A quiet triumph for the Coalition...

Labour told us nobody wanted it - not the parents, the pupils or the teachers. They told us the Unions would not wear it. They told us it would destroy our state education system.

Today, Michael Gove announced that more than 1000 secondary schools have applied to become academies - 240 in the last month alone. 647 have been approved. 384 have already converted. In the few short months since the Coalition's legislation was passed through the commons, a third of all secondary schools are either now academies, or in the process of becoming an academy. Schools are becoming academies at a rate of two every school day.

It seems that the education system has voted emphatically for the new reforms. What a triumph for Michael Gove and the Coalition government.

Good Teachers are born not made...

Mr Gove has said that he will encourage those who retire from the Armed Forces to try their hand in the classroom. Writes Alice Thomson in today's Times. Good teachers are born, not made.

He should throw open the school doors to managers, professionals, sportsmen and parents who want to give it a go. they should be given a trial in the classroom, observing teachers and being observed.

Those who thrive can then receive more formal training and proper renumeration for their talents. Those that flounder can leave before they have committed themselves to an unsuitable vocation.

Good teachers should back a plan that could turn them into an awe-inspiring profession and it would give children a better chance to succeed - whatever type of school they attend.

Pupil premium

Pathetic says Chris Dillow of the £430 pupil premium suggesting the correlation between school spending and attainment is weak (pdf), and from that he extrapolates that around £100,000 per poorer pupil would need to be spent to equalise opportunities to the levels achieved by Nick Clegg and his privately educated Coalition partners: remember that public schoolboys have the advantages of high expectations, social contacts and good role models, whilst many of the poor have family circumstances not conducive to learning.

But the combination of higher expectations and good role models is exactly what educationalists should be responsible for. Teachers may not be able to provide social contacts, but since when did these enable students to understand calculus? And as to family circumstances not conducive to learning, that is why pupils spend seven hours a day away from their family, in an environment that is designed to be conducive to learning.

Perhaps that pupil premium could be used to further that all-important environment through homework clubs, personal tutors or 1-2-1 tuition? Now that's what I call a premium education on the level of Westminster School. It is also all about teachers, not buildings and expensive resources, where Labour spent our money. And it certainly wouldn't cost £100,000 per pupil per year.

Phonetic politics

Interesting blog from Teacher Talks on phonics - or rather how naive Gove and Cameron are to blindly suggest synthetic phonics are the solution to teaching children to read.

My better half - who has taught phonics to 2 1/2 to 5 year olds for more years than is healthy writes:

No single method works by itself. Many four year olds leave my nursery being able to read words and sentences using phonic methods. This is a mechanical and a useful starting point for children who respond well to and enjoy this method. With only twenty six basic letter sounds to begin with, children can read, spell and write hundreds of three letter words. Its like a logical starting kit. Children sound out the three letters and if capable, blend the sounds into a word. However, this method has its limitations. The logical sequence of moving from one word to a phrase or sentence is limited by the lack of range inherent in only twenty six letters - or their sounds. We vary this and make it more interesting by matching words and pictures, objects and words, and creating 'secret' and 'magic' words to engender enthusiasm and encourage them to want to read in the true sense. We make individual reading books for each child based on their own interests. These could be about Batman or a dragon - and anything in between.

Some children are not ready or interested. No method works well by itself and it is the job of the teacher to match different types of learners with tools to suit. Teachers also need to introduce children to the pleasures of stories - for depth, emotion and sheer interest - and poetry - for rhyme, metre and rhythm - all of which stretch their imaginations, vocabulary and the child's longing to read by themselves.

I think it unlikely a teacher would stick to just one method of learning to read. Pretty much common sense really.

Gove & Burnham on funding & school reform

Just watching an impressive performance by Michael Gove in this afternoon's opposition motion on funding and school reform. How lightweight is Andy Burnham? Not one idea for reform of education on the day that Katharine Birbalsingh amply demonstrates the fundamental importance of discipline to all levels of learning, the desperate need for aspiration in our educational system, the unforgivable weakness of Ofsted inspections, and the introduction of a £2.5bn pupil premium by the Coalition aimed at re-dressing spending on the poorest and most vulnerable pupils in our society.

Which side of the argument do Labour want to be on? The bog standard comprehensive? Or progress?

Sunshine wins the day: Birbalsingh v Millar

Fiona Millar wrote in yesterday's Guardian “I have seen several Katharine Birbalsinghs come and go. They emerge from nowhere; catch the media’s attention, often because of the way they look. Would she have made the same impact if she had been white and middle aged? Around 1 per cent of what they say is true; the rest is usually eye-catching propaganda that plays into the prejudices of the audience. In my experience these characters usually inhale too much of their own publicity, get over-promoted and vanish as quickly as they appeared.”

Not only is this really dismissive, patronising drivel on a very personal level - something we have come to expect from the nasty party - but it does absolutely nothing to advance her argument that everything in state education is wonderful. From someone who argues in favour of 'bog standard comprehensives' it just shows that even non-white, non middle-aged teachers with years of real experience in classrooms recognise the serious problems that consign each generation to a lack of opportunity, aspiration and ultimately promote poverty.

"I used to stand up at assembly all the time and say: “Be like Martin Luther King. Be like Nelson Mandela.” How then could I, when facing the music, not try to do the right thing? I may be unemployed, but at least I know that if ever I get the chance to stand at assembly again, I can hold my head up high" answers Katharine Birbalsingh. Wonderful. The argument has already been won. Even St. Barack knows the value of real education. He just calls them Charter schools.

This is coalition government

This really is copybook coalition politics. No fuss. No bother. No external briefings. Just a comprehensive and convincing restructuring of higher education funding to put British students and universities on a global footing.

Vince Cable and David Willetts have delivered - and way beyond the coalition agreement hammered out in May. They have done so with civility and in the face of deeply partisan criticism from the Labour benches whose thirteen years of government were characterised by the near destruction of university funding based on dumbed-down qualifications attached to absurdly optimistic projections for participation and without the necessary funding.

Now we have widely agreed, evidence-based, bottom-up policy that will stand the test of time. Putting students at the heart of higher education and British universities at the forefront of global educational standards. Anyone who cares about higher education should celebrate the coalition tonight.

Birbalsingh on Eton

Great to see Katharine Birbalsingh writing about Eton and the sense of personal responsibility engendered by such schools. The title of her piece - 'Eton is a wonderful school because of its boys, not its buildings' - is also the perfect answer to Labour's thirteen years of pumping money into education.

You can build as many glass palaces with as many wonderful smart boards as you like - it doesn't provide a single pupil with education.

Learning is about the quality of teaching. Nothing else. And that was the one thing Labour did not reform.

Katharine Birbalsingh

Disappointed to read that Katharine Birbalsingh has lost her teaching post for addressing the Conservative conference on the failings of our educational system. I wish her well and know she will find a better post in time.

Her Executive Headteacher Irene Bishop however, should be suspended immediately whilst her role in this sorry saga is investigated. My guess - and it is no more - is that her role has been entirely politically motivated. If this were so, Education Secretary Michael Gove, should remove her and not allow her near another child again.

That our educational system is broken and in need of fundamental repair can no longer be in doubt. Passing the new educational bill within weeks of taking government speaks volumes. Education is about opportunity. Without fear or favour. Not holding children back or consigning them to a life without hope. Dinosaurs like Irene Bishop have no place in the future education of our children.

Teaching Unions Kill Innovation

"the (teaching) unions constitute an inflexible brake which is "killing" the innovation necessary to transform children's lives, and they "cover up" for failing teachers" says Geoffrey Canada in a remarkable speech to the Conservative conference in Birmingham yesterday.

Read the details from Allegra Stratton in today's Guardian.

Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?

According to an NASUWT spokesman Michael Gove's educational reforms have been a failure because only 32 additional schools have taken up academy status in the six weeks since royal assent was obtained.

Former Labour education Secretary Estelle Morris meanwhile criticises the coalition for giving too little time for debate of the new legislation.

They can't both be right. Perhaps the forces of darkness should begin talking to one another.

Grade F Mr Balls

Telling interview with Ed Balls on Newsnight following yesterday's A level results. When asked why the attainment gap between State and private schools is still increasing after 13 years of New Labour educational spending, he could only offer the excuse 'because they're selective'.

No Mr Balls, they have always been selective. The only variable to change over that period has been the vast increase in spending on state education under your government.

Definitely an F grade for Mr Balls then. Not to mention the fact that the wonderful schools building program that achieved so little, was financed not out of current (New Labour) spending but by PFI.

So my children and grandchildren will still be paying for it in thirty years time. Double F Mr Balls.

Education spending

We really need to move the argument on government expenditure forward. Take education - specifically secondary education.

Using Dept for Children Schools and Families own statistics, £21,441m was spent on secondary education in 2007/8. This represents total expenditure of around £5360 per pupil. What we need to be asking is how much per pupil is actually spent in schools - at the sharp end of the business – on the resources that really matt

er: teacher salaries, books, stationary, computers, projectors, smartboards etc. This is the expenditure that really delivers education to the pupil. This is the important stuff. The expenditure we need to be protecting and ring-fencing, with an ambition to increase in real terms such expenditure over time.

I don’t know what exactly this figure comes to. If anyone knows where this kind of information can be seen, I would love to know. But I have a big hunch that the figure will come out at around £3500 per pupil – more than a third lower than the educational spending that is raised through taxation and allocated to secondary education. And it is the difference between these figures representing organisational running costs, publicity, centrally controlled initiatives and top down bureaucracy - whatever you want to call it - that needs to be examined in the cost cutting agenda.

If you want the electorate’s support, by all means guarantee this lower figure being spent on actually educating their children in schools. Pay such money in three tranches – at the beginning of each term – directly to the school. Make head teachers responsible for spending this money in running their schools efficiently and effectively. Judge them on outcomes and results. Not targets and processes.