Tuesday, 2 October 2007

Academies ambition

Today's publication of a prospectus encouraging successful private schools to get involved in Academies, on the same day that the Girls’ Day School Trust announces that Birkenhead High School is set to become the latest successful independent day school to convert to an academy, is a sign that the radicalism and diversity of the new Labour education project is alive and well. The announcement is being made by Andrew Adonis who is also tempting private schools to sponsor weak state schools that become academies. It is a shame that Ed Balls found no time to mention any of this in his speech to conference last week, because this is where Labour is being truly radical in tackling both underachievement and the historic apartheid between English private and state schools.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi - you seem to very happy with this outcome. We have one daughter who we have had on the list for Birkenhead for since she was born, and wonder what you think the overall effect will be on the school and its 'current' pupils (fee-paying) when it becomes an academy. Will achievement go up, down, stay the same? Or is this about just giving more opportunity to those not well enough off to pay?

Presumably the school will now be massively oversubscribed as a result of parents seeing a "free" superior education? I wonder if this means our daughter may not be able to attend (we live outside of Wirral, and she has not started yet).