Nicky Morgan's thread continued (MNers calling for Lucy Powell to do webchat)

[Mner]

Following on from Nicky Morgan MP's one sided "webchat" see here...

Active petitions against academisation are here:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124702
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124747

Guardian article is here

You can write to your MP: www.writetothem.com/

Good luck to everyone at the demonstrations today. I can't attend

I read the comments. I can't remember much mention of you at all, Pretty, apart from some people who understandably thought you might be a troll.

Unfortunately the Guardian comments section often has some fairly trollish comments pretty, don't take it to heart.
But people are right to to be angry, especially after what has been happening with the NHS. That's to be expected. Personally I am too angry to be polite, but I try not to be offensive. I like to think that whatever I post online I would be happy to say to someone's face.

Thanks for the Economist article Peregrina. V interesting.

How do we know if MNHQ has read the suggestions on here for an interview with Dr McNally for starters?

Valentine re Labour and their view on Academies, that's something else we need answers on. I am sure many Mumsnetters would be very interested to know where all the opposition parties stand on it.

Let's leave Pretty and Others like her alone. How about ignoring them from now on until they actually manage to produce something solid.

MNHQ

can you bring Jeremy Corbyn here to discuss this?
Along with Dr McNally I mean.

MNHQ
Please DO NOT REPLY with a patronising response telling me "Corbyn might be too busy or too big to come here" etc.

This is a very very important issue.

1. It's a try to radically engineer British education system

1. It's not something we can keep on arguing forever. And Crobyn will be able to produce all the basic answers anyway that we can hope to hear from Lucy Powell.

So I say that in the name of accountability, best is to try and start from the top.

I am more worried because of this following paragraph from Dr McNally's article:

"The parties seem to agree on the overall direction of travel in education policy – mass academisation and protecting school funding – even though they differ on where they place emphasis (for example, primary versus secondary school curriculum) and on the details of policy (for example, whether to protect school funding in nominal or real terms). There is surprisingly little discussion over the radical shake-up of the schools system under the academies programme. But the battleground is more clearly drawn over the desirability of free schools."

So instead of beating around the bush, I say bring Crobyn here with a detailed education policy and get done with it.

What say you MNHQ??

Afterwards, he won't be able to say "oh Lucy said it" or something along the lines.

We really need to see if his party actually can get their act together and produce a solid plan that could be universally popular compared to the universally unpopular Tory plan (or lack of it😝)!

I agree with Valentine.

I have a shiny new nickname courtesy of the guardian - turns out 'buggered off overseas with 3 dc' was identifiable to my entire fb friend list.

I didn't see anything particularly harsh aimed at you pretty!

Although to be fair, your comments from here weren't apparently included in the original article.

They were appended later.

Sorry you've encountered such robust & bruising debate - I disagree with practically everything you've said on these threads, but your posts have been thought provoking.

We don't have anything to lose by starting with Corbyn have we?
I think there's three things we want (correct me if I am wrong)

1. answers to the questions and concerns raised on here many of which the White Paper had not addressed
2. robust evidence (independent!) - we need a lot more than what NM quoted
3. where the opposition party stands For 3) How about something similar to pre-election debates where Mumsnet asks all the political parties to outline their policy on Academies? Would they carry on the programme or reverse it? So also Greens, SNP etc for balance. It adds pressure to Government to listen, because it shows that it's an issue likely to affect votes in next election. It's not like parents are a minority group of voters are they.... We have to think of ways to turn the heat up on this because discussing it amongst ourselves is not going to get any attention.

(Corbyn's set to speak to the NUT conference tomorrow if anyone's intersted)

interested

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/24/academisation-and-a-school-system-on-the-brink
Mumsnet mentioned again!

Thanks FirstVix will keep an eye on the NUT conference.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/24/perry-beeches-academy-lauded-cameron-serious-breaches-of-guidelines
Shadow Minister for schools Nic Dakin says in this article that 'Labour will fiercely oppose this ... costly reorganisation of our schools'

Wow so much to catch up on. I read the guardian article very soon after it was published but I've been busy teaching all week so haven't had time to keep up. I've noticed the main news channels and apps are pretty silent on the subject of academies though.

I haven't read the whole thread, so might be repeating what others have said...

1. How about inviting Michael Rosen and asking him questions?
   He has these 2 articles "Gove nicked our schools and handed them to his mates" (public school real estate being handed over!)
   michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/gove-nicked-our-schools-and-handed-them.html?m=1
   and "schools' local democracy bites the dust" www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/20/michael-rosen-on-academy-schools-local-democracy-bites-the-dust?CMP=share_btn_fb.

2. Also - I wonder if each of us should just lean heavily on our local MP (in particular if they are conservative!), go to their drop ins directly after Easter (having read eg the white paper and armed with as much info as possible) and put pressure on them - impressive to see how those 20 odd conservative rebels threatening revolt overturned the government's Independent living allowance bill!

Finally heard something on BBC radio this morning about Tory councillors opposing mass academisation, so hopefully the mainstream media is starting to pick up on this.
Hopefully the teaching union conferences will raise the profile further, we really need to know where the Labour Party are on this, I have written to my Labour MP about my concerns as Labour started the ball rolling with academies.

Pretty I'm sorry you have come in for a hard time via the Guardian - despite disagreeing with you. It's not very pleasant to feel over exposed in that way.

It is strange how your comments were added to the original article -seems to me you took the flack NM would/should have if she'd actually engaged with the thread. This government would sell their own grannies to advance tory ideology though so I suppose it's no surprise they'd happily hide behind you.

Intetesting blog a few pages back- the Warwick one - seemed spot on.

Oooh yes, let's go to the top and ask Corbyn. I like Curlup's idea of asking a range of different political parties. Let's not let this slink away.

I've written to my MP twice - heidi Allen. She's against the Drs contract changes and voted against the disability cuts but I've not heard a thing back from her on this. Very disappointing!

www.thecanary.co/2016/03/24/conservative-education-secretary-tries-woo-mumsnet-backfires-spectacularly-videos/

At long last the issue has made it to the BBC, highlighting that it's Tory councillors who are complaining: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35897430.

DONE. Wrote MP. Common sense will prevail. MPs generally are reasonable people!!! :-) arent's they.

www.writetothem.com/

A great debate on this on Radio 5 Live at the moment!

Couldn't get there in time for the debate. What was the outcome?

MNHQ & JUSTINE

you guys are off and hopefully enjoying the holidays. Have a great sunny day today. But we are hoping that you will write to Jeremy Corbyn right after holidays to invite for a web chat (please please lend him a staff member in case he belongs to the generation who can't type fast enough!). Holidays or no holidays, this is important and will remain so.

Nick Gibb is being quoted by the BBC website, when speaking to Nick Robinson on the Today programme, that on current trends, the "vast majority" of schools would be academies in a few years and "we can't have two systems".

The vast majority of primary schools are not academies, and without compulsion are not likely to become so.

Funnily enough, having two systems, i.e. a mish-mash of Local Authority schools and Church schools, hasn't bothered them in the past, so why now?

I can just see who will be bleating loudest if Academies get into the wrong hands, i.e. not moneyed Tory cronies.

BTW where is Nicky Morgan?

'Funnily enough, having two systems, i.e. a mish-mash of Local Authority schools and Church schools, hasn't bothered them in the past, so why now?'

Absolutely!

Under the proposed system we will have the new free schools presumably alongside academies.
So clearly we can have two systems!

Really worth reading Michael Rosen blog about the radio 4 interview with Nick Gibb this morning. He is spot on.

Michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk