I take it you, (like the thousands of others), read, ‘Is Toby ‘FrankenFreeSchoolstein’ Young Destined for PM Gove’s Ministry for Silly Education?’ If not, you can find it
here.
Many discussions arose from this article, of which several frivolous comments punctured my psyche. Probably not what you would expect as they concerned the long gowns worn by the West London Free School teachers, to which it was remarked if pointy hats were worn then they might resemble staff at Hogwarts. I recognize that Hogwarts as a long established and highly successful school for wizards. But it’s also a pure fantasy created in the mind of its author. So sorry parents, buts there’s no point trying to buy a broomstick and moving into its catchment area. In contrast, Toby Young’s West London Free School is real. It has real students, real teachers and a real venue. But is this where the reality ends and the Tory fantasy begins?
So why did the Conservative Party decided to use a sizeable chunk of it recent TV party political broadcast focusing on the West London Free School? Maybe the Tories were desperate and didn’t have anything else to crow about? But still, why choose this school? Should we take it that the Tories wanted to vindicate and illuminate their educational reforms by using their perceived most efficacious Free School Super Star box office hit on the Broadway of Gove? But isn’t this West London Free school currently a tiny secondary school with only two small year groups. It has no track record, only one year of history and no real tangible results ,with the first GCSEs or EngBacs not to be taken for around another 4 years. The school’s founder, who is a minor celeb and self-proclaimed Tory, Toby Young, wrote that his school ‘is a bold experiment.’ So why dress-up this hypothetical mouse foetus of a school in a fake bear skin? Why pretend that the school might be an educational banquet of a feast when there’s a barely a translucent sinew on its minuscule bones? Are we the general public still seen by Tory elitists as numbskulls that need only to be impressed by just a couple of Hogwart-style gowns and kids muttering in Latin regardless of any facts? Are we really that gullible? Ask no questions and prostrate ourselves to the higher echelons of the Tory political class who by their birth know better than us?
Surely I’ve made a mistake and there’s more to this West London Free school or the Tories would have substituted it for one of the many of thousands of outstanding, established and high performing schools? But possibly, is the West London Free School at the beginning of something astounding with these schools opening up everywhere; on a street corner near you very soon? Hasn’t Toby Young declared that he wants to open a new free school every year? Is he the new Free School Caesar of the Govem Empire and might he have the Latin cry of, ‘Veni, vini, vici’? Have I not been given the impression by Mr Young from his numerous TV appearances, that his brand of Free Schools would be eventually ubiquitous? That he might create Latin speaking Free Schools through-out the country? Perhaps I am that numbskull I write of and I’ve totally misconstrued everything as I can’t see a gnat’s pee molecule of a Toby Young Free school beyond Hammersmith and Fulham. But I still don’t understand why the Tories used this school in their recent TV broadcast unless they wanted us to believe in an alleged Free School freak show fantasy?
But what happens if this potential Tory Free School fantasy continues unabated? Will Free School policy eventually follow the yellow brick road and rendezvous with a political dustbin, the size of the Blair Millennium dome? And what new fantasy potions do the Tories have for us brewing in their bubbling policy cauldron? Could ‘Free Hospitals’ or perhaps ’Free Prisons’ be probing their outlandish imaginations? One thing is for sure, I am not buying into this Tory fantasy and I’ll stick to reading the truly fantastic Harry Potter with my children.
Comments
He was the godfather of the London Challenge. And the London Challenge
was responsible for transforming educational opportunities in the capital....
academies are only part of what made the London Challenge so
successful.
The leadership strand of the programme also focused on identifying system leaders who would support weaker schools, and this has proved extremely successful.
Two boroughs, which have been less enthusiastic about academies, Tower Hamlets and Newham, have seen schools like Swanlea and Rokeby become among the fastest improvers in recent years and they have done so by working closely with each other to
drive up standards, high expectations, and strong collaboration.
And the legacy of this success has become widespread support for system leadership as the best method of school improvement.
As former Chief Inspector Christine Gilbert put it in a recent speech, we have now reached a tipping point in favour of schools, school leaders and teachers themselves, as the primary drivers of systemic improvement.
And that tipping point has been reached thanks to the work of the National College and in particular the National Leader of Education Programme. And that’s why this Government chose significantly to expand support for NLEs.'
http://www.education.gov.uk/nationalcollege/docinfo?id=176798&filename=c...
Do your remarks apply to Sally's post? They could...
I would much rather see this site used as a constructive forum for discussion and debate (and, yes, personal opinion) focused on education and how it can, should and needs to reviews and changed to best meet the needs of our youngsters for their and our future. Sadly, there is a propensity to argue from a politically motivated perspective, which drags the whole thing down to an unelected persons version of party political ideologies.
Janet: Is this an example of what you meant earlier about when ones contributions attract poor responses.
Hallelujah!
It would be good if Gove himself also recognised that it is not the structure that improves schools but leadership, resources and support. He might also be well advised to leave the politics out of it as well, but he just can't help himself.
You made your point loud and clear. Unfortunately when Michael Gove and this government have imposed their ideology on the education system, the debate has been rendered political from the outset. When you add the rabidly Tory Toby Young - who never misses a chance at political point scoring - into the mix then I fail to see how any response can avoid criticism of how their political ideology has infected education.
This is an open forum where anyone can contribute so I would rather allow all contribitours to have the right to say what they want, however much we may disagree with them and however unpleasant they may be.
Well this is a website that has a policy to enforce comprehensive schooling I don't see how you can leave politics out of it, party political or otherwise.
So let me take you on a journey with all of you who oppose Gove and his Tory Free Schools for just a couple of days, to privately imagine that you support him! Don’t fret,you can keep a sick bucket nearby, but seriously do it. Don’t intellectualise it too much. Try to focus on how you feel and what your emotions are.
Just to let you know that I did it from Friday evening to Sunday night. I know one or two of you might be a little concerned but I would like to state that I have not developed Stockholm syndrome and the horns I grew in the this period have retracted this morning.
My feelings on my ‘bold experiment’, (oops..I am starting to speak like one of those freeschoolers), will surface shortly………….x
I'm not sure that I was saying that an attack "validates" the accuracy of a comment. What I was trying to say was that when someone attacks a comment not by offering up a counter-argument backed up with evidence but uses any of the methods I said (sneering, patronising and so on) then the writer of the comment might be on to something.
I can't do emoticons. And if I could I'm not sure which would be the most appropriate: a smiley face or a sad one. Puzzled, probably.
But one allegedly succeeding Free School in West London is not representative of how radical or successful all Free Schools are. It’s the same with the Tories’ cant about Academy success, when the same suspects – Mossbourne, anything to do with Harris Federation, ARK – are wheeled as out as “proof” that the reforms are working. They spin the lie, even though analysis based on the DfE’s own stats show that Academies on the whole do NOT outperform maintained schools.
It is pity that Toby Young himself is such an unfortunate poster boy for the Free School movement – bombastic, divisive, sneering, petty, politically biased – and it is myopic of the Conservative Party to wheel him out as a success story, but then the Tories are currently famously out of touch and a touch arrogant and this may well be their undoing.
One of the central criticisms from the outset about Free Schools is that they encourage an unhealthy dog-eat-dog competitiveness between schools so that for every winner, there are many losers and this is what we are seeing under Gove’s terrible throwback “reforms”. Fetishising a few success stories buries the truths of course – one of which is the lie that Free Schools offer parents “choice” and “power”. Given that Gove has centralised education to an unprecedented degree and actually taken away the right of parents and communities, it is more correct to say that choice is becoming narrower, especially for disadvantaged and vulnerable people and for communities in rural areas. Yakking on about “choice” in Hammersmith is entirely inapplicable in rural Herefordshire I would guess.
Toby Young got very lucky being the first to jump on Gove’s gravy train. In one move, he found the means of reinvention – perhaps even salvation - given his colourful and self centred past and he is now able to pass himself off as a champion of the people and a bit of a philanthropist. He even now basks in the common touch, writing apparently for the Sun on Sunday. Before this new identity, I remember him being reduced to appearing on the Z-List “Celebrity Come Dine With Me” presumably to increase his visibility in a media world which had half forgotten him since his Grouch/Vanity Fair/How To Lose Friends days. Thank God Free Schools offered him a route out of reality TV show hell.
I suppose I am being ungenerous but then Young has never been generous or even gracious with people who disagree with him or threaten his self esteem. I’ve read numerous comments on here and elsewhere from people who jump to his defence and complain about ad hominem attacks but he isn’t above the spiteful little comment and full blown article about people who question his style and motives.
Ultimately he is what he is and perhaps his notoriety can be attributed to the way the public these days are blinded not by real talent or a genuine mission but by celebrity and shameless self promotion – how else does one explain the popularity of Boris Johnson?
If education is best with the politics taken out of it; if it is cohesive and inclusive; if it encourages children to be tolerant and hardworking, then Toby Young is the worst poster boy for the future of education.
Am I wrong but I honestly thought with all the 'hype' and omnipotent tv interviews, that the tories thought that they were bargaining on getting a McChain of Toby schools to boast of and justify the Gove free school freak show fantasy. Seems with Young that his is the Free School empire on which the sun never sets.... past Legoland, Windsor that is.
What's your thoughts on this and will the tories ever risk Young as an MP even if Cameron is politically decapitated as PM and leader?
'The heart of the matter must surely be the educational opportunites and experience of the pupils not the type of state funded school they attend – be it a Comprehensive with an academic or alternative specialism, an Academy, Free School or Grammar. It’s about time we put the future first via our youngster and set the politics aside.'
I don't doubt that Toby Young is as ambitious as he is self serving and, in common with Cameron and Gove, he has spent a lot of time waving the flag for News Corp and brownosing Rupert Murdoch so he has consolidated his position with both the Tories and Murdoch and is ready to enter the revolving doors of employment twixt government and media. He joins a long list of disgraced people - Coulson, Brooks, Hunt - whose integrity and honesty have been questioned but I don't think many people see Toby Young as an ethical or unifying person so his allegiance to a party and a media baron who ferociously attack opposition and the disadvantaged whilst protecting and advancing their own is no surprise. This leopard can't change it's spots.
I don't follow Young's self promotion so I was unaware of his being mooted as an MP but he is unpleasant enough to be a Tory MP.
This hype for sponsored academies is similar to the hype for free schools.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/09/city-challenge-was-more-su...
Unfortunately, this hierarchy also extends to the pupils who attend these schools and the teachers within them. This reveals itself in comments about parents in selective areas being "desperate" to get their children into grammar schools (but quite willing to send them to a fully comprehensive in the next county when they fail the 11+) and disparaging remarks about "bog standard comprehensives".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_England
'academies are only part of what made the London Challenge so
successful.'
'Two boroughs, which have been less enthusiastic about academies, Tower Hamlets and Newham, have seen schools like Swanlea and Rokeby become among the fastest improvers in recent years and they have done so by working closely with each other to
drive up standards, high expectations, and strong collaboration.'
Extracts from Gove speech referenced above.
I haven't quite understood why it matters what kind of state school pupils attend, provided those state schools (of whatever type) give them outstanding educational opportunities and experiences.
I think the point of Mr Andy's comment above, from which I quoted, is that much of the arguments made here rest on political point scoring rather than on the educational merits of different types of school.
As Graham Brady said in my referenced quote above:
“These arguments sometimes get trapped in particular parts of the political spectrum,” he says. “There’s this paradox that it was the left in British politics that did so much to remove opportunities for a quality free education from working-class people who had no other alternatives. There is no reason why that should be a left-right argument.
Even when Michael Gove says something entirely in line with what Janet believes, she will still dispute it because it is the Secretary of State saying it.
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/documents/News_and_Events_Magazines/Lond...
As I said above, there is a hierarchy of schools in England, and the school a child attends is perceived by many to be a reflection of that child’s ability and worth. This is unacceptable.
I do not accept that the opinion of Brady who said the left "did so much to remove opportunities for a quality free education from working-class people". I presume that Brady means the decline of selective schools. The role of grammar schools in providing a step-up for working class children (mainly boys) is overestimated. This is touched upon in this thread:
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/10/bbc-documentary-on-grammar...
Gove also said that Andrew (now Lord) Adonis was the "godfather" of London Challenge. He wasn't. It was Estelle Morris's idea in 2002 and Tim Brighouse was the first commissioner and chief advisor for the project. Neither were mentioned in Gove's speech.
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/documents/News_and_Events_Magazines/Lond...
And Adonis played down the significance of the London Challenge in this article - he relegated mention of it until the penultimate paragraph. If he were the "godfather" I would have expected him to give it a higher profile.
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/how-london-state-schools-became-the-na...
The point of this thread was to highlight the hype surrounding free schools and one in particular. Gove's speech is a classic example of the hype surrounding academy conversion.
The last Labour government published a brochure for City Challenge that referred back to London Challenge.
One para head asks
What is London Challenge?
The opening words of the answer are:
Led by Lord Adonis as minister for London Schools and Tim Brighouse.....
dera.ioe.ac.uk/7398/2/WorldClassEducation.pdf
I 'm afraid that I still don't understand why it matters what kind of state school pupils attend, provided those state schools (of whatever type) give them outstanding educational opportunities and experiences.
Employment opportunities are offered on the basis of qualifications and experience, not by type of school.
Any other approach is discriminatory and actionable.
As Mr Beavis infers above:
'....education is best with the politics taken out of it;'
I can now understand why education is so highly politicised.
It's a pity, of course, as you allude, but I suppose it matters a bit less at the moment now that the current government's reforms enjoy cross party consensus.
But I am still struggling to grasp why the type of state school matters.
If most state schools offer a decent education, it doesn't really matter what type of state school they are.
Or am I still missing something?
Anyone wanting to read chapter and verse on why London Challenge was so successful should read the Ofsted report of 2010. It paints a very accurate picture of why LC was so successful.
What matters about access to excellent state schools is that all children should have equal access to excellent state schools. This is only achievable if schools don't select, are accountable to the local authority and community, work together and share best practice rather than in unhealthy competition, are all properly and equally in receipt of excellent resources and if admissions procedures were the same for each and every school.
You mentioned Graham Brady's comment further up about political interference in education. But as a staunch and outspoken advocate of grammar schools, he is wholly representative of his party's aim to increase selection in schools, meaning that the already advantaged and the deserving poor get better access to good schools. Michael Gove disguises his wish to establish new grammar schools by allowing the expansion of existing grammar schools - it amounts to the same thing.
When the capital budget for schools has been slashed by 60%, with the result that many existing schools are struggling with essential repairs, staff cuts and resources amputated even further, it is unfair that, as these schools risk deteriorating as a result of the cuts, Michael Gove is handing over cash to a handful of Free Schools and for Academy expansion and then shining a torch on a handful of them as absolute proof that his new schools are successful. The stats show that Free Schools are not serving the most disadvantaged, that Acadmies are not outperforming maintained schools and that the admisisons criteria for these schools can be manipulated in a way to covertly exclude children they do not want to teach. High performing Academies are criticised for high number of permanent exclusons, managed moves and "nudgings out" - easy therefore to push up results when the students who risk lowering their averages are released elsewhere.
Its not an even playing field. Any school can get great results if they have more of the brightest, the engaged, the ones who come from an already stable and aspirational background. The terrible problem that this coalition is causing, with its two tier system, its meddling in the curriculum, its blinkered obssession with academic "rigour" at the cost of everything else that constitues a good all-round education fit for all children of all abilities is that they are deliberately excluding out of the system and the chance of social mobility all of those children who do not fit in with the blueprint of what this government deems worthy of access to a good education.
I'm afraid taking politics out of education is wishful thinking. It is highly politicised and will continue to be so. When government ideology is so entrenched, opposition to educational policies will by nature have a strong political component. Politics breed policies.
"The London Challenge was launched in summer 2002...From the beginning, there was a strong political drive behind the initiative, which was launched by the then Secretary of State (Estelle Morris), with an identified Minister for London Schools (Stephen Twigg) and Commissioner for London Schools (Tim Brighouse)."
Academy status was listed as one element of the London Challenge for Teachers and Schools. There were eleven other elements including London Leadership Strategy, extended schools and grouping schools into familes.
But, according to Gove, the academies programme was the most important part of the London Challenge.
And, according to Gove, the academies programme and free schools are the only ways in which standards will rise... And among free schools, WLFS stands as a beacon... which brings us back to the point of this thread.
http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk/hcdimages/docs/myers_paige.pdf
And Morris doesn't seem to have been a great fan of Adonis:
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=391234
Adonis didn't become schools minister until 2005, by which time the London Challenge was well underway. However Stephen Twigg was closely involved from the start, which I believe is encouraging with regard to future Labour policy.
In the link Janet provides above, Estelle Morris makes clear how things worked at that time:
They {the Policy Unit} think of an idea and then buzz off and think of another and I always used to say to them, 'Hang on, I am busy delivering the last set of proposals'."
Looks like Adonis thought up London Challenge and then went away to think up some other good wheezes, leaving it to Estelle to handle the delivery.
"The major hazard facing Clarke is the immense power of Tony Zoffis. When yet more moronic initiatives crawled blinking into the daylight, I used to ask insiders where they had come from. "Tony Zoffis", was the reply. I eventually realised that this sinister-sounding name indeed needed a glottal stop in the middle. The source of these crackpot schemes, it turns out, was "Tony's office", the prime minister's own policy unit."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/oct/29/uk.comment
And crackpot schemes continue. One of these is what Sally describes as the Titanic Free School policy which suggests a picture of an iceberg about to hit a great, white ship crewed by "shock troops" in gowns and captained by someone dismissing the berg as a backward, bankrupt bigot. While in the bowels of the ship the trimmers (teachers) keep shovelling the coal that keeps the great ship moving until those in charge crash it into the ice.
I have spoken to both at great length about why it worked I think they would both challenge the S o S's interpretation and that of some people on this site. I am inclined to believe them rather than the armchair experts who are now using LC's undoubted success for their own political ends.
Although, during this blip of a wretched 'Free School Age', the mood is grey and gloomy; you bring hope and sunshine.
And your recent comment puts a big smile on my face.
Have a great day. x
So let me take you on a journey with all of you who oppose Gove and his Tory Free Schools for just a couple of days, to privately imagine that you support him! Don't fret,you can keep a sick bucket nearby, but seriously do it. Don't intellectualise it too much. Try to focus on how you feel and what your emotions are.
Just to let you know that I did it from Friday evening to Sunday night. I know one or two of you might be a little concerned but I would like to state that I have not developed Stockholm syndrome and the horns I grew in the this period have retracted this morning.
My feelings on my 'bold experiment', (oops..I am starting to speak like one of those freeschoolers), will surface shortly.............x
"They have no power now its heart was noble in the time of sixties and seventies but it has lost the heart of men (and women Ed.) and nature voids the deed."
With this the Red Messenger turned and fled towards the Mill Bank wIth a curious look of hatred, wonder in eyes reflecting only the post Button of Comment is Free.
The hobbits retired to the Cross Keys with the new DG James May (that's enough ed. tbc)
I'm luvin it!
It is patently true that you're wasting your talents here at LSN for the last few years
Your above word-smithery is you at your best and I am so surprised that Gove hasn't personally hand-picked you to be part of his exclusive Free School commando brigade at the DfE.
x
Clarification please: is the LSN line that every child should be compelled to go to the local comprehensive, allocated by catchment area; that all forms of selection (by ability, aptitude for certain subjects, religious affiliation etc.) should be abolished and that all schools should be completely under the control of LEAs, with all forms of voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools, not to mention academies, being abolished?
The positions adopted by the vast majority of LSN supporters - I deliberately differentiate between the latter and people who are contributors/participants - are such that if a school isn't an LEA Comprehensive it should closed and for others they go further and assert that Labour politicians understand what real education is about. Thus you will also find a large number of LSN members who place party political ideology above the real heart of the issue which is the educational opportunities and experience of the pupils.
One of the troubles with academies and free schools is that they are so obviously a staging post to the privatisation of the state sector. Once schools are independent and accountable only to central government, we really don't know in whose hands they will end up. The current Secretary of State believes we should have for profit schools and that is something else we are completely opposed to. I hope that makes things clearer.
As you will all see, since you are free to post whatever and whenever you want, we accept all views, regardless of the party political position of the contributor.
I completely understand why many people would like to mis-represent what we are about and take that as a back-handed compliment.
Maybe this will help.
"that Labour politicians understand what real education is about." should read
"that only Labour politicians understand what real education is about."
Fiona: I would like to genuinely and sincerely thank you for reiterating the original reasons for starting LSN, representing a timely and much needed reminder for many contributors that they have been pedalling gross misrepresentations of what the forum and its founders stand for and seek to achieve. Yes, their personal opinions are no more or less valid than anyone elses and by no means assert precedence over the founding principles that frame the aims of the forum. An on going example might be that schools should be accountable locally does not automatically translate as accountability through local authorities, which are inherently and structurally politically centred and led organisations in the same way that the DFE is though the SoS.
The worry is that some schools effectively become cut loose from any sort of middle tier and that could be damaging for the children. I think even Sir Michael Wilshaw has pointed out the dangers in this approach.
The obsessive hatred of Michael Gove and Toby Young, not to mention the insults and name calling, are not a credit to LSN. Many of you seem to be consumed by your personal and somewhat irrational loathing of these two individuals.I am sure that there are some truly awful state schools which should cause you far more concern. Calm down dears, as the PM said. ;)
I don't hate Toby or Michael and hates an awful word, lets save it for those tiny few who really deserve it... I just don't like Free School policy.
Plus, I quite liked Mr Young when he was on, 'Come Dine with Me'. Perhaps Mickey Govey Babes (affectionately said Finbar!(peace and love and all that)), could pop onto to Channel 5's next Celebrity Big Brother rather than create any more experimental Free Schools? Could be time well spent?
x
By LSN standards, you're very reasonable and tolerant. :)
Enough with polarised debates. Stop taking sides. Get on with improving the world. It won't happen by typing pages of drivel on this minor blog.
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