When I agreed to go on Radio Kent this morning to talk about Mr Gove's plans to crack down on pupil absence, I knew I was setting myself up to have eggs thrown at me and so it proved. I believe strongly that we are too lax about pupil absence from school and so I favour a hard line to ensure that children's education is not damaged. Few callers to the radio agreed with me. Several key points:......
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The disgraceful saga of Medway Council's attempts to hush up the scandal of the Medway Tests debacle continues. The tale up to now is told below and in various articles on the News Pages of this website. It is my belief that Medway Council is trying to hush up a number of unpalatable facts about its appalling management of the scandal. As a result,.......

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I would be grateful for any advice on what to do about Medway Council on the following issue, from the 200 readers a day currently visiting this site. 

However, by a remarkable coincidence, within 19 hours of my publishing this article, Medway Council responded 43 working days after my   Freedom of Information request, just a month after the legal deadline of 20 days to reply, rejecting my request. See bottom of page for more.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE READS:

I remain very concerned about the Medway Test shambles, which the Council appears to be trying to bury, hoping that everyone will forget about it, although its ludicrous claim that no children were disadvantaged by the problems stands as a  PR disaster, in that it angered so many parents, who would otherwise have just written the matter off to incompetence. I hear that the Local Government Ombudsman is preparing a draft report which, if it is subsequently published, should shed further light on the mystery of why Council officers and members made so many public statements that proved wrong.

My problem is that, in trying to understand further what went wrong, ...........

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Patrick Leeson, Kent's new Corporate Director of Education, said in an interview with Kent on Sunday this week: " My main job is to ensure that standards are good and children get better outcomes. Standards are good in secondary schools and most are either good or outstanding, which is great. But there are not enough good or outstanding primary schools. That's a key issue". I completely agree with him, and here's the evidence from Kent OFSTED inspections over the past eighteen months.......

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Secondary transfer decisions have now been made, and I am delighted that parents have made such good use of my website, with 13,006 visitors in October, eclipsing the record of March that saw 9801 visitors. We now turn to primary school applications!

Many visitors have been following the unfolding story of the Medway Tests debacle, .......
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A very pleasing (and busy) week in terms of interest shown in the website. The release of the Kent eleven plus results has seen over a thousand visitors every day, rising to 1761 on Tuesday, the busiest day since March. I have been responding to large numbers of emails, every one receiving a brief piece of advice or opinion. My telephone consultation service has been in full swing, so rather a hectic week in all! However,.......

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There is no doubt that the planning and operation of the Medway Tests at the Rainham School for Girls and Chatham Grammar School for Boys  was a shambles and the problems should never have occurred. Details are explained in the news item elsewhere in this website. Last year I was involved in a similar controversy at the Chatham Grammar School for Boys centre, which resulted in the Ombudsman and Medway Council agreeing on the faults and the Council promising to do better for 2011. In fact, the quality of provision at these two sites is, in my judgment, considerably worse......
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You may have caught my trenchant views on Meridian News with regard to David Willetts' comments about the validity of some A Level subjects. He chose to make these on the day that students received their results in those and other subjects. Clearly unable to say that exams are getting easier (the usual moan) as A Level pass rates have remained the same, or that students are underperforming - if they had gone down, he decided to denigrate the value of some students' efforts on the day they discover the results of their work over the past two years.
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Sadly I missed the recent eighteenth anniversary party organised by High Profile Ltd, my wonderful website designers, as we were on holiday in France. The company took my specification and produced an easy to manage website, which regular browsers will realise I can add to in different ways with a very limited knowledge of the technology, backed up by a superb advisory service. ....
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OFSTED has chosen to redesign its website, so all the links to individual OFSTED Reports in this website are now obsolete! I shall be working to replace the links over the next few months,  but in the meantime, you will find the links take you to OFSTED general, from where you can make your own connection.

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The Sutton Trust has recently come up with a Report comparing schools' success at A Level with their success in accessing selective universities. There are some surprising results.............
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I now have the results of all the secondary school appeals of my clients in, and its is the best year so far for me in the eight years I have been running Kent Independent Education Advice. A massive 90% of my clients have won appeals, although there are several others whose cases have not been concluded as they are complaining about maladministration. The website, which was set up in its current form in January, is being well used primarily by Kent and Medway browsers, with a total of 31,613 visits from 19,526 unique visitors between February and June.....

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As they say, it has been one of those weeks! Every day more news. The week started with my article in KOS on the high number of exclusions in Kent, focusing on the disparity with Medway numbers, the alarming proportion of statemented children being permanently excluded in Kent and the high number of exclusions in new academies. This became the main news item on Radio Kent on Tuesday who focused on the statemented children issue, my interview being followed up by Paul Carter, Leader of KCC, who also expressed his concern about several of the issues I raised.  The SEN aspect has now been taken up by Kentonline, and is likely to feature on BBC SE next week........

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Regular browsers of this website will be be well aware of my concerns about the accountability of academies. I have just posted my initial advice and views on complaints about Independent Panels set up by academies to hear admission appeals. Sadly, I am very disappointed.......
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I am currently caught up with supporting clients going through the appeals process and so have limited time to focus on the controversial consultation papers on School Admissions and Appeals. However, I have produced an item on the news page of this website regarding Michael Gove's comments, and .......
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