Michael Gove

[LadyBlaBlah]

Does anyone get the impression that the list detailing which school building projects were going to be axed wasn't given much thought?

Sounds like a bit of an arbitrary list done in a haphazard fashion.

Really, how could he make such a fundamental clerical error if the list had been given any thought at all?

Typical

BeenBeta There is a damning profile of Partnership for Schools and how exactly the screwup happened here

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293780/Education-Secretary-Gove-scrapped-40k-bonus-quango-boss-bla med-schools-fiasco.html

They didn't actually have accurate info about the state of the school projects!

I don't understand why we need a quango for this at all. It needs a single database administrator, with the database made public. The administrator simply phones each school which is on the list once a month to ask the current status, and updates the database. It certainly doesn't need an incompetent quango head paid more than the PM.

Big piece in the Sunday Times today as well. pfS is getting the chop along with the man who is paid £216,000 a year to run it.
Good old Labour party. Throw money at it and then walk away while it burns to nothing but pocket lining and incompetance.

I think we are all missing the point here. Unless we improve teachers' subject knowledge, building new schools is a waste of time.

Lots of the new shiny schools are like prisons, anyway. Especially the new Bristol Academy, with its weapons searching on the way in and central locking down of toilets during lesson time. Nasty places.

Boffinmum - YES! I agree, although the one I visited recently was more like a cross between an airport and a shopping centre.

Obviously some new builds have been a success - like Mossbourne Academy - but far to many have not.

I wonder if the 'successful' new builds happen because of overall good school management. And any improvements in the school are due to improved teaching, ethos and general organisation working along side improvements in facilities and learning space.

I disagree boffin
i think effective school leadership is the key primarily to a good school
without that toyu can have all the fab teachers you like but they are wasting their time.

Is a boys school next to the girls place where i work. has the brothers of our very successful place. its TERRIBLE, for no real reason apart from bad management.

I disagree boffin
i think effective school leadership is the key primarily to a good school
without that toyu can have all the fab teachers you like but they are wasting their time.

Is a boys school next to the girls place where i work. has the brothers of our very successful place. its TERRIBLE, for no real reason apart from bad management.

Warrenpeace - I think I just agreed with both BoffinMum and you!

And I know of a very similar poor boys school near to an outstanding girls school example, local to me. Eventually the head of the girls school took over as head of the boys school and as a result - the boys school improved dramatically!

yes, and when they have joint GCSE lessons some boys hand in their first ever piece of homework - in year 10.
how to attract these inspirational heads and KEEP them is the issue.

agree the quango is pointless and the boss is vastly overpaid. And that it's the quality of teaching and especially the head that matters most.

BUT new school buildings can be a catalyst. A major (positive) change can help any troubled organisation even if it doesn't seem to be at the heart of what they do. It shows the staff and kids that the authorities are prepared to invest in them, and care about their environment.

Far better than leaky old portakabins and dangerous buildings with areas roped off. That really says 'no-one gives a stuff', especially in deprived areas where that's already a strong message.

ds is in a primary rated outstanding by Ofsted (and I think it genuinely is a very good school with a great head) but it's a 1950s building that has come to the end of its life. Building technology was at an all-time low in the 50s and they used glass extensively without having the standards we do today.

Us governors have been trying to persuade County to repair various bits that are falling apart for three years. We have a report from a structural engineer that the curtain walling is failing (i.e. big glass panels in steel frames on one side of the main hall and smaller panels all around the building). I was beginning to think it take the glass actually crashing down and injuring someone before they gave us the money.

They've FINALLY agreed to start repairs to the main hall and foundation unit in September (great timing ) but Gawd knows what 25% cuts in the budget will do. Keeping my fingers crossed we at least get the hall done but I'm worried County will run out of money before the rest.

In Switzerland they don't really have head teachers. We are addicted to the heroic saviour model of leadership in this country, IMO, and need to encourage professionals to take more responsibility for their own actions.

What do the Swiss do instead?

Wouldn't describe ds's head as a saviour, exactly. She does run a damn fine school, though.

No-one wants children taught in portakabins. And I strongly suspect that almost none are.

On the other hand I vividly remember graffiti strewn grotty desks featured heavily throughout my schooldays, occasionally adorned with gruesome remnants of chewing gum. They offered great horror, amusement, and diversion during the more boring lessons, but I don't think I particularly suffered at all.

A shiny granite workbench wouldn't have made me a better pupil.

And, yes, before the humourless descend, I am aware that new schools don't have granite desks.

A shiny granite workbench would be ruddy dangerous - a clumsy oaf like me would be BOUND to bang their head.

Mind you, I managed to end up with concussion three times as a teenager even with wooden workbenches. I learnt to avoid freewheeling down steep hills/riding ruddy frisky horses/tripping over concrete steps the hard way!

Being serious for a moment, I interviewed some heads about new BSF schools. They were very critical of the BSF programme (but wouldn't be named and quoted on that) BUT said the new buildings made a huge difference. For instance, one school had been built to limit opportunities for bullying - no hidden corners where bullies could skulk.

Another head said the kids really did feel grown ups and people in authority cared about them because they had put some effort into creating a nice building.

Mind you, apparently one BSF school was built with no staffroom. Can't imagine that was too popular with teachers - nowhere to keep the chocolate digestives safe from pupils.

There are children being taught in portakabins. I was in a school recently that was built in the 1960s, and most of the classrooms are on the second floor with no disabled access (and yes, there are disabled pupils at the school), and there were portakabins in the playground. The building is cold and draughty, leaking, damp, and quite depressing to be in. They were to have a new building on the Olympic site in 2012 - now cancelled. It's not measurable, but I think we can all imagine the boost to pride and wellbeing of pupils in an extremely deprived part of the country that going to school in a brand new building at the centre of the biggest event London has ever seen would have brought.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the BSF programme was bureacratic and not necessarily well run. But I have seen the difference to kids, parents and teachers' attitudes that having a new building gives. It's saying 'you're good enough to have excellent facilities'. It's interesting that schools applying to become academies haven't necessarily had their new buildings cancelled - so it's ok for academies but not the rest of us? Implicitly setting up a two-tier system.

My children's school was using portacabins until last year, but have a fabulous new building. I don't think it was part of the BSF program, was separate, but has made SUCH a difference to the school, and has other benefits, such as better security - the portacabins were always being broken into, and equipment being stolen, and this has not happened with the new building.

My theory is that the government basically want ALL schools to be either Academies or Free Schools, with the aim of removing the funding of education from government to a greater or lesser extent.

" It's interesting that schools applying to become academies haven't necessarily had their new buildings cancelled - so it's ok for academies but not the rest of us? Implicitly setting up a two-tier system."

The Academies on the list are the last wave (under the last government). They tend to be failing or poor schools targetted for rebuild and 're-opened' as Academies in the hope of 'turning them around' They are now being reviewed to see if a complete rebuild is necessary.

I went in an academy school last year in Manchester. Totally new building just a few year sold. Built next to a fantastc sport centre.

Looked great but it started raining and water was literally pouring through the plastic skin roof. Pools of water everywhere with buckets underneath. Incredibly shoddy construction. I am sure all these new buildings will have to be effectivley reconstructed in the next decade.

maybe this may help?

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/13/michael-gove-school-buildings-academies

Yep, she's pretty much said it.

Based on this ridiculas article - Fiona Millar is more ideological than Gove. My earlier post still stands - the remaing BSF academy schools are failing schools re-opening as academies (new labour stylee - to give credit where it is due).

The total budget for Gove's adaption of Ed Balls initiative for Free schools is £50million. (enough for one BSF new build) And most applicants are, apparently teachers. Yummy Mummies having better things to do, I guess .

Strangely -I bet that only few months ago PFI would have been a swear word to Ms Millar.

But Fiona Millar is right that instead of cancelling the school building plans in one stroke they could have found ways of slimming costs down. Why couldn't they have taken longer to review all projects carefully instead of rushing an announcement and getting the list so badly wrong?