I love the way the Express & Star gets only mildly indignant about what are really quite big stories….
I’m thinking (this time) about the latest development in the Grace Academy saga.
Let me see if I’ve got this right:
back in the day, this used to be Darlaston Community Science College; sadly, under Walsall Council/SERCO control it all went totally pear-shaped.
We won’t even start to talk about the whys and wherefores of how the council screwed education in the borough so badly that it was taken out of their hands and handed to SECRO to finesse the screwing-up. That’s another rant for another day.
Anyway, the school – under SERCO – was placed in special measures, rushed into academy status with truncated consultation, the deal being sweetened by the ‘donation’ of almost half of George Rose Park.
Now it’s a ‘Specialist Business & Enterprise Academy‘, run by a millionaire, tory, christian fundamentalist car dealer with a sideline in shuffling money about. We won’t call it money-laundering because that’s illegal and there’s no suggestion of illegality, just sharp practice: “… the Grace Academy has paid more than £1 million either directly to or through companies controlled by its founder Lord Edmiston, trustees’ relatives” [Torygraph, 13.1.2014]
The Grace Academy group has been doing this for a while because they were asked about it as long ago as 2007 (“…school in the government’s city academy programme has given more than £300,000 to organisations linked to its multi-millionaire sponsor” [The Guardian, 5.3.2007]).
Anyway, notwithstanding grumblings about diverting public money into private hands, the Edmiston academies seem to be confused by the distinction between ‘promoting’ and ‘teaching about’.
There was a bit of a stink at their Coventry branch and earlier in August 2013, the (Grace) academies were among schools named by The Independent and the British Humanist Association as adopting policies similar in wording to the repealed anti-gay legislation Section 28.
you can click on this image, btw, there’s a link
Moving on, this latest row centres around how the ‘specialist business and enterprise school‘ – their words – is suddenly scrapping the teaching of ‘resistant materials, computing, engineering and a business qualification’.
Let’s just think about this for a moment, what do these subjects cover, I wonder?
A few minutes on Google (other search engines blah, blah, blah) yields the following:
Resistant Materials: this covers working with materials like different woods, metals and plastics; designing products including sketching, technical drawing, 3D modelling and ICT skills The subject complements many other subjects and acts a bridge between science and art.
Computing: A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with mathematics, science and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. (from Department for Education statutory guidance)
Engineering: the GCSE course in Engineering introduces students to the process of engineering in the market place, with particular reference to design and the construction of design briefs in a range of business and industrial contexts such as Design and graphic communication, Engineered products ,Application of technology
“Business qualification” is a bit vague so we’ll leave that for now.
All of them appear to be the exact kind of thing a ‘specialist business and enterprise school‘ – their words – would be teaching with pride and gusto, so I think what we have to ask ourselves is why a ‘specialist business and enterprise school‘ – their words – is going to stop teaching these subjects and why they’ve decided to do so now.
Being really cynical, I’d venture to suggest that they’ve made a bit of a fist of teaching the subjects and their projected grades are probably a bit on the shit side and this places at risk the whole gravy train funding and finance model. which allows private companies to get hold of £20 – £30 million-worth of public assets for a couple of £million.
In 2013 the Dept for Education was making threatening noises : A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “The majority of sponsored academies are thriving under great leadership … But results in a minority of sponsored academies remain stubbornly low. We will not tolerate long-term under-performance in any school – including an academy. “As with maintained schools, if these academies do not make the progress we expect, we will take further action. This may result in a change to the sponsorship arrangements.”
This doesn’t relate to the Grace Academy chain, but it signals that the DfE isn’t going to let failing academies embarrass Gove and I’d guess that words have been had behind the scenes or at those gatherings where funny handshakes and bread-roll throwing feature as part of the proceedings.
Grove moves in mysterious ways.
The upshot is that tory donor, Lord Edmiston, will very likely have seen his golden-egg-laying goose threatened and his suited minions have reacted with ” OK chaps, chop back the teaching that we’re not very good at before we get found out. Don’t worry about the kids, we’ll give them a note”
The tragi-comic side of this is that Walsall’s hapless council has been plodding along in the background, utterly clueless as to how to have any influence on any of these events yet pretending they’ve got a finger on the pulse.
Adrain Andrew (sic, OK?) bleats about how it was labour who started academies ‘all those years ago’ (he doesn’t know the dates, bless him) but he’s ignoring the fact that Walsall education has been mismanaged by a mostly tory-run council for decades and this recent turn of events is merely the latest chapter in a long and really rather depressing story.
Darlo’s Doug James is absolutely spot on when he says “It’s not good enough for Walsall Council to try and wash its hands of the affair by saying it has no control”. 
Mike Bird and Adrain Andrew are just flailing about in the vague hope that one day something they do will have a good result.
Meanwhile, another cohort of Walsall schoolkids is abandoned to its fate as the tory-led coalition bumbles about, lurching from one mess to the next and the labour party squabble among themselves.
Anyway, given all the juicy elements of this sad and convoluted story, I’m a disappointed the E&S hasn’t turned over a few more stones and prodded whatever has scuttled out from under them.
mrmarjon 