Technically, these schools were launched by Labour

Today's Daily Mail breathlessly announces on its second page today, "Gove brings back technical schools" as it describes the Secretary of State's detailing of plans for a dozen University Technical Colleges to provide students with a specialist vocational education. Throughout the piece, the implication is that this is yet another reversal of dreadful Labour education policy.

Funny, then, that Lord Mandelson announced the same plans in his skills strategy last November:

We will work with the Department for Children, Schools and Families to support the development of University Technical Colleges. These will offer new opportunities for 14-19 year olds to undertake vocational and applied study. Alongside the introduction of 14-19 Diplomas, University Technical Colleges will greatly strengthen the flow of young people coming into the labour market with the skills and capabilities employers want, particularly for technician careers. We will ensure good progression from University Technical Colleges to other routes of study including advanced apprenticeships and foundation degrees.

Or, as Lord Baker, the former Conservative education secretary who came up with the idea in the first place with the late Ron Dearing, recalled events in the TES earlier this year:

Ron and I decided to promote the idea of a new technical school, but with two important differences. First, recruitment should be from the age of 14 and continue until the age of 19. Second, each should be sponsored by a university or FE college to secure their proper status. We took our idea for university technical colleges (UTCs) to Andrew Adonis, then a minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and he warmly welcomed it, suggesting that they should be established under the existing academies programme. This was the "go-ahead".

The truth is that this was a genuinely bipartisan initiative, which enjoyed the support of both Labour and the Conservatives. To encourage partisan newspapers to pretend otherwise is unworthy of those doing the briefing.

Empathy or traditionalism: Goldie's lesson for Gove

One of the biggest problems with the Tories' school policies is the contradiction between their desire to let a thousand flowers bloom when it comes to 'free schools' and their own strong convictions about an ideal curriculum or syllabus. Michael Gove is commendably strong in his opposition to Islamist extremism. Yet there are supporters of extremist Islamism, as well as scientologists and various religious cults, keen to establish taxpayer-funded schools. On the curriculum, Gove's support for traditionalist rigour sits uneasily with the thematic skills-based learning that many schools believe to be more relevant. And at the weekend, we learnt that a prime candidate for some of Gove's new schools is the actress Goldie Hawn, whose MindUP organisation advocates empathy rather than traditionalist teaching (although to be fair, her foundation includes some respected mainstream educationists among its directors).

However, this incongruity has finally awoken the anxieties of the Daily Mail, which has a scathing attack today on the actress's philosophy and Gove for adopting her 'unproven' approach. As Christopher Wilson writes:

Whether the Tories’ Mr Gove has checked the efficacy of this system, we wait to see; more crucial is how he can contemplate giving taxpayers’ money to a system devised and patented by an unqualified individual, whose knowledge of the special educational problems of this country can at best be rudimentary.....Surely, with ‘hundreds’ of teachers trained in the use of MindUP, the research has already been done — it either works, or it doesn’t. Apparently not. So quite what value MindUP can offer our nation’s children can only be in the far-seeing eye of Mr Gove. But when putting forward his ideas, it’ll be interesting to see how many times he comes up with the word ‘ empathy’ — for ‘empathy’ is what MindUP is all about.

A sense of proportion over school dinner ladies

I agree with Mark Easton and Michael White about the impact of the new vetting rules for those working with children and vulnerable adults. As a school governor, I have had to have checks by the now defunct Criminal Records Bureau. To be fair, it wasn't all that arduous a procedure, but the climate of suspicion being created is crazy and potentially counterproductive.

The new system already seems slower and more bureaucratic than the CRB. Schools find it particularly difficult recruiting native language teachers from abroad, as their vetting takes longer, and a backlog is emerging with the new procedures now that councils are in charge. And they will find it harder to get volunteers not just as governors but for many of the functions that characterise today's extended school.

Yet the problem as always is that officials and politicians want to play safe. It is a brave minister who tells a civil servant only to bother with the most obvious threats, rather than seeking to cover all bases. I have sat in many meetings where the wish to regulate against every eventuality was the default position. And why might this be so?

Step forward, Her Majesty's Press. Of course, the notion that every formal car pool or PTA volunteer needs to be vetted is an absurd over-reaction. But imagine what the media would say if the next Ian Huntley were a school governor or school-sanctioned car pooler, and documents were FOI-ed showing that Jim Hacker had decided NOT TO vet governors or car-poolers because he wanted to exercise a sense of proportion, against the advice of Sir Humphrey.

To get a flavour of this, you only need to look at what one newspaper said last year when it emerged that some dinner ladies might have slipped through the CRB net:

More than 13,000 people working with children have not passed security checks introduced by the Government in the wake of the Soham murders. The unchecked employees include teachers, caretakers, dinner ladies and lollipop men. The revelation raises the possibility that sex offenders may have slipped through the net.

Surely this newspaper is not the same Daily Mail that is lambasting ministers because of the scope of the vetting measures? As James Slack, the Mail's Home affairs editor puts it today:

It will also extend the reach beyond people who hold positions of responsibility, to anybody who comes into regular contact with the vulnerable. This is classified as once a month, or three times in a single 30 day period. As a result, school dinner ladies, governors, parents who transport children on behalf of sports clubs and even volunteers who read books in schools or nurseries will be dragged into the net. If they perform their voluntary work without clearance, they too could be hammered with a £5,000 fine and criminal record.

You just don't know where you are with school dinner ladies, do you?

This post has been picked up by John Rentoul and by Stumbling and Mumbling.

Blame Brown for everything

The Local Government Association, a body now controlled by the Conservatives, commissioned a report which proposed means testing free bus passes for the elderly. So how does the Daily Mail respond to this outrageous plan in a report commissioned by the Tories?

Scrap our free bus passes? That'll be your ticket to ballot box oblivion, Mr Brown

When a grammar school fails...

I have never been an enthusiast for closing the 164 remaining grammar schools. Apart from anything else, it seemed a foolish distraction from the wider goal of raising standards in Labour's first term, and the balloting arrangements introduced in 1998 hardly suggested a groundswell of popular support. The only ballot to date - in Ripon - confirmed the status quo. Indeed, there is a lot to be said for the sort of partnerships now being developed with grammar schools which are improving choice and results for other schools.

But there is something quite extraordinary about the blind faith of some in grammars, as caricatured by a piece in today's Daily Mail about Ofsted placing Stretford Grammar School in Trafford into special measures. "Grammar school with a 96% GCSE pass rate branded a failure by Ofsted. Why? Its race policy is out of date," thunders the Mail in my print edition, managing to work two hobby horses into a single headline.

Yet in a selective grammar school, every pupil ought to achieve five good GCSEs including English and Maths, and a lot more besides. Any proper comparison must be with other grammars, not with non-selective schools.

And, here are the reasons why the school was really failed, according to the Ofsted report:

* The overall effectiveness of the school has declined since the last inspection and is now inadequate.
* Girls and higher ability students make insufficient progress. Mathematics and science subjects are weak in Key Stage 4. Too many students fail to attain the very highest grades they are capable of in their GCSE examinations.
* Too much teaching remains lacklustre and is not good enough to ensure that all students achieve as well as they should. A decline in the standard of students' behaviour in lessons is a consequence of teaching that fails to challenge, extend and inspire.
* Leadership and management are inadequate. Governance is inadequate (and there is then a brief mention of the equalities policies)
* The school's specialist science status has not had sufficient impact on raising students' achievement, improving the quality of teaching and learning or enhancing the curriculum.

There are many grammar schools that are stretching their able students and teaching exciting lessons. This is clearly not one of them. To pretend that any school that fails on so many counts is not failing merely because of its iconic status or because of political correctness is quite extraordinary.

Indeed, in other circumstances, a person uttering such tosh would be subjected to the full Why Oh Why? treatment ......in the Mail.

This post was picked up by John Rentoul.