Thursday 2nd July 2015

[Willow904]

Q 48 Bill Esterson: Sir Daniel, do you agree that local authorities should be able to take over if they are high performing?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: I don’t, actually. No.

Q 49 Bill Esterson: Okay. So we are not interested in high quality.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It depends. How do you define local authorities as high performing? They are not directly responsible for the management of their schools, so what does that mean? If the schools in a local authority are doing well, does that mean the local authority is high performing? I think the headteachers of those schools would have something to say about that; their view would be that they have delivered.

Wait...

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It depends. How do you define local authorities as high performing? They are not directly responsible for the management of their schools, so what does that mean? If the schools in a local authority are doing well, does that mean the local authority is high performing?

Oh, so the line we;ve had for five years about "local authority-run schools" from Give and his pals is utter nonsense then?

Thanks for clearing that up...

So when an LA school does well, it's nothing to do with the LA and everything to do with the headteacher, but presumably when an LA school does badly, that's all down to the LA.

Meanwhile, when an academy school does well, it's because of the academy, not the head, but of course if an academy school does badly it's nothing to do with the academy, it's all the fault of the head and the clever academy is so much better than an LA as it cleverly simply sacks the rubbish head and brings in another one......and another one.....and another one......

Why don't the Tories just say they're going to privatise education because they feel like it and be done with it? All this trying to pretend it's a genuine improvement is making them look like prize idiots.

[RogerOThornhill]

Still reading...and this is bollocks too.

Q 104 Mr Gibb: A question to Zoe Carr: would you prefer to be a headteacher in an academy or in a local authority school, and why?

Zoe Carr: I would not like to be a headteacher in a stand-alone academy, because there are far too many other areas that you need to take on and be accountable and responsible for yourself. However, I would absolutely no way want to go back to a maintained situation, because in our multi-academy trust we have a wealth of people dealing with health and safety, HR issues, all the financial issues and governance, and they are very skilled in their own areas. All that is taken away from our key educationalists, who can then lead on improving teaching and learning, improving our teachers, and getting the best outcomes for children.

So you can't do that in LA-maintained schools?

Our school now has all of those admin functions sitting under the school business leader and another senior leader working in the school office. This leaves the senior teachers entirely free to concentrate on pupil learning.

The idea that you have to be an academy within a chain to do that is nonsense - it's just a matter of the school organising itself better which comes down to the HT and us governors.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That is unbelievable from Moynihan.

Total shill.

Nice to see him nail the "LA bureaucrats running schools".

[RogerOThornhill]

That is unbelievable from Moynihan.

Total shill.

Nice to see him nail the "LA bureaucrats running schools".

Yeah, I might store that one for the next time Toady starts to bang on about council-run schools...

He also nails the one about academies having more autonomy...only if the chain lets it have it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They judge whether academy chains are high performing or not.

Shame they don't tell us.

Utter corruption.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is he really saying you couldn't interview people at the LA, ask them what they do, and form a judgement about whether they'd be good overseers of a failed academy?

[RogerOThornhill]

Is he really saying you couldn't interview people at the LA, ask them what they do, and form a judgement about whether they'd be good overseers of a failed academy?

Looks like it - schools can only go one way.

I remember an excellent witness to the Select Committee last year who is the deputy director of Hampshire who had been asked to intervene in the Isle of Wight - including their academies. He made the same point - why shouldn't high performing LAs take over failing academies.

And of course Bill Esterson was on that committee and would have remembered that...fortunately he's on the new one too. Shame Pat Glass isn't though.

[RogerOThornhill]

So...to sum up the past five years.

When Gove talked about council run schools and said that to free them from the shackles of same, they needed to get their autonomy by becoming an academy, for at least sponsored academies, that is not only wrong, but the reverse is true!

In other news we are at war with Eurasia and there is no evidence that we have ever been at war with Eastasia...