Two Tier for Stowmarket after all as Academy bids shelved

Graham Newman, Suffolk
Education Portfolio Holder

The DfE have shelved academy bids by three Stowmarket Middle Schools at the eleventh hour to allow Suffolk County Council and local schools to develop plans to move the area to two-tier education. The move apparently follows lobbying by senior Tory councillors and MPs.

I think that the DfE have (finally) made the right decision here and I agree with what what Suffolk County Council Cabinet Member and Portfolio Holder for Education Graham Newman said to the EADT:

“We are still keen to move the whole of Suffolk to a two-tier system and a significant amount of primary schools in the Stowmarket area want to be part of a two-tier system, 

If these middle schools had been allowed to become academies, it would have created a little island in the system"

To me though this is further evidence that trying to run every school in England from Westminster just does not work. As reader's of my blog know I am a frequent critic of Suffolk County Council but on this issue they are right and Gove has been wise to listen to Graham Newman.

I do hope that DfE will reflect on giving local education authorities a more strategic role in education rather than continuing the trend started by the Labour government of giving more and more power personally to the Secretary of State. I have blogged about this already in my post Is this Gove's Brave New World for Schools.

It won't help Gove's free schools and academies policies if the kind of mess that has occurred in West Suffolk happens elsewhere. If the DfE won't relinquish control of this to local authorities (and I strongly suspect they will not) then maybe a formal consultation process for local education authorities would be a way to give more local input.

Headteacher of Ixworth Middle School to "hand deliver" FOI response

As readers of this Blog will be aware I recently sent Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests to several schools and to Suffolk County Council about the proposed Ixworth and Stanton Free School.

As I documented earlier I had great difficulty getting Ixworth Middle School to acknowledge the request and they even admitted to me they had sought advice that told them they had no legal requirement to acknowledge it. It might have been somewhat quicker and cost less public money to hit "reply".

But this tale took a completely unexpected twist yesterday when the Headteacher emailed me and told me she would be "hand delivering" the information I had requested to my home address and asked when I would be in to receive it!

At best this seems a complete waste of public money. Even if the Head doesn't claim mileage there are surely better things she could do with her time than deliver information that could be emailed or posted. By definition the response to an FOI cannot be confidential so I cannot see a good reason to deliver it by hand. I suppose you could even see it as intimidation.

In any case the Information Commissioner has issued guidance on "means of communication" and these state that information should be where possible be sent in the way the applicant requests them and I asked for the information to be emailed to me. This saves time and (public) money.