These are not good times for Future Academies, the chain set
up by Lord Nash and his wife which now boasts four schools in its offering.
Following the departure of an unqualified head teacher from Pimlico Free School
only last week, Churchill Gardens academy, also in Pimlico, has
now parted company with its acting head teacher. The background makes grim
reading.
“A second headteacher
from an academy chain set up by the coalition's schools minister is to leave her post this term,
prompting concerns about their governance. Susan Rankin-Reid, the acting head
of Churchill Gardens academy, in Pimlico, central London, has agreed to leave
Future Academies ... Colleagues and friends said
she was bullied by academy managers” reported the Guardian.
Parents weren’t impressed: “Parents on Friday blamed the academy for forcing her out. Patience
Freeman, who was picking up her children Lois, 9, Jesse, 6, and Simean, 5, said
she is looking for an alternative school because of the constant changes
brought in by Future. I blame them [Future]. The headteacher is very good and we want her to stay”. Curiouser
and curiouser.
There are inevitably going to be questions not merely about
the involvement of a Tory schools minister in a chain of schools, which are
potential recipients of directly awarded Government funds, but also of the
chain’s governance in general. So who is up for defending this decision, or at
least explaining it? Not the DfE, which is trying to claim Nash has no conflict
of interest.
Nor is Future Academies saying much. But what is really
interesting is that those who are usually on the hair trigger for instant
rebuttal of any suggestion that anything Michael “Oiky” Gove touches does not necessarily turn to gold, or at least
instantly transform standards for the better, are silent. For starters, there
is his retinue of polecats who operate the @toryeducation Twitter feed.
This account, attributed to Dominic Cummings and Henry de
Zoete, has been quiet for a couple of days now. And there has also been silence
from the source that was so ready to jump to the defence of what happened at
Pimlico Free School: yes, there has been no word from the loathsome Toby Young,
to the relief of those who wished that this happened more often.
What’s the matter, folks? I’m sure there is a perfectly
rational explanation for this departure, that standards are being raised as I
type (if only in the retelling), and that there is no chance of children’s
education suffering. Just think what Gove and his polecats would be doing if it
were two local authority schools in the same area shipping head teachers in
such quick succession.
One hates to think that there is one rule for Gove’s pals, and another for the rest.
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