides are to be believed) didn’t have their tax rate cut, the squeezed wouldn’t have more taxes imposed on them! Troll!
Cutting the marginal tax rate can increase, not decrease, the tax take Marius. You need to go back to Economics 101.
What about being able to buy a house with an enormous ever growing debt? will the graduates be able to get morgages?
Plus as a medic based on her projected income she would have paid £14k interest under the old system, but now she will have to pay a staggering £146K in interest alone!
Dear Fiona
Melissa Benn suggested I contact you to see if you are able to join our Education Debate on 12th December, 12 – 2pm.We are based in Clerkenwell. I am happy to send through further details, my email is hramsden@orms.co.uk. Kind regards, Helen Ramsden
Dear Fiona
I am convening a seminar at London Metropolitan University on 8th July (4.30-6.30pm) which will provide an opportunity to debate the issues around Academies. Professor Becky Francis (who headed up the Academies Commission Report) and Professor Merryn Hutchings (recently completed an evaluation of City Challenge) will give papers. There will also a panel comprising spokespeople (pro- and anti- academies; local stakeholders etc). We would be delighted if you would consider being a panelist. If you are willing and available please email me for further information.
Regards
Jayne Osgood