TES: ex sponsor says standalone free schools not viable

From the TES: In an interview with the TES Ronda Fogel, executive director of the Constable Educational Trust, said: 'Free schools are opened on very tight budgets and there is not much room for manoeuvre for anything different. I know that the CET primary schools struggled and that is why their Ofsteds were poor...

Free school's 42-week year

From Hemel Today:  Dr Sue Attard, Executive Head of Jupiter Community Free School, part of West Herts Community Free School Trust - announced 'the introduction of an extended 42-week year, allowing parents to take their children on holiday for two weeks of term time without reducing the amount of time they spend on teaching and learning... The final two weeks of the year will still have an educational focus but will be more relaxed.'

Rural focus: free school joins forces with Duchy College

From the Mid Devon Gazette: 'Route 39 Academy (Devon) and Duchy College in Cornwall are progressing plans for their partnership in delivering joint courses in North Devon, which could see a range of land-based qualifications delivered from the academy.'

Greenwich Free School requires improvement

From the Guardian:'...Greenwich free school in southeast London, has been labelled by Ofsted as requiring improvement after its first inspection...a mild embarrassment for some of the secondary school's prominent supporters, including the education secretary, Michael Gove, and for its chair of governors, Jonathan Simons, the head of education at the thinktank Policy Exchange and a co-founder of the school.

United Learning replaces head with principal and executive principal

From This is Wiltshire: Julie Tridgel, headteacher at Nova Hreod Academy in Swindon, announced she was leaving in February... Ben Parnell and Darren Barton... existing heads at United Learning's Glenmoor and Winton (Where Mr Parnell is Executive Principal) academies in Bournemouth - they will become Interim Executive Principal and Interim Principal on May 1.

Norwich co-operative founder now looking for academy sponsor

From the Norwich Evening News: Governors of the The Tuckswood Primary School, one of the founders of the Norwich Co-operative Learning Trust and which 'forced academy' Cavell Primary had planned to join - are considering becoming an academy with Cavell's would-be sponsor, Right for Success.

DfE backtracks on Chinese bi-lingual free school

From This is Local London: The Marco Polo Academy had been approved by the Department for Education (DfE) in January but the decision has been backtracked because the bilingual Chinese and English school was “not inclusive enough” and the campaign group behind it were “not ready” to run a school.

Chichester Uni's trust signs up Portsmouth primary

From About My Area: The Flying Bull has joined the University of Chichester's Multi-Academy Trust.

Ormiston Venture Academy opens new buildings

From EDP: Ormiston Venture Academy in east Norfolk opened its new £8m facilities...

£10.9m refurb for Dover academy

From the KM Group: 'Dover Christ Church Academy is set to receive £10.9 million for specialist teaching areas...the final scheme of six in a Kent County Council initiative, supported by the Education Funding Agency... The contract has been awarded to Willmott Dixon Construction.'

Damning Ofsted report published - new head and chair of governors in place

From the St Helens Star: 'Hope Academy at Newton-Le-Willows underwent an inspection at the end of February... the school has been classed as “inadequate”...'

Academy head steps down to teach - replaced by a non-teacher

From Bourne Local: Robert Sloan has been appointed acting principal of Charles Read Academy in Corby Glen - replacing Ali Story, who will focus exclusively on teaching science... the school was taken over by the David Ross Education Trust in June.

Academy in funding talks with DfE after science block is closed for safety reasons

From the Nottingham Post: 'THE principal of Arnold Hill Academy (Robin Fugill) is to meet Government officials again to discuss funding for a new science block... he was forced to close the science block due to safety concerns.'

Guardian - Tribal conflict of interest?

From the Guardian: The paper reports on a possible conflict of interest between Tribal being a service provider to schools and an inspector of schools - its website reporting the results of Ofsted inspections of schools to which it also provides education services.

Guardian - the powers of Regional Schools Commissioners

From the Guardian: 'RSCs will approve or reject DfE intervention plans in "underperforming" academies, recruit academy sponsors and "pause" the expansion of those not felt to be doing well. They will also consider academy requests to change their admissions arrangements.'

Aspiration Academies Trust to sponsor new build junior school

From the Daily Echo: '...a new £6.8million junior school in Poole... the Ocean Academy, which will be sponsored by the Aspiration Academies Trust (AAT)... built on council-owned land.'

Understanding of 'very low revenue funding' helps Greenwood win Cambridge bid

From CambsTimes: The Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust has been selected by Cambridgeshire County Council to run the new secondary school in Littleport... ahead of the Active Learning Trust...

£20m for academy to rebuild itself

From the Watford Observer: 'A "forgotten" west Watford school will be demolished and rebuilt following a £20 million government grant...  principal, Tim Body, said: "This is very exciting time. We will be having a brand new school from scratch."'

Tenbury High School to join Ormiston academies

From Ludlow Advertiser: A party of four made up of (Tenbury High School) head teacher Adrian Price along with chair of governors John Garbutt, vice chair Ken Pollock, and governor Jane Jenner, went to Stoke-on-Trent to visit the Sir Stanley Matthews Ormiston Academy.

Independent school's bid to become free school gets go ahead

From the Kidderminster Shuttle: 'The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed it will be drafting a funding agreement to enable Holy Trinity International School (IES), in Birmingham Road, to become Holy Trinity Free School from September this year.'

Burnley free school funding agreed

From The Burnley Citizen:Russell Rook, chief executive of Chapel Street (Backers behind Burnley High School), said: “ 'We have received the news that many of us have been waiting for – the Secretary of State has agreed to enter into a Funding Agreement for Burnley High School.'

Delayed free school 'loyalty' offer may 'strain... relations with other schools and the LEA'

From the Borehamwood Times: 'Children who were due to start at (delayed Harperbury Free School)... could still be offered Year 8 places for 2015 - if there is demand... headteacher Martin Blain said: 'We need to stress the process of setting up the 2015 year eight is complex and will strain our relations with other schools and the LEA.'

Work starts on joint Catholic and Anglican academy

From the Shropshire Star and BBC: 'Building work is getting under way on a new £14 million joint Anglican and Catholic academy school in Telford which will be the first of its kind in the county.

Another Hastings school turns to ARK

From the Hastings Observer: 'Blacklands School... ‘inadequate’ in February... announced its proposals to become part of the ARK academy network... its Interim Executive Board (IEB) has begun a formal consultation...

Hindu free school wins council support

From This is Local London: Last night Harrow Borough council's cabinet approved a recommendation to allow the Avanti House free school to be built on Whitchuch Playing Fields... Earlier this week it was announced the Education Funding Agency had given its approval for a free school to go ahead on the site.

Regional schools commissioners - biographies and other details

A lot of people looked at this site yesterday for details about Regional School Commissioners  for the full details including biographies of the appointees all the details from the DfE's regional press releases are below.

New head appointed as existing head promoted

From the Braintree and Witham Times: Steven Clark has left as headteacher at Tabor Academy - The new head will be Matthew Slater, previously head of The Drapers Academy in Havering.

Wilmott Dixon takes £20m free school contract

From Construction Enquirer: 'Willmott Dixon is understood to have clinched a contract worth up to £20m to design and build a secondary school for the University of Birmingham.... the first free school and sixth form college run by a university...

The six new Regional Schools Commissioners

UPDATE (May 14 2014) - The last two of eight Regional Schools Commissioners (RSC) were announced by Schools Commissioner Frank Green at the Education Select Committee yesterday morning (via Laura McInerney).
So there are now eight RSCs.

Bradford's £15m Grace Academy building to start

From the Telegraph and Argus: 'A £15 million school, called Grace Academy, will be the next major school building project in Bradford and is on track to open in September 2015...the Council will build the school... 1050 pupils,100 staff... Dr David Lee, chairman of the Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust, said: "There is the planning permission for the site in place and we now have all the specs for the design of classrooms."'

From The Construction Index: 'Working for Integrated Bradford LEP Ltd, Wates will build a 7,700m2 seven-form entry school with capacity for 1,050 students aged 11 to 16 years... Designed by CPMG Architects, the new building will use Wates’ Adapt Schools Solutions model.'

Grammar has two business plans for a free school

From Your Local Guardian: Wallington County Grammar School (WCGS) has two plans for a free school bid: one to build a school but to retain a sports club as a facility and local service; another to build a new school in south Croydon to alleviate a growing school places crisis in the area.

Academy wins £10m Priority Schools Building Programme

From the Warrington Guardian: 'Beamont Collegiate Academy... successfully applied for funding from the Government’s Priority Schools Building Programme... £10m grant...'

Liverpool academy head steps down after 8 years

From the Liverpool Echo: 'Kay Askew, principal at North Liverpool Academy (part of the Northern Schools Trust) since it was established in 2006, left her post in January. Vice-principal Rupert Stead... has now been appointed as her permanent replacement... Ms Askew turned 60 in December.'

Sulivan primary loses academy bid and will merge

From Get West London: The Department for Education rejected Sulivan Primary School’s bid to convert to an academy with the London Diocesan Board for Schools... (it will) be demolished to build a £13.5 million new building for new free school Fulham Boys... (will now)amalgamate Sulivan Primary School with New King’s.

Greenwood Dale ahead of Lilac Sky and Active Learning Trust in Cambridgeshire bid

From Cambridge News: The cabinet is being recommended to choose the Greenwood Dale Foundation... Cllr David Harty, cabinet member for education and learning, said the trust was particularly strong as it “demonstrated the greatest experience of setting up new schools and, in particular, improving outcomes for ‘education, skills and training’ in areas of high deprivation'

Telegraph/TES: Nearly 600 primaries forced into academy status

From the TES and Telegraph: According to data released by the Department for Education (link to the document here ) there are now 1,983 primary academies nationwide, 570 of which are forced conversions by government officials.

Minutes from Academies Finance and Assurance Steering Group.

From DfE: Minutes from Academies Finance and Assurance Steering Group (11 February 2014)
Issues discussed:

Defrauded Academy facing sponsor change must pay £75k per month to EFA

From the Bournemouth Echo: '...fraudsters, posing as bank staff... tricked school (St Aldhelm’s Academy) finance chiefs... withdrew £1.1m... Whitehall demanding it back at the rate of around £75,000 a month.'

Governor rationalisation post conversion gave 'trojan horse' plot cover?

From They Work For You: Responding to Khalid Mahmood's question - why did 8 out of 13 of Park View Academy governors resign after it became an academy? Edward Timpson said: 'Park View Educational Trust has told the Department that there was a need to rationalise the governing body to ensure it could operate more effectively, and in order to comply with the Department's preferred model when other academies joined the trust to form a multi-academy trust.'

Schools minister re-iterates 'batched inspections'

From They Work for You: Responding to a question from Bill Esterson, Edward Timpson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, said: 'Ofsted already inspects academy chains through batched inspections of schools within chains. It has recently undertaken focused inspections of academies within the E-ACT multi-academy trust and has previously inspected a group of academies within the AET chain. This has shown to be an effective approach and there are no plans to widen Ofsted's role to inspect head offices.'

Leaked document report.

TES profiles James O’Shaughnessy and Floreat's model

From the TES: 'Floreat is planning to submit a body of research, called the Virtue and Knowledge School Model, which it hopes will receive funding so it can then be implemented as a curriculum in the two schools.'

Leaked document reveals sponsor grading system

From the Guardian/Observer: says a 40 page document 'reveals the existence of an internal DfE grading system for the sponsors... (adding) that of the 72 sponsors in the new "north-east London and east region" set to be monitored by a regional commissioner, 71% are in the two worst categories out of four.'

Leaked document admits that running a free school is different to an academy

From the Guardian/Observer:  From a leaked document, entitled Future Academy System: Lord Nash session: 'Experience has shown us that free schools in their first years of operation are different from other open academies, and face problems that are often not educational in origin...

New head for Kings Science

From the Yorkshire Post: 'The Kings Science Academy in Bradford has appointed Jane Tiller to work in the school on an interim basis until September.'

Security guards in Birmingham academy

From the Birmingham Mail: 'St George’s Academy in Hockley confirmed it used guards to help ensure the “smooth running” of the school, which caters for almost 100 children with behavioural problems.'

Ofsted inspector is exec principal of failing schools

From the TES: 'Last February, Derek Davies was appointed executive principal at the troubled Richard Rose Federation in Cumbria... two further monitoring visits ...the most recent... “not making enough progress”... Mr Davies continues to inspect schools himself, working for private provider the CfBT Education Trust.'

Council sees Windsor free school 'tremendous value for money'

From the Windsor Observer: 'cllr Simon Dudley, cabinet member for finance, said: "From a local taxpayer’s perspective, RBWM (Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead) has put £700,000 into this, but I think the EFA will put £1.1m into it. We are getting a new, one-form entry primary school for £700,000 when we are building another, two-form primary school [Oldfield Primary’s relocation to Bray Road] nearby for £8.4m. That is tremendous value for money for our residents."'

Arrests at Glendene Arts Academy

From The Independent: 'Among those understood to have been held in a series of early morning raids by detectives is Eric Baker, founding principal of Glendene Arts Academy in Easington, Co Durham, and his wife.'

GEMS Learning Trust wins sponsorship of Oxford primary school

From the Oxford Mail: GEMS Learning Trust was yesterday confirmed to run the new school to open on the Great Western Park development in Didcot in September 2015.

Latest DfE research questions include two on finance

From the DfE's Accountability and governance Research priorities and questions: The DfE said it hopes to 'identify evidence gaps and promote discussion of them with the research community, practitioners and other stakeholders' -  There were two specific finance questions:

Temporary site for one free school - permanent site dashed for another

UPDATED (April 5 2014) from West End Extra -

From the Kilburn Times: 'Marylebone Boys’ School has announced... it will be located at the building in Priory Park Road... The news will bring an end to speculation that Gladstone Free School will open on the site.'

Catholic primary becomes Anglican primary academy

From the BBC: 'Sacred Heart RC Primary School in Lynwood Road, Blackburn, Lancashire, will become an Anglican academy (because of falling numbers of Catholic pupils)... (it) will be sponsored by the Cidari Trust... the school is currently overseen by the Catholic Diocese of Salford.'

Closure of two cumbrian secondaries to create a new academy

From the Times and Star: Cumbria 'county council's Cabinet... agreed to launch a formal consultation into closing Southfield Technology College and Stainburn School and Science College... and merging them into a new single academy (Workington Academy)...  the preferred sponsor is the Lakes College West Cumbria's Lakes Academy Trust, which beat off competition from the Good Shepherd multi-academy trust, set up by the Diocese of Carlisle and Bright Tribe.'

Head of co-operative academy steps down

From the Manchester Evening News: Kathy Leaver transformed Plant Hill High... shamed as the worst for truancy four years ago...re-branded as Manchester Co-operative Academy... new principal Steve Brice... Frank Norris, from the Co-operative Group, which sponsors the academy, thanked the departing headteacher.

Teesside secondary and primary catholic schools form multi-academy trust

From the Gazette Live: 'This week we (St Margaret Clitherow’s Catholic Primary school) officially became St Oswald’s Catholic Voluntary Multi Academy Trust along with St Peter’s Secondary School, St Gabriel’s Primary (Ormesby) and St Mary’s (Grangetown).

Employer contributions to teacher pension will rise by 2%

From Teachers' Pensions: 'HM Treasury has today published the final Directions and the expected outcome of the TPS valuation is a total contribution rate of 26%. The TPS proposed final agreement provides that scheme members will pay an average contribution rate of 9.6%, with the balance falling on employers; meaning that the new TPS employer contribution rate will be 16.4% (currently 14.1%).'

List of all MATs with more than 10 schools - 25 of them

From They Work For You: MP Nick Gibb asked the Secretary of State for Education to 'list all academy sponsors with 10 or more academies.' The reply was:

Diocese of Carlisle launches MAT

From News and Star (Cumbria): 'The Diocese of Carlisle will launch its Good Shepherd multi-academy trust....Michael Mill, the diocese’s director of education, children and young people said: 'Since receiving approval to become an academy sponsor, a huge amount of work has been ongoing to enable us to reach this point. Detailed policy documents, legal frameworks and a draft scheme of delegation are in place for those who join our trust’s family of schools.'

Kent Catholic Schools Partnership publishes Guardian advert

From a Guardian advertisement feature: four schools have become part of the (Kent Catholic Schools Partnership) trust, with a further four set to follow in their footsteps in May. The majority of the schools are expected to be part of the trust by spring 2015... Of the 32 (Catholic) schools (in Kent) – 26 of which are primaries and six secondaries – 71% are judged by Ofsted as 'good' or better.

Sixth form college heads sign letter opposing £45m Harris Westminster Sixth Form

Letters published in the Independent on 31 March included one signed by the heads of London's 12 sixth form colleges in opposition to the Harris Westminster Sixth Form (free school) and a letter from Lord Nash defending it.

Primary demand miscalculated - free school bid altered to avoid 'cannibalising' existing schools

From 'This is Wiltshire': Graham Taylor, the principal of New College (Swindon, Wiltshire): 'We were advised that a through school would be the most favourable option... We have since discovered that there wasn’t the (primary)demand we initially thought... We have no intention of cannibalising the whole area...'

Education select committee hearing - April 9

From They Work For You: Education Select Committee - Academies and free schools 9:30 am Witnesses: National Audit Office, Nick Weller, Chair, Independent Academies Association , Hampshire County Council and Anastasia de Waal, Civitas; Emma Knights, National Governors Association and Lucy Heller, ARK

Gove appeals council's decision on Sikh free school site

From Get Bucks:'Michael Gove submitted an application... rejected unanimously at the South Bucks District Council planning committee in January. Now Mr Gove has re-applied...

Chichester Academy Trust takes on primary

From the Chichester Observer: Kingsham Primary School will become an academy under the University of Chichester Academy Trust (CAT)- established by the University of Chichester.

ARK grows its Hastings cluster

From the Hastings Observer: 'Little Ridge Primary School... will relaunch as the ARK Little Ridge Primary Academy and officially become part of the ARK schools network which already includes ARK William Parker and Helenswood academies... ARK confirmed the appointment of Sarah Bailey who will take up the post at the start of the new school year.

Isle of Wight free school bid rejected on experience

From On the Wight: 'A 100 page free school (The Sylvan School) application, recently submitted to the Department for Education, was rejected from the pre-opening stage...  “The DfE felt that the group did not demonstrate a proven track record of school leadership. The Sylvan School will therefore not open.”

Milton Keynes academy bids to set up a free school with Lloyds

From MKWeb: 'The Redshift Academy supported by Lloyds Banking Group, will be setting up a new 16-19 Free School specialising in digital and creative media and entrepreneurship.'

The Midlands Academies Trust increases to six schools

From the Hinkley Times: William Bradford Community College will be sponsored by North Warwickshire and Hinckley College - the Midland Academies Trust