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…
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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…
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EXCLUSIVE - Top Kent schools get millions in funding meant for deprived inner city pupils   More than £4.5 million a year of Government funding is being "unfairly" pumped into selected schools to spend as they wish through a project abolished five years ago. And despite the grants being designed specifically to help schools in deprived urban areas, many of those in Kent receiving the no-strings-attached cash are in affluent areas or are grammar schools. Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request by Peter Read of Kent Independent Education Advice revealed a total of £4.5 million was being handed over annually through the former Excellence in Cities scheme, which was abolished in 2006. The project looked to raise standards…
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Kent County Council figures show a pleasing increase in the number of children being offered their first choice secondary school on 1st March, up from 80% in 2010 to 83% in 2011. Just 413 got none of their choices.  With nearly 500 fewer Kent children in the system, waiting lists for popular schools are generally much lower this year.  There is a similar picture in Medway with 87% of children being allocated their first choice school, although this is helped by a fall in the age group of nearly 10%. Last year the eighteen most popular schools each turned away more than 50 children who put them in first place, but this year the same number of schools sees the…
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Another knotty problem for Michael Gove. Following Kent secondary school allocations on 1st March just gone, 9% of places in Year Seven were left empty or occupied by children who had not applied for the schools in question. The Audit Commission considers there should be no more than 5% empty spaces in any area or authority. So there is a problem in Kent. However, with 49 of the100 Kent secondary schools either Academies or well on the way and another 36 Foundation or Voluntary Aided schools partially independent of KCC,  the county has lost all control of its ability to plan numbers of places to fit the population, and so has no way of meeting government targets...... (read more)
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The following article appeared in the first edition of the new "The Reporter" newspaper, reflecting the pressure on the newspaper industry as it replaces the old established Gravesend Reporter and the Dartford Times. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Kent County Council has made a largely successful commitment in recent years to improve the quality of the school building stock following many ‘drought’ years when this aspect of our children’s education was neglected. Projects such as: the ‘Old Style’ academies - 10 brand new luxury schools brought into being (including Leigh in Dartford and Longfield); the six PFI project schools; and the first eleven schools completed under the now defunct Building Schools for the Future programme (including Northfleet Girls, Northfleet Technology, St Johns and Thamesview…
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THe following article appeared in an abbreviated version (missing out some of what I thought were the best bits!) in Kent on Sunday 16 January ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The face of education in Kent is changing with astonishing rapidity, driven by the Academy movement. Currently, there are 28 secondary Academies in the county with another 5 in Medway, and 10 Kent and 2 Medway secondary schools on the way. You will find a full list at www.kentadvice.co.uk. Many others have begun the process, so Kent is close to losing 50% of its 101 secondary schools. This is surely well past the ‘tipping point’, where KCC has confirmed it will encourage all remaining secondary schools to become Academies, as it becomes uneconomic to…
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Poor  leadership has been blamed after league tables revealed a “devastating” 10 per cent of the country’s lowest performing primary schools are in Kent and Medway. Of 200 underachieving schools highlighted in this year’s SATs league tables, 22 – including two from Medway – were in the county. The Department for Education findings show the number of children who have reached the Level Four benchmark by the time they move on to secondary school. Although standards were up from last year by two per cent – with 70 per cent of children in Kent County Council run schools and 67 per cent in Medway Council-run schools meeting standards in maths and English – results were still below the 73 per…
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