500 Schools To Close - And That Is Just For Starters


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The closure of 500 "under-performing" schools will affect around 80,000 pupils according to Sir Cyril Taylor, head of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

Now, bear in mind that this organisation only exists because the government are prepared to pay them vast sums of cash from your taxes to advise them on how best to implement a system of "Specialist Schools and Academies" - The clue was very much in the name - and, clearly, they have everything to gain by claiming that what is left of our state education system is failing beyond repair.

This is the equivalent of the fox telling the farmer that he has too many chickens!

Here is a quote from their website that may offer a little insight into the trust (Why are they always called a "trust"? Is it supposed to make us feel at ease?!) and how it is managed:

The Trustees support high standards of corporate governance.

Well, no ambiguity there! So what exactly IS corporate governance?

Corporate governance is a generic term which describes the ways in which rights and responsibilities are shared between the various corporate participants, especially the management and the shareholders.

Essentially, what this means is that more and more of our schools are being run like businesses, which means that profit and loss accounts take precedence over education.

History has shown us that, in general, the process of applying a business model to a public service is disastrous to say the least! State-owned and managed institutions (which are fundamental to the smooth-running and sustainable future of any country) tend to have a habit of turning into one of two things, a catastrophe for customer service standards or a raping profit-making machine that will stop at nothing to screw its clients for every last penny that they have...

...and usually they become both!

Private business has never concerned itself with customer service levels or benefits, only shareholder profit. Need some examples?

The railway industry
The water industry
The electricity industry
The gas industry
The aviation industry
The telecommunications industry

..and the list goes on.

And on.

Reading that short and not remotely exhaustive list, at no point do you suddenly get that "British Airways" feeling...You know the one...That feeling that everybody gets when questioning whether or not there has EVER been a successful privatisation of a national industry in the UK only to have the words "British Airways" uttered to them by a politician...Aahhh...That's better!

The ONLY success in the history of UK privatisation although it is now becoming a disgraceful money-making animal that laid off over 3,000 people in the wake of 9-11 but actually saw almost no drop in passenger numbers whatsoever.

If you can honestly tell me, hand on heart, that any privatisation of a British national industries was a move that proved to be prudent or beneficial to the public in any way other than in terms of fat rich bastards making yet more money for their fat rich coffers, then long may privatisation continue to happen.

But if you feel that successive governments from both sides of the aisle have overseen a privatisation process that sent our formerly glorious achievements down the "U-bend", then it is probably best to accept the inevitable...

OUR Government is in the process of destroying OUR state-school system as we know it. They are playing politics with OUR children’s futures and WE MUST do something about it now. The government have set a target for all schools to be part of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust by 2008 and it is on track.

And what of those schools that are performing badly…

"Under-performing schools that were not taken over would be closed, it added."

So what of the pupils who attend these schools?

What next for the teachers who are undoubtedly working in some of the most challenging schools in the country? Was all that effort simply wasted? What about the hundreds of millions of pounds the British public paid to build those schools in the first place? What about the billions of pounds that have been used to run them ever since? How is it possible that we get no say in this matter whatsoever? Those are OUR schools!

What are we doing? They are OUR children, OUR taxes, OUR jobs and OUR schools. How can we just site idly by and watch this happen. And don't just take our word for it either...Arrange a meeting with the local headteacher and ask them what they think of this idea. Ask them if they actually think that there will be any real benefit to the children, after all, that is why the government is doing this, isn't it?

And as for Cyril Taylor and his grossly over-funded, quango-style, bastards club, he went on to say this:

"I believe that the strong should help the weak"

Very admirable...Maybe I was wrong about him after all...Sorry Cyril, I was harsh and too quick to judge!

Oh, but hold on...This is the man that is calling for the CLOSURE of 500 "weak" schools.

Damn it...i've been DUPED!

One assumes that what he really meant to say was:

The strong should help the weak, except, of course, in situations where the weak are really a bit too weak in which "case we should just do away with them in favour of turning a smart profit and laughing all the way to the bank."

This entire scenario just has not been thought through properly by anybody that does not stand to make money, and those that have thought it through are not interested in what is best for anybody other than themselves.

What exactly will happen to class sizes at the "strong" schools that have to incorporate a students who have all come from the "weak" school? One assumes that they will grow dramatically. The alternative is that the "weak" school and the "strong" school integrate their class members and then split in half once again.

But there is a problem here...If you put all of the children from the "weak" school into one class and all of the "strong" children in another, then how are the "strong" going to help the "weak"? They will not even be taking lessons together?!

In fact, why bother closing the "weak" school at all? Why not leave them where they are and ask the "strong" school management team and teachers to meet with the "weak" school management and teachers and discuss ways to improve things? Why not retrain the teachers? Why not fund them properly in the first place?

The worst case scenario is we get "weak" and "strong" children coming from each school separately and not "average" children coming from one.

And there is your new reality...The "Human Capital" that Blair so lovingly refers to, is to be made "average". No problem for commercial business of course, as they are employing 72% of their workforce in service-point positions (checkout staff, shoe shop attendants, burger-flippers, cleaners etc.) The last thing they need is a crop of well educated, highly qualified individuals with big ideas about actually being good at something other than timing the fries! Who will they get to make the profits? The biggest money-makers outside of the banks are the supermarkets, who is going to sit behind a checkout all day for close to minimum wage with a chemistry degree in their back pocket?!

But the government have already thought of this and have answered their critics in no uncertain terms...

The "strong" school will be gifted so much money to accept the "weak" school that "things can only improve."

But that doesn't sound like it will help us with the problem of the "brain drain" effect. Even more terrifying, the larger the school, the more money the government invests. Trust School status is actually tailored to ENCOURAGE bigger schools…How can that possibly be a justifiable intent?

Do not misunderstand me, EVERY child, "strong" or "weak" should be given the opportunity to be the best that they can be. Within certain guidelines, they should have the right to find out what they have a talent for and then nurture that talent. It is not the place of government and their cronies in trade and industry to decide what skills you MUST have so that you fit the national employment model. The employment model of any nation should surely be tailored to fit what the population has to offer and not what business requires to make a tidy profit.

Even more frustrating is that the massive corporations know EXACTLY what they are doing here, creating little drones for their army of workers, whereas the smaller local business appears to have no idea...

An article from the BBC in 2001 gives us a good example of this. John Lane runs a small business that, naturally, employs people who have attended the local school. This is what he had to say about his £500 stake in that local school:

"The kids who come out of the school are employed by us, some of them, and it's to our benefit of course that they are as well educated as possible."

Poor Mr Lane...There is one deluded individual!

Think about it...

If the school turns out better educated people then they are unlikely to want to work for him at the sort of wage levels that he is able, willing or even accustomed to paying and are, in fact, more likely to want to go on to college, university and a bigger company that CAN pay the sort of wages and offer the sort of career progression they would expect for their qualifications. This leaves him with a shortlist of those that did not do as well as the very people he thinks he will get to employ!

Conversely, if the local "weak" school is integrated with the local "strong" school then it is unlikely that the education standard is going to improve for at least a generation and so the calibre of candidate he will have to choose from will go DOWN.

None of this is rocket science and with the path the government is choosing, that may well turn out to be a good thing!

The bottom line is that education is not supposed to be a TRAINING COURSE…IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING and the two are VERY different.

Learning new things, exploring differing views of the world, finding out what brings joy to life.

Learning should be about discovery, understanding, knowledge and fun, and if it is not then something is terribly wrong.

The links below are there to help refresh your memory. We have written on this topic so many times and so, if you have the time and the inclination, for the sake of all our futures, please do read them. If you find yourself with a lot of time and a lot of inclination, then maybe you should go to our education archives section and start back at the beginning...There is lots to LEARN in there!

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Thursday 21st September 2006 | The Press Association
Original article entitled "Failing schools 'on takeover list'" | link |

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More than 500 under-performing schools have been identified for takeover by more successful ones, it has been reported.

The Times said headteachers of leading schools would oversee improvements at the worst-performing.

Some 512 secondaries had been placed on a hit-list for attention because 25% or less of pupils attained five A*-C grades at GCSE, it said.

The plans would see less successful schools brought together with the best, under the Government's controversial new trusts, which are to be independent of local authorities.

The head of the better school would become chief executive of the trust and appoint headteachers to run the two schools, The Times said. Under-performing schools that were not taken over would be closed, it added.

Sir Cyril Taylor, head of the Government's specialist schools programme, will tell a conference on Friday: "I believe that the strong should help the weak. Best practice can be replicated with good leadership in even the most challenging schools."

The Department for Education and Skills denied that there was a closure hit-list but said that trust schools would build on the success of previous collaborations.

A DfES spokesman said: "School standards have never been higher. However, we have always been clear that we will not tolerate failure.

"This is why our white paper published last year sets out a range of measures to help local authorities tackle failing schools. Federations are already providing how strong schools can help lift the standards of weak ones. The trust school model will build on this enabling schools to team up and tackle failure. Closure is always a last resort and suggestions of a closure hit-list are wide off the mark.

"We routinely examine poorly-performing schools to see what can be done to support them in driving up standards."