Michael Rosen has some questions for the education secretary

My, aren’t you busy! If you’re not busying about with Suffolk selling off a primary school, you’re busying about in Haringey turning a school that doesn’t want it, into an academy. I’m a parent of two school-age children – and several older ones – and like you, I visit a lot of schools. Imagine my surprise to hear that the new curriculum we’re all waiting for is going to be delayed by a whole year.

I have to admit some confusion here. Under the last government we became very used to guidelines flying out of their ears – and ours. We were utterly curriculummed. And then your government, showing its libertarian side, announced that you were doing away with all that micro-management – you were going to leave it to the experts – the teachers! Of course, that was only partly the case, because it wasn’t long before you set up a curriculum review which, excuse my yawn, felt like something that’s been hitting teachers, parents and children for the whole of my lifetime.

As a child, I can remember the house being full of talks of “reports” – and indeed the shelves being full of them a year or so later – Plowden, Bullock, Crowther, Swann – excuse me if I’ve muddled them. And then when your party were in power last time and the supremely confident Sir Kenneth Baker was in your chair, again – more reports: Cox and Kingman – and didn’t Mr Cox get another stab at it? Then there was the aborted LINC report (at a cost of some £20m, I heard), and lo, we had the “strategies” which would solve everything, but mysteriously were abolished after that 10-year experiment – not forgetting the Rose report and the Rose report 2.

Then in you came with your new broom, and whaddyaknow – another “review”. In fact, I was honoured to have been asked to present a word or two about books and reading, and was interested to hear that the word “from on high” was that the new national curriculum would be very “bare bones” stuff, pedagogy wouldn’t get a mention, though I was asked if I was in favour of a recommended list of authors. You won’t be surprised to know that I said no. Either Cox or Kingman (or both) tried that one before and it got booted out when most living authors said that they didn’t want to be on the list. And then, surely, my eyebrows weren’t the only eyebrows that lifted when you said how important it was to read Dryden. Really? Do you read Dryden? Really? Honestly?

I digress.

Given that the word from “on high” was that the curriculum in English was going to be so slim, could I ask you why it will take another year to produce? How long does it take to write a slim curriculum? (No, that’s not a question from one of the verbal reasoning tests that seem to be back in vogue.)

There’s a bit of an anomaly though, isn’t there? This curriculum will only apply in England and only in schools working within local authorities. So central government is going to lay down a compulsory curriculum for the schools that it’s trying to turn into schools where the curriculum won’t apply – academies, free schools and indeed any other kinds of schools you might invent.

I’m sure you’ve got very good reasons for all this.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen’s letters will appear monthly

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Number of places on offer rises by more than 25% – an increase driven by family breakdown and pressure on working parents

State boarding schools are witnessing a surge in popularity, with the number of places rising by a quarter over the past decade – an increase driven in part by family breakdown, which has in effect left some children homeless.

Two academies have opened boarding facilities this term, and a third is due to open residential quarters in September, raising the number of children in state boarding to more than 5,000 from 3,800 at the start of the last decade. Five more academies plan to open boarding facilities, including one in south London, which hopes to send inner-city children to board in Sussex.

Instead of the cold showers and ascetic dormitories of public school tradition, modern boarding quarters feature purpose-built blocks with ensuite bedrooms, access to Wi-Fi and thumb-print recognition entry systems.

The Harefield academy in Hillingdon opened a boarding facility with 50 places this academic year, mainly to provide for children with difficult home lives. This includes pupils who were “sofa surfing” because of family breakdown or the death of a parent.

The school also selects 15 children a year for their sporting excellence, and some of these pupils have chosen to board because they were commuting long distances or because they wanted more time to train.

Boarding has helped diversify the school, which now includes two boys from the Bahamas and children from Spain. Principal Lynn Gadd said: “Harefield is very white, working class, and we felt we needed a slightly bigger global dimension, so we offered a few places to students who could bring that richness.”

Hilary Moriarty, director of the state boarding schools association, suggested that changes to working lives had increased the appeal of boarding for families. She said: “Many boarding schools now offer weekly boarding, which is an attractive proposition for many families, particularly if mum and dad both work – on Monday we all go to work, see you on Friday. If you’re on a train at 7am, get home at 7.30 or 8pm, there’s very little time for the kind of ideal vision of family life that we had 30 years ago.”

At Ashby school in Leicestershire, which has almost doubled its boarding wing to 72 places this academic year, headteacher Eddie Green concurred: “There’s a number of reasons [why children board]. Modern family life is one of them. Parents are working overseas, or working longer hours. We have students coming from abroad who value the English educational system. Quite a lot are from Hong Kong. We’ve got students from EU countries where the parents have gone to live abroad.”

Boarding school accommodation is being created around the country. Priory academy in Lincoln is due to open a sixth-form boarding house with 60 places in September 2012, catering for demand from RAF families and pupils who commute long-distance.

The Wellington academy in Wiltshire, sponsored by the public school Wellington College, opened twin boarding houses for 100 students this academic year.

One of the most ambitious boarding school projects is a plan by a school in Stockwell, south London, to set up a satellite school for its pupils in the home counties.

Durand Academy plans to open a junior school in London this autumn, and from 2014 students will attend a boarding school in Sussex. Under the plan, which has received £17m of government funding for building work, pupils will be driven to Sussex on Monday and return home on Friday. The aim is to move children to an environment free from negative influences and offer an extended school day combining study with music, drama and sport. Unlike other state boarding schools, it will not charge for accommodation. Instead, its running costs will come out of private income the school generates from a swimming pool, gym and block of flats.

A similar motive drives plans for a boarding “free school”, which will admit children at risk of going into care. About 20 children in each year-group of this proposed school would have been identified by social workers as being at risk of entering care, its backers say. The school would have a “family” system of house-parents providing pastoral care for the boarders.

Lee Donaghy, who is proposing the school with his wife, Ann, said: “Our central motivation is to give the most disadvantaged and marginalised children in society an educational experience that is on a par with the very best that’s on offer in British schooling. One thing that struck us powerfully was a state boarding school head saying that boarding provision for this group of children works because for the first time in their lives they have access to something that others desire – and are even prepared to pay for.” The proposed free school, which would open in 2014, would be based wherever the need is greatest, Donaghy added.

Other state boarding schools are urging the government to provide funding for building work so they can expand. State boarding scho ols are permitted to charge parents to cover accommodation costs – with fees of £10,000-£12,000 – but restricted from charging more. This limits their ability to accumulate surpluses for construction work.

Ray McGovern, chairman of the State Boarding Schools Association, said: “If we manage to get the investment, then we can fund other children who need boarding places but whose families can’t afford it. But we need to know what the government’s strategy is going to be.”

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Shadow education secretary admits last administration failed to get value for money from its school building programme

Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, has admitted that Labour did not always get “value for money” in education and that he agrees with more than half of the government’s cuts to school building programmes.

Twigg, who was appointed to his brief in October, said that in power he would slash £2bn from the last administration’s budget for maintaining schools and building new ones.

The shadow minister said it was an admission that the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, scrapped by the education secretary, Michael Gove, did not always spend money wisely and that it might not be the “best way to move forward” in these straitened times.

The comments follow Labour leader Ed Miliband’s acceptance in a landmark speech that Labour needed to show where it would cut spending if it were to be seen as credible enough to take power at the next general election. The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, also said in an interview with the Guardian on Saturday that Labour’s “starting point” had to be acceptance of coalition cuts.

Twigg told the Observer that he had come to accept that while the BSF programme had done some good things, it had its faults. “I think this is a very, very good example where I can rise, in a sense, to the challenge Ed Miliband has set for all of us in the shadow cabinet.”

He added: “I have accepted that while BSF and other capital programmes did some brilliantly good things – and I have been to some of the schools built under that programme – it didn’t always deliver absolute value for money.

“There is scope to do what BSF did at a lower price and there are lessons we can learn from BSF and other projects to achieve greater efficiency.”

Twigg’s admission is likely to cause anger in some quarters and be seized upon by Gove, who was criticised for scrapping the BSF programme, a decision attacked by the then shadow education minister, Ed Balls, as a “tragedy”.

Building projects at more than 700 secondary schools were cancelled when the BSF project was abandoned in July 2010. The decision provoked uproar from councils, unions and Labour politicians who warned of a catastrophic effect on pupils. Under Labour, every secondary school in England was due to be rebuilt or refurbished.

The £2bn figure is equivalent to a 30% cut to the Labour government’s planned spending on school buildings between 2010 and 2015, which was the amount that an independent review of BSF revealed in April last year could have been removed through greater efficiency. The government has made a 57% cut to Labour’s spending plans.

Twigg’s comments follow a similar announcement from the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, who earlier this month said Labour would accept £5bn of government cuts to the military, including the scrapping of Nimrod spy planes.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer, the shadow education secretary also said he supported the government in its efforts to find ways to make it easier for headteachers to sack poorly performing teachers.

In the past 10 years, only 17 teachers have been sacked for gross misconduct, despite evidence of a hugely varying quality in the standard of teaching. He also signalled an acceptance of Gove’s academy programme by claiming that autonomy for schools was the right way to go. However, he said the education secretary appeared to be “obsessed” with academies and free schools.

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You have done us all a service by exposing the damaging cuts the government is inflicting on education (Report, 27 December). Those of us who work in education have been aware of this for some time. Let me highlight two areas. While the UK languishes in 25th position in the international Pisa reading rankings, a minority of headteachers are slashing school library budgets and even making school librarians redundant. What does this say about the importance of reading to Michael Gove and his colleagues?

Many school library services which support individual schools have closed and everyone knows the situation in our public libraries. For years there has been a thriving culture of authors and poets visiting schools, enthusing children about books, reading and writing. Budget cuts mean many schools are, for the first time, not organising these visits. Disregard the happy-clappy fibbery of the Department for Education. Real cuts are happening and they are likely to get worse. In the words of the Spanish civil war poster, if you tolerate this, your kids will be next.
Alan Gibbons
Author and organiser of the Campaign for the Book

• Librarians not only improve literacy by encouraging reading for pleasure, they also develop information literacy by supporting students in locating, evaluating and using information. This information literacy is now an essential life skill. 
Jean Parker
London

• The music and arts service in Brighton & Hove has long been rated outstanding and is valued highly across the city. Even so, it is facing a 33% cut over two years in its central fund. On top of this, the Green-led council is proposing the complete phasing out of the local subsidy.

Currently, more than 2,500 children benefit from instrumental lessons and ensemble workshops every week in the city. This includes more than 500 families on lower incomes, who are able to access up to 80% subsidies. The National Music Plan is full of good intent on widening access, but without financial support such opportunities will become wholly the preserve of the better-off. Without an adequately funded service offering area-wide provision for music and instrumental lessons for all, teachers of music will have no other option than to find employment elsewhere; public schools and the private sector seem the most likely.

Music and arts education is extremely valuable to the social, emotional and intellectual development of all children as has been emphasised by the Henley review and the National Music Plan. However, music services are at serious risk of falling through the funding cracks. Over 2,000 people have now signed a petition to urge Brighton & Hove council to reconsider its proposal to cut the local subsidy to the music service.
Dr Keith Turvey
Brighton, East Sussex

• It’s a pity your otherwise excellent article on how pupils are paying the price of austerity didn’t include the imminent loss of inclusive outdoor education services provided by local authorities. A UK-wide perspective reveals that 15 outdoor education centres have already been closed, with a further one in three facing closure due to government cuts in funding for local authorities. The loss of local authority financial support and the increased course charges which result will, predictably, hit families on the lowest incomes hardest, preventing their children’s participation in outdoor education courses and effectively rendering these services unviable.

It would be a shameful tragedy if this highly effective teaching and learning method was denied to all our young people, particularly as it makes a valued and proven contribution to their personal development, assisting them to become confident individuals, successful learners and responsible citizens.
Alistair Cook
National chair, Association of Heads of Outdoor Education Centres

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I couldn’t help but clench my teeth with indignation after reading your star-studded Q&A interview with David Cameron (So, prime minister, what are you ashamed of?, Weekend, 26 November). In his reply to a question from Tracey Emin he pinned himself down as a “big fan of art education” and said he is “all in favour of us having well-funded art colleges”.

The art college in Maidstone where Emin studied (whose current students I represent as a sabbatical officer) will be closed by 2014 and is now part of the fourth worst-cut university in England. The University for the Creative Arts has been forced to bid for exemption from coming student number reforms after the funding council was “convinced” by the case of institutions like ours that the result of these changes would “likely be a loss of this type of provision”. The university would have lost over £1m in funding under the new regime. I worry for the future of our institution, and art and design education in Britain as a whole.

UCA has a good record for widening access, and Cameron is a brazen hypocrite who would see that destroyed, with the “enormous benefit” of this “great education” denied to so many in future. However, he is not the only hypocrite. If Emin truly cherished the memory of her education at Maidstone College of Art she would not have so publicly endorsed the Tories over her desire for a lower tax rate.
Luke Frost
Maidstone campus officer, UCA Students’ Union

• I have spent much of the last six years helping to clear up the damage caused by Thatcher ripping up nutritional standards for school meals. Far from saving us money, this nasty piece of deregulation cost our children and the school meal service dear. Following a commendable campaign by Jamie Oliver and others, we finally got nutritional standards again. But by refusing to apply the nutritional standards to academies and free schools while encouraging the majority of schools to become academies, the government is effectively destroying the standards (Cameron feels heat from Oliver over food standards in academies, 26 November).

That is why I have written to the School Food Trust, the Local Authority Catering Association, the Food for Life Partnership and the Children’s Food Campaign asking them to insist Michael Gove applies nutritional standards to all schools. I expect these organisations to “speak truth to power”. Failure to do so will have dire consequences for the school dinners our children will be eating.
Jackie Schneider
Morden, Surrey

• David Cameron, Guardian Weekend, 26.11.11, page 47: “We are spending £82.5m on our new music strategy and we’re going to do more to try and make sure this money gets through where it is needed … I’d like the opportunity for my children and other children to do better.” Report in Guardian main section, 26.11.11, page 25: “Wrong note as Gove cuts funding for music plan … at the moment £77.5m is allocated for music tuition … The money will drop to £75m from April 2012, £63m the following year and down to £58m in 2014-15.” Maybe the Leveson inquiry’s remit should be widened.
Robert Meikle
Birmingham

• David Cameron’s favourite line in literature is “Men of England who lie in bed”? Actually, the St Crispin’s Day speech is wonderful, but his favourite line (fortunately) doesn’t occur anywhere in it.
Jim Milroy
Deddington, Oxfordshire

• Another question David Cameron might usefully have have been asked: how long can the government continue blaming the present situation on “the mess we inherited from Labour”? Is there a historical precedent for government taking responsibility for its own mess?
David Huband
Norwich

• I can’t begin to express how disheartening it was to read your David Cameron puff piece – trite unchallenged responses to trite unchallenging questions. If this is the best the Guardian can do with a government still contemplating how to cut the top rate of tax while public services are being slashed and the privatised providers of energy and travel charge endlessly more, etc, it’s truly a sad day in the 30 years I have been reading the paper.
PHJ Blake
Fulmer, Buckinghamshire

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Head of education tribunal says one family was told the school had an ‘inappropriate curriculum’

Some schools are dissuading parents from applying to them if their children have a special need or disability, the head of an education tribunal has warned.

Ian Craig, head of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator, which hears parents’ complaints against schools, said one English council told him that in at least one of its schools, parents of disabled children were told the school had an “inappropriate curriculum”.

Another local authority found one of its local academies had deliberately delayed admitting a pupil with special needs, although the school had been named as the best place for the pupil.

The school admissions code states that schools must ensure their admissions policies do not unfairly disadvantage children from a particular social or racial group, or those with disabilities or special needs.

Under the code, primary schools are meant to help families stay together by awarding a place to the younger brother or sister of a child already at the school.

However, Craig said that the high demand for primary school places had led to a greater number of siblings being split between several schools.

The tribunal’s annual report, published on Friday, also showed that the number of parents’ complaints in the last year fell to 254 from 539 the year before. However, parents were employing more lawyers to fight what they saw as injustices, Craig said.

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Some of the best online businesses are run by people with degrees in business. They may have gone to school knowing they wanted to pursue business or they might have had another career field in mind that required a business background. However, many internet businesses have been started by people with no business background at all, which gives the general public a good chance of starting their own successful business online.

You can learn many lessons from the creators of these online businesses. By studying how they started their business and the steps they took to increase traffic to their websites we all can benefit, and use the knowledge to grow our own online businesses.

Some examples of successful businesses include Google, Myspace, and Youtube. Each of these websites was made with the idea of servicing people. Google gives millions of internet users all over the world a way to search the internet for their any term they are looking for. Google has grown with the times since it started as well and has increased its user experience by constantly updating the agorithm of search and finding new sites. Additionally they have offered users other options for their internet needs such as Gmail, Google Docs, Gtalk, and Google News.

By watching Google grow they show a perfect example of constantly expanding to increase the happiness of their audience, with this of course comes more people who love to use Google and become loyal to it, this shows us why it is the biggest search engine available, with the best sense of growth.

Myspace was started by one person who wanted to network with friends and family and share their life online with them. By that one person sharing their idea and website with people his own idea he has been able to inspire millions to share their lives online as well. Everyone seems to be connected in their extended network, and people can share as much or as little of themselves with their friends and family online. From pictures to videos to their favorite songs, Myspace gives people individuality in the online world.

Another one of the best online businesses is Youtube. The founders of YouTube created this site to provide the ability for visitors from all around the world to easily share their favorite videos. People could easily make a video and upload it to share with millions. You could show some of your individuality, you could teach others, or even promote your website. Many people all around the world loved the idea of being able to make and share their own vides. You can find entertaining videos, music videos, news videos and documentaries created by users on YouTube.

Everyone of these sites had a long term plan and invested time and money into their business to become successful. By studying their business styles and the time and money they invested we can all learn a bit more about starting our own business online.

1. No prior experience or qualifications necessary

Often, you can study a distance learning degree without the school certificates that universities look for. Courses are fully-comprehensive and are taught in bite-sized modules.

2. It’s affordable

If you want to learn direct from home, it needn’t break the bank. Many providers of distance degrees offer flexible payment schemes. Plus, you won’t have to give up your job.

3. Learn direct from home in your own time

Studying a distance learning degree means you can achieve that psychology, business, law or education degree that you’ve always wanted – without having to attend classes. Learn direct from your own home and fit your studies in around your life.

4. Study at your own pace

You have the choice of when and where you want to study and you can take as long as you want with it. So, if you have family or work commitments, an hour or two in evenings and weekends may work best for you.

5. Full support from a personal tutor

Studying a business or education degree at home doesn’t necessarily mean studying alone. Many distance degree providers, such as ICS, allocate you a personal tutor. They’ll help you plan your studies, answer any questions and are only a phone call or email away.

6. Access to an online student community

Even though you are studying at home, you can still feel part of the student community. Some distance degree providers have created an online community, where students can give each other help and support.

7. Gain a nationally-recognized qualification

Many online providers of distance degrees are fully-accredited with “bricks and mortar” universities. ICS distance degrees are offered in conjunction with the University of East London, so you can be sure that law, business, psychology or education degree is a valid one.

8. Enhance your career prospects

Not only will you be more qualified, but the ability to learn direct from home shows you have personal skills too. Employers will be impressed by the time management skills, self-motivation and self-discipline required to complete a distance learning degree.

Your student loans are going to be a major financial obligation for you once you’ve earned your degree. Do what you can to ensure that they are among the only financial obligations you have in your fledgling law career. If you have credit card debt, do what you can to get rid of it. Credit card debt is never good, so it might even be worth forestalling entry into law school if you can rid yourself of the high interest of credit card debt with your current job. While credit card debt is the worst, any other debt you might have should be taken care of as well. Try to get that slate as clean as possible and your credit score as high as possible. You will thank yourself later.

Are There Any Scholarships For Which You Are Eligible?

Do some research in your application process. There are monies available for law school students, and if you qualify for any merit-based aid available, you should apply for it as soon as possible. Another great way to manage the financial debt from law school is to make sure you’re taking on as little as you possibly can.

Talk To Some Experts Before Borrowing

You have a wide array of lenders from whom to borrow, from the government to private lenders. All of these options can be overwhelming. Make an appointment a financial aid counselor to go over what the merits of the various lenders are. Do what you can to get the best interest rates. You will save yourself a lot of money when it’s time to repay your loans.

Borrow As Little As Possible

Surely starving students really should not starve, but you should also strive to live as frugally as possible in law school. You might have some ideas about what you think you can get paid after you earn your degree and pass the bar, but you don’t know for sure. Again, the best way to manage the financial debt from law school is to keep the amount you’ll need to repay as manageable as possible.

Have A Plan For Repayment In Place Before You Graduate

You will have six months after you graduate called a grace period. During this time, no payments on your loans are due. However, this time will fly by. Do the best that you can to secure employment before you leave school so that when the grace period is up, you have a way to begin sending those payments in on time.

Consolidate For The Best Rate

You will probably take out multiple loans, and at some point, you should consolidate them. You can only do this one time, so you should probably consult with an expert about when the smartest time for you will be to do so. When you consolidate, you lock in your interest rates and minimize the interest you’ll pay over the course of your loan repayment.