Eleven Plus Education News Service
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Key battlegrounds where the Tories plan to capture votes
Daily Mail - 4th Oct 07
'I know what schools I want for my children, a school where you turn up and the head teacher knows your name, a school where there's proper discipline, schools where they use tried and trusted teaching methods . . . and understand that equality isn't putting them all in the same class and teaching at the same speed - it's setting by ability.'
Minister wants more pupils sent to STATE boarding schools to raise standards
Daily Mail - 3rd Oct 07
new wave of city academies with boarding houses is to be launched by the Government.
Schools minister Andrew Adonis said today that Harefield Academy in Uxbridge is in talks to open a boarding house in the next few years. This is one of a number of academy projects that represent the first major expansion of state boarding education in years.
The announcement came as Lord Adonis today said that more private schools had agreed to join the city academies programme, at the annual conference of the Headmasters ' and Head-mistresses' Conference, the club for some of Britain's best private schools, in Bournemouth. He said the move to add boarding places to academies could pave the way for a "significant increase" in state boarding education.
Private schools line up to back academies
Independent - 3rd Oct 07
The big guns of education's private sector have thrown their weight behind the Government's academies programme, paving the way for their biggest ever stake in the running of state schools.
Lord Adonis, the Schools minister, announced plans yesterday for three more academies to be backed by private schools – bringing the total numbersponsored by private schools to 47.
Lancing, Hurstpierpoint and Ardingley, all fee-paying schools in West Sussex, are to sponsor three new academies in the county.
In addition, Birkenhead High School for Girls, in Merseyside, a top performing school in private school league tables, announced it was planning to join the state sector as an academy. It will be the fifth private school to do so since the Government offered an olive branch to the sector to join.
Birkenhead, a former direct grant school until that status disappeared in the Seventies as a result of Labour's pro-comprehensive drive, will now abandon selection as a result of its decision. However, it will retain control over the running of the school.
A quarter of secondary schools are failing their students, admits minister
Daily Mail - 3rd Oct 07
Pupils in a quarter of secondary schools are receiving a sub-standard education, a minister declared yesterday.
In an astonishing admission, Lord Adonis said 800 comprehensives - catering for up to 800,000 children - were failing to provide the quality of education parents expect.
Fewer than 30 per cent of pupils at the schools achieved five decent grades including English and maths, resulting in a huge 'waste of talent'.
Lord Adonis, Tony Blair's former policy adviser who was given a peerage to allow him to serve as Schools Minister, said parents and the Government 'rightly expect better'.
Many of the schools were so badly run they gave parents no confidence they could improve fast enough to rescue their children's education, he warned.
The schools are likely to be targeted for conversion into academies under the Government's controversial programme masterminded by Lord Adonis.
Expel any pupil using 'evil' drugs, says leading headmaster
Daily Mail - 3rd Oct 07
A leading headmaster is calling for a fresh crackdown on the "massive evil" of illegal drugs, with instant expulsion for any pupil caught taking them.
Anthony Seldon, head of £24,441-a-year Wellington College in Berkshire warns today that social attitudes to recreational narcotics have become far too lax.
He will tell the annual Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference - an organisation representing the country's leading independent schools - that part of the solution to the nation's growing drugs problem is to teach children how to be happy without them.
He will also warn the conference in Bournemouth that rising rates of mental illness are being fuelled by the "cataclysmic" use of illegal and prescription drugs.
UK private schools' Beijing link
BBC - 3rd Oct 07
The Chinese government is to fund the teaching of Mandarin and Chinese culture in 10 UK independent schools.
It will pay for teachers to come from China and for software in a scheme that will involve school twinning and pupil trips to China.
In July, similar links were announced between China and five schools in England selected by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
There has been a rise in the number of students studying Chinese at GCSE.
In the spring, 10 independent school head teachers will travel to Beijing to sign agreements with the Chinese government for what is being called the Confucius programme.
Schools involved include Brighton College, where all children learn Mandarin.
Academy status for private school
ATL - 3rd Oct 07
Birkenhead High School is set to become the latest independent school to join the state sector and become an academy.
The Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) confirmed that following consultation the Wirral-based school would become the third private school to make the swap, according to BBC News.
The chief executive of GDST, Barbara Harrison, insisted that the high standard of education would be maintained but that academy status would broaden the intake of the school.
"The new academy will also offer an exciting vision for the provision of first-class education for future generations of children living in the Wirral, including those who wouldn't normally be able to benefit from GDST's expertise.
Adonis presses private schools on academies
Financial Times - 3rd Oct 07
Andrew Adonis, schools minister, on Tuesday made a passionate plea to Britain’s top independent schools to sign up to a new, slimline version of the government’s academies project.
In a speech to the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, Lord Adonis marked a big shift of emphasis in his strategy to encourage the involvement of private schools.
Previously, the government has tried to persuade them to pay money into academy projects and contribute expertise through initiatives such as teacher training.
But on Tuesday Lord Adonis told headteachers to forget about the cash: “It is your educational DNA we are seeking, not your fee income,” he said.
It was a shrewd tactic before an audience reluctant to part with money from fee-paying parents. The response from the packed hall was what might have been expected from the heads of some of the best schools in the country: courteous, clear but sceptical.
Tory grammar school snub claim
Daily Mirror - 3rd Oct 07
The Tories have betrayed working class children by refusing to create more grammar schools, it was claimed yesterday.
The former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhouse, accused the Conservative leadership of making a "costly miscalculation" over the policy.
He was at a Tory conference fringe meeting with Graham Brady, who earlier quit as Shadow Europe minister over the party's pledge not to open any more grammar schools.
But later it relented, saying it would allow them to open in areas where there is already selective education.
Quarter of schools 'unacceptable'
BBC - 2nd Oct 07
Nearly a quarter of England's state secondary schools let down their pupils, an education minister has said.
Schools Minister Lord Adonis told private school leaders fewer than 30% of pupils got five good GCSEs including English and maths in some 800 schools.
