Will the Government continue to champion school diversity?

Since Andrew Adonis was moved from his job as schools minister to a well-deserved promotion at transport, there has been much concern among academy sponsors and leaders about the future direction of government policy. So, there will have been relief among many at some of the comments made by the schools minister of state Jim Knight, who has now got a greater responsibility for the policy than before, in this week's TES.

"Since I started visiting (academies) and seeing how they worked for children from communities where successive generations have been let down by schools, I am an enthusiastic proponent of them and advocate for them."

But a worrying sign that all is not as it should be is contained elsewhere in the paper, with suggestions that the Office of the Schools Commissioner could be scrapped following the departure of Sir Bruce Liddington. We are told ominously that "the functions that he has been able to perform with his team are hugely important and we are clear that we need these functions to continue."

The last time I heard such a formulation was when the government scrapped the Standards and Effectiveness Unit, the tight-knit group established in the department to champion improvements in literacy and numeracy. The abolition led to less rigour in the 3Rs, only corrected by Jim Rose's phonics review and tough action by Adonis as schools minister two years later.

So, as I hear the same formulation again, I fear that the government is planning to scrap the post of schools commissioner and his team. To be fair, there are some interesting signs on diversity in the opposite direction from the Department and the secretary of state, Ed Balls. Yet the Commissioner is the champion of diversity, including academies and trust schools, within the Department and the result can only be a dimunition in diversity, regardless of the stated commitment of ministers and officials to the policy.

I do hope ministers think long and hard before agreeing to something they will come to regret.

A good week for school reform

There has been a welcome sign of purposeful activity from the awkwardly-named Department for Children, Schools and Families this week, and an unusually high degree of reasonably well reported good news stories.

* The opening of 180 new schools, including 47 new academies, has given positive prominence to the school building programme not just nationally but locally too.
* Details of plans to bring back the compulsory cooking lessons agreed by Tony Blair with Jamie Oliver have been strong and without equivocation. The difference between 'food technology' and cooking is being well understood.
* Plans for 100 new trust schools run with the co-operative movement echo an idea floated at a time when trust schools were hugely controversial. It is good to see the key proposal from the 2006 education act being taken forward with enthusiasm.
* Plans announced today for £10 million investment in boarding places for vulnerable children are particularly welcome, although select committee chairman Barry Sheerman's odd reaction to the idea suggests that this is a policy battle not yet fully won.

And what characterises these four excellent proposals? They represent a welcome continuity of the education policies developed by Tony Blair as Prime Minister. They have a level of detail and plausibility that remains lacking in the Conservative proposals. And they confirm that early signs of a retreat on reform in education after Gordon Brown became PM have been firmly abandoned.