Learning from school failures

THE coalition’s education reforms represent one of the flagship policies on which the reputation of this Government will be judged.

THE coalition’s education reforms represent one of the flagship policies on which the reputation of this Government will be judged.

Although the main task was always to rescue the economy, the introduction and rapid expansion of free schools, alongside the overhaul of welfare, has been a genuine attempt to give this Government a radical edge and leave a lasting legacy.

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Considering that the school reforms are the most ground-breaking development in education policy for a generation, then, it might have been thought that more effort would have been taken to get them right.

For, while there have been many examples of successful free schools, there have also been far too many cases of catastrophic failure, as the sorry tale of Kings Science Academy, in Bradford, attests.

Indeed, not only was the school found to have submitted fabricated invoices to claim thousands of pounds of public money, but matters were compounded by a five-month delay in making these findings the subject of a criminal investigation, resulting in the Government being accused of trying to mislead MPs and the public over the precise reasons for this failure.

The problems at Kings were held up in a National Audit Office report as an example of the risks created by the sheer speed and scale of the free school programme.

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And, while the urgent need to provide more school places has been a factor in this, as the Commons Public Accounts Committee heard yesterday, care has not always been taken to ensure that free schools open in those areas where there is most need.

It is now crucial that Ministers learn lessons from these problems and demonstrate an acceptance that mistakes have been made and that many new schools have not been properly supported or assessed. A welcome start here would be a full acknowledgment and explanation by Education Secretary Michael Gove of the problems manifested at the Bradford school.

The free school programme is, after all, Mr Gove’s brainchild which has garnered no shortage of enemies among the vested interests in the educational establishment, who are now losing influence as a result of the reforms. Yet the Education Secretary has played into their hands by allowing his department to make elementary mistakes in the scrutiny of these hugely important projects.

If there are to be no more of the horror stories typified by Kings Science Academy, if the vast sums of money involved are to be used more wisely and, most important of all, if the reforms are to achieve their aim of delivering major improvements to the education of Britain’s schoolchildren, a more responsible attitude is vital.

Full facts needed

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THE company running the £50bn HS2 high-speed rail project is only too quick to label the scheme’s critics as scaremongerers.

Yet, if the enemies of HS2 are really so keen to spread scare stories about the planned North-South link, it is surely incumbent upon those in charge of the project not to give them the ammunition they seek.

If residents of Aylesbury, already worried about the impact that the London-Birmingham stretch of the route will have on their lives, receive letters informing them that access to their homes will be required for 203 weeks, then surely even HS2 Ltd would admit that they have every right to be scared, or at least deeply concerned.

It is only to be hoped that the fact that the letter should have read “two to three weeks” is not indicative of the level of competence at this company. Considering that more than 800 pages were missing from the environmental impact assessment sent out to householders along the route, however, it is difficult to be certain of this.

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The Government, already facing a huge backlash from HS2’s critics as a result of its dismal failure to set out clearly the project’s advantages, simply cannot afford mistakes of this nature, which will inevitably be seized upon to suggest that there is some kind of conspiracy to mislead the public.

There are hundreds of householders in this region who are gravely concerned about the effect on their properties that the plans for HS2’s Birmingham-Leeds section are already having. The very least that they deserve is full and frank information free from factual errors.

The hole story

FOR the past decade, Bradfordians have needed no reminder of the state of the economy. It has confronted them on a daily basis in the shape of a huge hole in the ground in the heart of the city, the site of the long-delayed Westfield centre.

Yet now, after the raising and dashing of countless false hopes, work is set to begin this week on the development which should finally open its doors for Christmas 2015.

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There have been many discussions about where the blame should lie for the decisions which made Bradford a symbol of economic decay.

Now, however, is not a time for recriminations but for hope that this new centre will herald an economic revival that will finally wake one of the great cities of the North from its long slumber.