November 2009 Archives

And tell all of your friends who have internet access to read it to.
Link

This is a very disturbing document put out by Ed Balls and his gargantuan DCSF department because he and his department are attempting to brainwash children.

Mrs Attwood once wrongly accused Barrovian parents of brainwashing kids but this takes brainwashing to a whole new level.

After years and years of government meddling in education.
After years and years of CCC closing and merging schools in a frenzy of 'downsizing to make things better'.
After years and years of diktat issued by the DCSF to the schools of Britain.

Something is still fundamentally wrong with state education.

If anyone can through any light on the success of this project I would be very grateful. On the face of it it appears to be a good idea. Giving kids a taste of what University life might be like will either 'kill or cure them'.
However I have never seen numbers to show how many who attend the scheme are 'cured' in other words go onto University and it would be interesting to find out if the scheme is successful.

Ne'er a day goes by without Eduardo Balls coming out with some sort of drivel.

A while back he promised that HIS department would be able to cut 2 Billion off it's budget and still function effectively.

We have all seen how Eduardo Balls sails along in the good ship education in the name of social engineering. We are all well aware that he is wrong on more things than he is right.

Teachers and head teachers especially are suffering dreadfully under the constant turmoil that Eduardo leaves in his wake as he ploughs on trying to get his favoured post of Chancellor before the next election.

I am unable to make my mind up about this one. On the one hand it sounds like yet more politically correct meddling and on the other it makes some sort of sense, nearly.

What do you think?

At long last the Academy website has got round to acknowledging it now has two head girls and two head boys. It has only taken six days for the company's PR company MC2 to achieve this feat.

Even this site managed to get the news online the same day it was released to the Evening Mail!

I really do wish today was April 1st and this was an April Fools headline but no it's true.
The mad Labour Righteous have decided that the way to stop domestic violence is to 'condition' children from the age of 5 into the Labour way of living your life according to their view of the world.

She has just released her quango's latest annual report. It's available for all to read should anyone want to on Ofsted's web site.

It contains damning evidence that Academies as a breed are actually either completely failing the children they serve or are not improving on the results of the state schools they used to attend. Her department has only inspected thirty and yet one in six are failing and she cannot avoid recording this fact even if Ed Balls would rather she didn't.

Mason Minnitt was a headteacher at Settlebeck High School in Sebergh before joining the Barrow Community Action zone which then morphed into the BECP.
Settlebeck has around 200 pupils aged 11-16. So it's different in every way to the much larger Barrovian and Furness secondary schools.
He held this post for 6 years after he was promoted from deputy head at Impington Village college in 1994.
In 2000 he became the director of the Barrow Community Action Zone. This local quango was created in 2000 with a five year limited lifespan.
It was closed on time in 2005 when Mason became Director of a new local quango Barrow Excellence Custer Partnership where he still is today.

Parent
Jonathan Lee I am not!
He does all sorts of things that I would never do as I am discovering.

The goalposts moved when the Academy opened as there were believe it or not more important people than Mr Blackledge now involved in this scheme, the kids. This meant that a different line is required because no matter how bad things are with the management side of things, no matter how many staff members are pi**ed of with the way the management is working or not working, no matter how many parents suddenly get their eyes opened, where were they all in the summer, the kids in the school get preference.

Mr Blackledges private life is of no concern now. I happen to think what went on in Thorne was the wrong sort of behaviour for a vice-principal or a principal and a learning mentor to engage in but my opinion doesn't matter.
As far as the DCSF, Ed Balls, Vernon Coaker, John Hutton, The sponsors etc are concerned private lives do not impinge on public lives. If anyone has any truck with that point of view then take it up with the relevant people and best of luck.

As for the employment of Mrs Aveyard. This is surely an issue that the staff should take up with their unions. If procedures and protocols have been broken with this appointment then they have a case to go forwards with. It is up to the staff and the unions to sort it out.

As for the school not delivering on all manner of issues.
Tony Brookes kindly gave me a run down on what happened at Trinity Academy in Thorne. The Emmanuel Foundation inherited kids from across the ability spectrum when Thorne Grammar ceased to exist. It systematically removed those it deemed least likely to gain an GCSE pass by excluding them for all sorts of petty issues such as uniform infringements, the wearing of make up, the colour of hair etc. It removed them to make the early Academy school results appear to be radically better than Thorne Grammar's.
Judging by the number of kids in Academy uniform seen across town during the school day this situation is being repeated here in Barrow. The fact there is now only one Education Welfare Officer who can only be on one site at one time and the fact that the Academy Company doesn't have to inform the Local Authority about any of these excluded kids mean that it is easy for kids to 'get a day off' and wander round town.

The reality is nobody knows if this problem is any worse or any better than it was when the wanderers were all wearing different uniforms. It might actually be no different. The problem as always is the wall of silence that covers all things Academy. Had this wall been smashed to pieces once the Academy actually had kids in it's buildings then this blog would have no reason to exist.

I have listened to Mr Blackledge in person and heard him speak on the radio many times. He is not a good communicator. The same problem afflicts the sponsors just listen to Mrs Attwood talking about the John Hutton 'How To Dig a Hole With a JCB' Lesson on video on the Evening Mail's web site. Mr Kelly rarely speaks in public but there is a short video of him talking up the Sixth form on the college web site so go have a listen and you will hear what I mean.
This must be the reason why they don't talk about what is really going on in the school either that or they really do believe that they are above the rest of us.
Either way they have to start talking or everything will get out of hand. This blog is the only outlet at the moment for people who simply want to know more. The Academy web site is quite frankly an utter shambles and has been since the day it went live. The PR company that is ostensibly running it is inept at best and incompetent at worst.
It is updated once every Preston Guild and there are so many pages that have never been updated or are still blank it's ridiculous.
I still have copies of all the pages that were built and hidden from public view, unless you know where to look, and none of them have ever been made live. They were all pulled just like the open evening pics that this company couldn't make work.

This would be bad enough but on the odd occasion Douglas or Anne speak to the Evening Mail they both direct people to the web site to get up to date information!

I have asked for positive stories about what has been and is being achieved within the school and there have been none forthcoming. Not a one. The lack of good news on the Academy's web site would also suggest there really isn't much 'good news' although that might just be the MC2 'effect'.

Finally
This blog does not exist to try and run the Academy or the efforts of it's staff and pupils into the ground. It started life exposing the lies and machinations of Cumbria County Council, the DCSF, the sponsors, the educational evangelicals, the righteous who were behind the scheme, which ultimately turned out to be all about money. The DCSF basically told Moira that without Academies she wouldn't get any Building Schools for the Future cash to improve the Cumbrian school building stock. Moira and the County Council don't like 'refurbishing' or improving schools they much prefer total destruction and 'modern' new builds as they believe this is what we the plebs of Cumbria want to see happen.
The fact there is much more 'glamour' and political gain involved in opening a new build rather than a refurbishment isn't lost on the County Councillors nor their civil servants.

Irrespective of how the Academy came to be born it's here now and it isn't likely to ever return to Local authority control. No Academy has ever gone back into the mainstream system no matter how bad some of them really are. There are also some very good ones which actually deliver on the promises their sponsors gave and the children attending them get a brilliant education. Sadly as with all things in life the very good ones are few in number, thankfully so are the very bad ones. The vast majority fall into the 'same as before' category so all that has happened is the construction industry has swallowed up billions of taxpayer pounds. The same results could have been achieved by spending far less more effectively just ask any teacher. Labour minsters and civil servants fail to understand this.

So the purpose of this blog is to hold the DCSF, the County Council, the sponsors and the principals to account. They are the ones who have made all the promises and it is vital that they deliver on those promises. The local newspaper is as sycophantic as it's possible to be and may even have stepped over that line and be actively censoring anything to do with the Academy programme so it will never hold the Academy company and its supporters to account.

Without this blog, the people who contribute to it and of course the people who comment on the posts there would be NO public scrutiny at all as the governing body DOES NOT yet exist and even when it does there will be just one parental voice and one staff voice on the board. Both of which can be very easily drowned out by the other board members.
 
I am not running this blog for my own benefit. Even though I have managed to expose lie after lie that were uttered in speech or written in print since it's inception back in May 2009 no-body takes any notice and no-one has every been called to account for lying so the only message is that as far as the government, local and national, are concerned lying in public to the public is perfectly acceptable.
It is also perfectly acceptable for educational consultants, which is an incredibly broad church, to lie in public and even sign their names to their lies. No-one is ever brought to book.
I and my family took our youngest son out of the state system in August so I have no personal interest in it's success or failure. I am continuing to run this blog and devote time to research and writing up the articles because it is of benefit to others that live in my town. As long as the Academy Company persists with its 'vow of silence' and the Evening Mail persists with its 'censorship' this blog will have a reason to exist.

If it's worrying Douglas so much that he is trying to warn people off from contributing to it then there is clearly a need for its continued existence. I have to say that it's a bit rich for Douglas to try and prevent people from doing whatever they want in their private lives when he wasn't prevented by his superiors or employers from carrying on his private life as he saw fit back in Thorne but there it is. Do as I say not as I do alive and well in the 21st Century.

To get rid of this blog and extinguish all the rumour start coming clean.
It's a new school and there must be problems and issues. There are in any new venture. Nothing goes 100% smoothly no matter how well planned. And given the breakneck speed with which this one came into being and the contentious nature of it's birth there has to be many problems and issues so please Mr Blackledge trust the parents of Barrow and tell them the truth about what is going on.

Even though many will not take a blind bit of interest in what you have to say the majority will welcome the fact that you have taken the first step into engaging with them to make sure their children achieve the best education possible within the confines of what the DCSF allow you and your school to do. That is why I published the editorial written by Russ Wallace of Richard Rose. It's this sort of contact the parents I talk to want to have.

What has become clear from the comments on the MC2 Have Given Up post is that there are a lot of disgruntled people wanting to be heard.
I have also asked for positives and none have been forthcoming. So I have looked slightly further afield to see how another Cumbrian Academy, Richard Rose Central, is doing and straight away you can see a big difference in approach.

It's amazing what you can find out on this interweb thingy. There is all manner of information available even if it's found by some seemingly obscure routes.

I was reading through the proposed changes to education in the UK contained within the Education Bill announced in the Queens speech. Much of it is hot air and I doubt any of it will actually become law unless the entire population sit on their hands at the next election and Blinky, Banana Boy, El Gordo and co get back in. However what was really annoying is that Ed Balls has accepted Graham Badman's fatally flawed review of home education chapter and verse even though the results of the select committees investigation haven't been published yet!

Is an insult to the pigs!
The humans with their noses in the trough are far worse than any pig.

Furness Academy like all it's sister Academies exists today because some grinning mulit-millionaire born again Catholic listened to people like this man. Graham McAvoy.

Mr McAvoy is the 'designer' of the Academy school and surprise, surprise he is now a millionaire after 'advising' the DCSF and the DCSF approved sponsors in 30 Academy projects How To Open An Academy. Who pays?

Here's a little light relief for a wet Sunday in November...

As of 3-00 pm today, the time I checked, the empty Open Evening Gallery page has vanished.
Check here

Lets be clear here, putting a page of picture thumbnails up online and linking them to bigger pictures that open in a mew window IS NOT HARD. Neither is it time consuming but it seems that this PR company MC2 Limited find it to be beyond their capabilities.

Why are they still being employed by Furness Academy Limited?
Why aren't the current Year 10 IT pupils and their teachers running the company's web site?
Why does this page not have the profiles of the Head Students that appeared in the Evening Mail a couple of nights back?

Anyone have the answers?

Well it might not be soon, government financial mismanagement on a grand scale may yet delay or completely kibosh any new school buildings but Moira love is pressing on regardless until she hears otherwise.
Trawling the CCC web site this evening I came across these images which reveal how great the new builds might be.

Jill Stannard has been appointed the new CEO of the County. she becomes the highest paid and highest ranking civil servant in our County and yet not one of us, other than a few Councillors has had any say on the matter.

This story from today's Times proves that Ofsted has really lost the plot. Either that or it has been shown up for what an awful lot of people believe it is, Balls poodle.

It is obvious from reading the West Lakes Academy 'Keep out of Special Measures At All Costs' report it is not the independent inspection body it claims to be. It has political masters and is wholly funded by HM Government who also appoint it's 'top table'.

Goes to the four kids who were selected to become the twin head boys and the twin head girls of Furness Academy's twin sites.

I will refrain from all comment on this bar one, all the bad formatting and typo's in this are the Evening Mail's not mine.

Lets hope that we can now see a lot more of the positive stuff that must be going on inside the school.

Please add your congratulations in the comments if you are so inclined. Unlike the Evening Mail I welcome comments.

I am a tad concerned that the only stories that are brought to my attention regarding the Academy Company, it's school and the service it provides are 'issues'. It is a new school and it's birth has been very traumatic and sadly secrecy and spin are still dogging it today.

With that said there must be some things that are just as they were in the old schools. There must be some successes worth talking about. The girls netball result for one which as they were Year 11's has more to do with the way the old schools taught rather than the Academy there must be good other good things that have come about because of the Academy coming into existence.

The picture problem.
They've removed them!

Seriously sack this company as soon as possible and hand the maintenance of the website over to the Academy kids and their IT teachers. Then we might actually get to see what it's really like to be on the inside and get that holy of holies regular news bulletins about things that are going well.

See For yourselves

there might come a day
when he's treading on you
don't tread on an ant you'll end up black and blue
you cut off his head
legs come looking for you

What on earth have these lyrics from a most excellent tune by Adam Ant got to do with the Academy?

I am assuming here that a Cover Supervisor is the same job as what used to be done by classroom assistants. I may be wrong but please enlighten me if I am.

Here is Douglas Blackledge's latest missive on the Furness Academy web site which MC2 are still managing to make a pigs ear of.

I along with many, many people here in good old Blighty can see that Ed Balls, Gordon and his predecessor Tony Bliar are hell bent on giving the country more 'educated' people by dumbing down the qualifications that prove they are 'educated' but this story if true is shocking.

Seen as how Ed Balls wants all Academies to be registered as charities, the only logical reason for this is that they are able to avoid taxation whereas all state schools that remain in Local Authority control are taxed to the hilt, I decided to have a look at the other Cumbrian Academies on the Charities Commission page.

I find taxing any school an abomination as they are supposed to be providing the young people of the country with an education.

Meddling control freak Ed Balls is at it again. He just cannot stop himself coming out with more initiatives that are designed to put more control into his own pathetic grasp and try to show that he is very different from his Conservative opposite number Michael Gove. Quite where children and their education come into all of this political shenanigans is anyone's guess.

Matthew Parris has written an article about things he no knows from his 60 year old perspective that he would loved to have been told at 16.

Sadly it would seem so.
It has missed every single target it has been set and missed every single target it has set itself.

At long last the financial reality of what Brown and Mandy Darling have done to this country by bailing out the banks is dawning on the government and the Conservatives.

If anything in this article is anywhere near the truth there isn't likely to be £45 million spent on a new build nor anywhere near enough cash to fund a single new build.

It appears that what many said all along is going to become reality.

The world seems to be imploding some days and reading this story from TES about colleges 'massaging figures' today suggests this is one of those days. Coming on top of a run in with a HMRC national helpline and it's operators inability to explain to me why I failed a security check for 'security reasons' today could be one of those days.

Here is an article highlighting the fact that the governments favoured religious evangelists are not actually any good at running schools.
If it wasn't so serious it would be laughable to see that the religious nutters exposed for what they really are and proof incarnate that they are not the right people to be running schools...

MC2 Limited the Mancunian PR company employed by Furness Academy Limited to run their web site and other public relations has been very busy.

I sincerely cannot believe what I have just read online in an article I was pointed to about the alleged negative impact of cartoons on children's behaviour. The author is a politically correct cretin of the worst kind, one who is a university lecturer and therefore she must know what she is on about except of course she doesn't.

Why oh why is our country afflicted with morons like this?

It's been a very quiet week Academy wise other than yet more evidence that it is struggling to implement the new way of carrying out their Duty of Care. The only other thing of note to emerge is the strong rumour that a certain vice-principal may well be going after the headship at Dowdales when Mrs Moffat retires. If Mr X' would care to knock this one on the head please contact me by e-mail at the usual address.

Vickerstown Junior school is going to be demolished and replaced with a state of the art 21st century primary learning environment otherwise known as a 'new school'. What this means for the other junior schools in it's vicinity is anyones guess because Moira isn't saying.
So that leaves us time to have a look at other 'Education Matters' such as the iconic Furness College new build,

Here we go again yet more proof that education of the masses is hamstrung by the social engineering agenda of the current Labour government. Have a read of this article tastefully annotated in the colour purple and you can clearly see that as far as state education goes it isn't about giving each individual child the best possible chance of success it's all about giving every state educated child the SAME chance of success even though they are all individuals and not clones.