'free' schools

[eFestivals]

I'm thinking that either the local schools would have to be completely dreadful (which isn't the case where nearly all the 'free'; schools are), or that the parents must be some sort of hugely f**ked up ideologues, to risk their child's education to an proven experiment.

[FunkyDenz]

I am concerned about 'free' schools being outside of LEA control and that they don't have to follow the National Curriculum. The reason there is a national curriculum is so that we know that children are being taught what they need to learn, using research-approved methods.

Having said that, private schools follow this approach, and it works for them. The difference is merely that the Government is funding places, rather than rich parents.

One concern would be around children with special educational needs. At present Local Authorities fund additional resources which allows some children with special needs to be educated in main-stream schools. If they're not over-seeing these 'free' schools, are they in a position to give the 'free' schools this additional funding?

[eFestivals]

So I wonder how "risky" they will prove to be... Seeing as the average Academy as been successful...

The thing with those words - tho true - is that the same level of improvement is seen at a state school that has the same extra resources given to it as an academy gets.

Which gets to show that it's not the school's top-level management structure which makes the difference, but the resources a school has.

[FunkyDenz]

This bit from the BBC Question & Answer session Barry Fish posted above (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10161371) is concerning.

"The government has announced that all outstanding schools will no longer be subject to routine Ofsted inspections - and the first wave of new academies will all have been judged outstanding."

The new academies will not be subject to routine Ofsted inspections? Who is going to check that they are doing what they say they are? That their teaching standards are appropriate? That the pupils are safe?

[eFestivals]

ever since I went to school (40 years ago), the education system has been a never ending experiment. First they tried to standardise it with the curriculum. Now it's all about diversifying....

but not too much

It's about 'diversifying', but not in the way you're thinking.

As free schools and Academies get more resources - taken from other schools - then those will most likely (on average) end up better. The result will be that more and more parents will want to send their kids to those schools, meaning more of those schools, and a greater disadavantage to standard schools (which are the ones that pay for the extra for Academies and 'frees').

So those academies and 'frees' will become over-subscribed, which will then require them to become selective. Once selectrive, their real purpose comes into play....

Which is to give the rich access to schools of the standard of the private schools, but which are free, paid for by everyone but to the benefit of the rich. Kerching! Another shift of money from the poor to the rich.

[eFestivals]

I do also like the idea of freeing up the Curriculum up and letting schools specialise more... It could possibly give students and parents more choice...

those words are great as a set of words. Sadly, the reality can be anything.

For example, many of the new 'free' schools are faith schools, which might choose to teach creationism as fact. How's that a good thing?

If you look across the pond right now the two leading Republican candidates are anti-science, either denying or pretending to deny evolution, and making untrue statements about the scientific belief in climate change.

Is that really the way we want to go? :angry:

[FunkyDenz]

So those academies and 'frees' will become over-subscribed, which will then require them to become selective. Once selectrive, their real purpose comes into play....

Which is to give the rich access to schools of the standard of the private schools, but which are free, paid for by everyone but to the benefit of the rich. Kerching! Another shift of money from the poor to the rich.

[eFestivals]

I am certainly against selection of this type... We shouldn't allow that to happen...

PMSL - can't you see that that's the inevitable outcome, unless parents are going to be saying "I want my kid to go to the worst school in the area"?

The whole thing has been designed specifically for this to happen, and with public approval.

[eFestivals]

They have to teach English, Maths and Science...

I see no danger in creation being taught as long as the other theories are taught along side it...

Religious schools have been around for a very long time. Lets not confuse Academies / Free schools with religious schools to much.

All very good if you really think they'll be given even equal weighting, without the teachers expressing a preference for one and dismissing the other.

One is fact with solid evidence, the same evidence we use for all other life decisions. The other is technically and literally a delusion if the same principle was being applied to anything but a religious idea.

I don't have any problem with kids being taught that religions exist. I have a huge problem with delusions being presented as fact - or (most likely) presented as fact above the actual facts.

How this pans out can be seen in the USA, where the delusionists are taking an ever greater control on the basis of only religious indoctrination.

[eFestivals]

Its a fear I have... You currently can not select pupils on the basis you are suggesting though... So not sure if I should just let the fear run away and say its all a crap idea?

The original idea that has become 'free schools' included selection. It got removed only because it wasn't politically possible at this time.

Once you've changed the situation with schools where there's "advantaged schools" and "slum schools", then the considerations of the population also changes towards schools.

[FunkyDenz]

What do you mean they are already selective ?

[eFestivals]

Some people have a different view to majority thinking on climate change etc...

Yep, they do - but that's not what those republicans are saying.

They're stating untrue facts about how many scientists in the field of climate change accept that majority opinion, as well as making statements about those scientists having published proven lies only for the purpose of conning people with those lies (the reality is that no climate scientist has been caught 'lying'; some [a very small number] have been found to be using bad methodology or stretching their conclusions beyond what the evidence can support).

You can teach all the ideas, the teacher can even express an opinion, and then the kid makes its own mind up and the world moves on...

If a kid concludes that 2+2=5 they're wrong. Teachers should present ideas based in evidence, they're not meant to make up any old bollocks for the kids to accept or not.

If a person wants to teach their kid lies then they're welcome to do it - at home. They shouldn't expect their lies to be taught to everyone's kid.

Seems dangerous to me, actually, it seems very anti - education, to dictate what is correct and incorrect to children in the manner you are suggesting...

what's more dangerous, teaching kids facts of substance or making up unsubstantiated bollocks and telling them it's true?

And while you might subscribe to a set of religious ideas that you'd like your kid to have because you take them as being fact, and so don't sdee what you've said there as dangerous to your kid's ability to work with facts, just remember this: the religious ideas a kid will be taught won't be yours, because there's no two people that have the exact same religious idea, and that a suicide bomber's idea of religion has 100% of the same basis as any idea you have - that it's all made up in their head. It's just as possible your kid will come out a suicide bomber as it is they'll have the fluffy version you might have.

This thread is just going to end up being a religious bashing thread I can see already...

If you're going to make those sorts of mad statements as you have above, then you could well be right.

[eFestivals]

Its not like the selection in private schools.

Yet!!!!

Religious schools are a bit different allowing the school to take only children with a declared faith etc.

is that how it is nowadays? It never used to be, it certainly wasn't 40 years ago.

[eFestivals]

There should always be room within education for discussion and challenging the accepted norms... and so on...

absolutely - but challenged with substance, not baseless ideas.

I think it is reasonable to expect a kid to be taught 2+2=4 while at the same time real unknowns such as the creation of the universe are left to open teaching...

The actual moment of coming into existence of the universe is the only 'unknown', the only thing without evidence to the whole idea. I have no problem with people being taught that it is unknown, because that's the fact of the matter.

Creationism theory in full is utterly baseless - there's not one iota that has any verifiable substance. It's an idea that's worth as much as the idea that I shit gold ingots.

It would be more worthwhile to teach kids that everything The Sun publishes is true, and have The Sun as their replacement textbooks than it would to give the smallest credence to the idea that evolution theory is completely wrong and it's all been done by god - at least some of what The Sun publishes is verifiable.

[eFestivals]

So do we discuss the proposed idea on its merits or just stick to the scare mongering of what it might lead to in the future ?

The proposed idea as it is being proposed is of more concern to me personally...

The idea as it exists in practice today is mostly harmless - tho it's still subjecting kids to an experiment (amusingly enough, that's been the tory's stated objection to the comprehensive system ... tho really it was just their loss of privilege).

But the 'merits' of the idea in full is without doubt its future with selection. If it was only about school independence then there's already Academies.

[eFestivals]

Ok Neil, you don't believe in God... and you don't like religion...

Anyway, back to Free Schools...

Schools are for teaching the things that are known, not for teaching the worthless idea that I shit gold.

[FunkyDenz]

Surely Religious Education is there to teach people about world faiths? If it is taught in the manner "Christians / Jews / Hindus / Pagans* believe ..." *delete as applicable, then it is being taught in an appropriate manner, rather than in a Science class.

[eFestivals]

I would agree I don't see a need for them really... Academies already offer the variation etc...

I don't agree its about selection though... It feels more like getting big business involved in education and everything that goes with that... The good and the bad...

Good to see that you know f**k all about the education sector just as you do everything else.

"big business" has a formal role in academies, it does not have a formal role in free schools.

Free schools are able to be run by businesses, tho there's no "big businesses" currently involved in running education for it to be big business that runs the free schools.

If "big business" does end up running free schools, that'll be long after selection comes into those schools. They can't get 'big' until the free schools sector is itself big, which will have already brought about a public acceptance of selectivity.

------------------

Amusingly tho, the public will be hugely disappointed with that selectivity, as already proven by countless polls over the years. The idea of selectivity is only attractive when a person believes themselves to be one of those who gets selected (or their kids, obviously, with schools) - and the facts get to show that just about everyone thinks they'll be the one selected (when of course if everyone is selected there's no selection).

[eFestivals]

Free schools are officially Academies... Mr Expert...

No they're not. They work to a different set of rules.

It follows logic big business will be involved to at least the same level as they are in standard Academies...

Well, yes, you're right - if the logic you're using is a logic that's outside of what the rules for free schools allow.

The potential for a bigger involvement is clear.... and that is under the current rules not some unfounded fear like your selection argument...

I've said that there's the potential for bigger involvement - but not by 'big business', until there's 'big business' education providers that actually exist, which they don't as yet.

As for some 'unfounded fear', you just need to do some research on the tory's school plans which panned out as being 'free schools' to see the plainly stated desire for selection within those schools.

It's not some "unfounded fear", it's a stated want by those who have wanted these 'free schools' and brought them into existence. It's a plan to create 'private schools' that the rich no longer have to pay for.

[eFestivals]

Which rules ? What is different ?

Free schools are Academies... The free school idea is just freeing up who can run and set up these Academies.

So not academies.

Traditionally, current schools would apply for academy status and transfer. Now parents, charities and business can apply to do this in new locations etc.

My understanding is they are academies and will operate as academies...

Nope. Academies are about sponsorship from (local?) businesses. Free schools are not.

[eFestivals]

What more can I say... Your moronic existence speaks for itself

what more could you say? Perhaps - if you can handle the truth - that you got it wrong?

[eFestivals]

The Academies Act 2010 created provision for "Free Schools"...

But don't let that enlighten your understanding...

So what you're saying is that it's a progression of the academies idea - so not academies, because it's progressed to be something different, via the involvement of parents, teachers and others in establishing them.

So that's different isn't it? The same would be the same.

But there's more than just that too.....

The original idea of academies - one that has essentially failed, so they've been warped into being something else even before getting to free schools - was that businesses would 'sponsor' them and so give them more cash than they'd otherwise get. The problem was that there was a Blairite ideological drive for academies, but there wasn't enough interested sponsoring businesses ... and so they ended up getting extra cash from govt instead, so that the academies idea could be regarded as successful and not a failure.

So what free schools are is a failure built on a failure built on failure - but it's OK, they'll come good this time, send your children to the experiment.

[eFestivals]

You are letting your dogma and bullshit cloud your limited intellect again... Actually you aren't, you know exactly what you are doing and that is trying to cloud the issue...

Academies and Free school as an entity are exactly the same. They are governed by the same set of rules (something you claimed wrongly otherwise above)... It is only the management of the Academy which is different.

please do tell me again which part of you saying "It is only the management of the Academy which is different" makes them identical?

If you change who runs a business it doesn't stop being a business ?

Then I wonder why there's right-wing ideologues everywhere trying to change publicly-owned businesses into privately owned ones?

As it happens, I agree with the angle you're taking here - that it's how a business is managed that matters, not how the ownership is structured behind that management - but the simple fact is that mine is the minority view (by a long way), and it's certainly not the view the govt is taking over this - everything about academies and free schools from an ideological point of view is EVERYTHING about who is running the business and how that effects everything beneath it.

You are talking about and viewing free schools as something totally different controlled by different government legalisation and it simply is not the case.

it very definitely is controlled by different legislation, at least it most definitely is from the perspective of the original establishment of adcademies and the establishment of free schools now.

As I said, the idea for academies was that they'd be sponsored by businesses, and so have more money (tho not from the taxpayer) per child they schooled.

If that's disappeared from the re-written academy legislation, that's simply an acknowledgement of the failure of the original academies idea. All the same it was the primary driver for the establishment of academies, and it's never been the primary driver for the establishment of free schools.

Those primary reasons for each's establishment are vastly different, not in the same ball park.

because...guess what... that is what they are

wrong. It is what they've become thru changed legislation for academies.

What I am staying is 100% fact but you try to label it as bullshit. It is sad.

there IS a very definite difference, one which you've mentioned yourself. Different means different, as I'd said correctly.

Only in a world where 'different' means 'the same' do you get to be right.

You know if you can cloud the issue enough people will get back to lapping up your dogma instead of understanding the issue clearly. A technique you use a lot. But I can see right through it.

cloud it by pretending that 2010 legislation is nothing different from 2002 (or whenever it was) legislation, you mean?

What are 'academies' has changed with this new legislation - after all, academies pre-date that 2010 legislation. That's where your error is.

[eFestivals]

So for this to be a reasonable debate

To be more correct:....

we should be discussing if charities, parents and business can run schools better if they're given (as they are) more money per-pupil than other schools.

They can certainly be run more successfully if there's a greater spend per-pupil - academies have proven that.

Now, have private businesses been run more successfully than the private businesses they replaced? The massive consensus is no. Any benefit that might be brought is more than lost by the pursuit of profit.

Free schools don't have an above-the-line pursuit of profit - but the staff are free to be paid whatever they want. What headteacher isn't going to pay himself more for doing the same? ... the proof of this can be seen from pay at local authorities since unshackled to set their own rates.

Then there are the private or charity educational providers - who despite Clegg's word can work for a free school for profit (it's only the school itself which can't make a profit - yet), sucking resources away from the pupils and their educational benefit.

And finally ... Sweden says not. Tories are wrong again.

[eFestivals]

I give up

you're giving up at pretending that something which is defined differently is identical? That would be your smartest move for a very long while.