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Post subject: Is The Curriculum Centre the new New Schools Network?
Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 1:26 pm
Whip
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:49 pm Posts: 727
Has thanked: 22 time
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Most people will be aware of the New Schools Network founded by Rachel Wolf (ex-adviser to Michael Gove in opposition) with a nice £500k competition-free grant from the DfE to help people who wanted to set up Free Schools.
Up until recently it was home - whether it be trustees or advisers - to a whole host of Gove admirers who strangely enough seemed to also have links with Policy Exchange founded by Gove, Nick Boles and Francis Maude.
However, with the disappearance of Rachel Wolf off to New York (1) to join Amplify - a News Corp offshoot and the appointment of a Policy Exchange and NSN trustee, Theodore Agnew, to the Board of the DfE (2); NSN's influence seems to be on the wane. Advisers no longer seem to have the links with the DfE that they had before.
So, who takes their place as Gove's go-to body of fresh thinkers?
National Curriculum Our story starts with the appointment of an expert panel by Gove to oversee the new national curriculum.
The panel comprised the following: Tim Oates (chair) Professor Andrew Pollard Professor Dylan William Professor Mary James
It helps to know that of the panel the only one who hasn't taught in any capacity (as far as I am aware) is Tim Oates.
Now, it was becoming clear in 2012 that all was not well and eventually it transpired that both Pollard and James had jumped ship, complaining of interference from Schools Minister Nick Gibb. The dispute centres around the influence over current thinking of one ED Hirsch and his ideas on Cultural Literacy.
As Pollard says (3): "When I first met Nick Gibb, Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Sequence was open on his desk, heavily stickered with Post-It notes."
Now where, you might be thinking does thisbody calling itself The Curriculum Centre come into it?
The Curriculum Centre This body seems to be bound up with a charity called Future which has three London Schools financed by John Nash. Actually it's not simply John Nash. It's Lord Nash as he was appointed to Gove's ministerial team (4). He apparently has responsibility for academies and free schools amongst other things.
The Curriculum Centre is chaired by Caroline Nash. John Nash's wife. Cosy eh?
The Curriculum Centre is very big on the ideas of one ED Hirsch.
So who advises them?
Tim Oates (5)
But you could have seen that coming couldn't you?
Who else (and this one is very recent)?
One James O’Shaughnessy.And his credentials?
"James was the Director of Policy and Research to David Cameron between 2007 and 2011, first in opposition and then in No.10. Prior to this,James worked at Policy Exchange first at Research Director and then as Deputy Director."
He was in the Guardian recently: (7)
The private sector should be asked to take over the running of chronically failing academies, James O'Shaughnessy, the former director of policy at No 10, proposes in his first piece of major research since quitting Downing Street.
and why?
Michael Gove's centralised system for overseeing 18,000 semi-independent schools, including failing schools, is "simply not viable", he writes.
Conclusion In my opinion, the move to take academies out of LA control (whatever that actually means - and it's certainly not schools "run by bureaucrats") was never to give them these much vaunted "freedoms" but in time to allow them to become profit making and selective. This is why the first wave of schools allowed to become academies were already successful under their LA - OFSTED-rated Good or Outstanding. What we are heading for are profit-making grammar schools with the remainder - the secondary moderns of the 21st century - allowed to stay in their local authorities.
Move over NSN - your usefulness has passed - The Curriculum Centre is the new kid in town...
Post subject: Re: Is The Curriculum Centre the new New Schools Network?
Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:46 pm
Junior Whip
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:40 pm Posts: 341 Location: Peterborough (via Inverness)
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Roger - thank you for that comprehensive and thrilling expose. I must confess to having been turned off by articles in the press about education, all forms of education*, but you have just made the subject quite exciting for me and I will be following commentaries much more closely in the future. I have another confession to make and that is that the sight of any article concerning Gove's thoughts of wisdom has always led me to be one of those I actually detest - a troll. However, your comments have almost always been recommended by me and I believe that I now know why!
Thank you, again.
* In my defence, I think it may take a mother or father to become involved and I am neither.
Post subject: Re: Is The Curriculum Centre the new New Schools Network?
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:04 am
Whip
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:49 pm Posts: 727
Has thanked: 22 time
Have thanks: 197 time
Looking at a story in the Graun on grammar schools and coaching for the 11+ I saw this:
Kent may choose to follow the lead of local authorities such as Buckinghamshire, Bexley and Warwickshire, which have recently switched to tests produced by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at the University of Durham.
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