On 11th April, I wrote an exasperated Blog article dealing with the failures of Medway COuncil to respond to Freedom of Information Requests. What I didn't know at the time was that four weeks earlier the Medway Messenger had published its own article bemoaning the same failures by the Council. I have managed to obtain a copy of that article, written by Dan Bloom, and reproduce it below:  "COUNCIL chiefs have taken five months to reply to a formal information request – which asked how many requests were being answered late......
Read more...

Article produced for Kent on Sunday: 24 February 2013, reproduced here (there are two items by me in this edition).    As this is the first article in a series, and I have tended to highlight the negative features of the education service in the past, I thought it would be appropriate to applaud a major achievement by teachers in Kent’s primary schools. I have in the past been highly critical of the schools’ performance as measured by both OFSTED and Key Stage Two results at the end of children’s time in primary school, but recent statistics show a dramatic improvement in Kent’s OFSTED standard. This follows a new strategy for improvement prepared by KCC last year, and I have now measured…
Read more...

  Kent County Council is quietly resolving the problem of low performing primary schools by handing them over to sponsors, mainly large academy trusts, in a dramatic change to the face of Kent education. A classic example is Dame Janet Community Infant School in Ramsgate, placed in Special Measures by OFSTED in January. A recent OFSTED inspection is highly critical describing progress as inadequate.  KCC ought to have poured in resources to bring it back on track; instead OFSTED considers that KCC’s Statement of Action has not had an impact on bringing about improvement. Never mind, the Report states that KCC is developing plans to change the status of the school, and it will become an academy sponsored  by Kemnal…
Read more...

On the surface, Kent primary school infant class placements, which took place at the end of March look well with a healthy 95% of children in Kent being offered one of their three choices, similar to last year. However, looking beneath the surface, a much more worrying picture emerges because of increased numbers in some areas as the number of children being allocated a school they hadn’t chosen has risen from 564 to 818 in two years, a frightening rise of 45%. Analysis of the figures shows a sharp contrast between most of West Kent and most of East Kent and between urban and rural areas. Maidstone town is the most difficult area, with over 100 children allocated to schools they…
Read more...

An abbreviated version of this article appeared in Kent on Sunday 0n 25th March 2012. It is drawn from two other articles on this website: Oversubscription and Vacancies; and Movement in and out of the County.  Information from KCC and Medway under FOI requests, reveals considerable change in the pattern of secondary school applications this year. The focus is on grammar school patterns of admission in West Kent. There is a considerable swing in grammar school assessments from East to West, driven by parental pressure to secure grammar school places, and the intense coaching culture which becomes self–fulfilling. This is combined with pressure from children along the boundary to the West and NW, and from London Boroughs stretching through to…
Read more...

  Parents of Kent children, applying for secondary schools, learned their allocated schools last week. Overall figures were very similar to last year, although the number of children given none of their choices rose from 413 to 443. As usual, West Kent is the main problem area (not to overlook other hot-spots), although the difficulties are clearly more pronounced this year, especially amongst children qualified for grammar schools. All three of the ‘super-selectives’ - Judd School, Skinners School and Tonbridge Grammar School -  saw their base-line Kent Test score for entry rise, Judd requiring a record marks aggregate of 418 points (maximum possible 420), and even then some with this score did not gain admission. There are three main reasons…
Read more...

The following article appeared with an accompanying newspaper report in Kent on Sunday, October 30th. It was subsequently reproduced in full, in the blog of Medway Councillor Tristan Osborne.  The row about the shambolic Medway Test arrangements at two Test Centres, described by Councillor Les Wicks, Portfolio Holder for Education at Medway Council, as ‘a mortification’ -  continues unabated. The Medway Eleven plus is held in a number of large centres (mainly schools) on a Saturday morning in September. There have been complaints about the operation of these tests for years, the Council agreeing nine changes in procedures with the Ombudsman in 2008 after a large number of complaints; last year the council admitted fault after another  large number of…
Read more...

The following item served the basis for an article in KOS on 11 June 2011, and also triggered the front page news story. A Freedom of Information request I submitted has revealed a number of alarming features in the pattern of permanent exclusions (expulsions) in Kent schools. The first two new style academies created in Kent top the list of permanent exclusions between September and Easter, headed by Westlands School in Sittingbourne with 11. Next is Canterbury High School with nine permanent exclusions. Both these schools previously had outstanding Ofsted reports, so it is difficult to believe they have difficult disciplinary problems. Other schools with high numbers of permanent exclusions over this period are: Chaucer Technology School, also in Canterbury…
Read more...