It was 9.05am when I rang the tribunal office to find out if the Department for Education would be appealing the Information Commissioner's decision against them. Again. I wanted to know if I would find myself in court defending a request … Read More
After three years, two court cases, endless emails, and a new interpretation of the law to try and stop it, the Department for Education have been ordered - yet again - to provide me information about free schools. The independent commissioner … Read More
As explained a while back, I am currently in the process of studying academy providers who applied to run schools under the Targeted Basic Need Programme. One of the things I requested under the Freedom of Information Act was the plans … Read More
Announcements are finally due to be made about the appointment of the new Regional Schools Commissioners. For the uninitated, the Commissioners will work in geographically mad locations (see map) and will oversee all academies and free schools in that area. Essentially, … Read More
I've contributed to some confusion today around IES Breckland's pre-Ofsted monitoring visit. Completely my mistake and given that I'm always banging on about things being clear, I thought it best to sort it out. Straightforward facts: Feb 25th - I blog about … Read More
Two weeks ago I blogged about Michael Gove claiming he had an apology "confirmed in writing" from Action Fraud. The apology stated that Action Fraud were at fault for the mislabelling of a phone call about school fraud as 'information' rather … Read More
The Department for Education has always said Free Schools were visited periodically after opening to ensure all was well. It was never clear who was making the visits, or what they involved, or what sort of feedback schools got - … Read More
After my earlier blog post outlining the mysterious disappearance of the DfE's Targeted Basic Need Programme website, two key things happened. One - Adrian Short found a cached version of the original TBNP website https://twitter.com/adrianshort/status/428108259103232000 And here it is. See its many shiny … Read More
Given that the Department for Education have asked for a Tribunal to keep free school information a secret, you might think they are in the habit of hiding things. But I'm generally an optimistic soul, and I don't think that. … Read More
Any government spokesperson who says the failures of Al-Madinah Free School do not tell you anything about the wider policy, is entirely wrong. The gaping and problematic holes in the free schools policy have been apparent ever since Michael Gove pushed through the free school … Read More