The new Academies Act has now been passed. We are set to have three new academies locally from September.
Duke of York Military School and Christchurch Academy in Dover were already tagged for academy status. Castle Community School in Deal had made an application which was hanging in the balance.
Castle Community is an outstanding school with an inspirational head teacher in Christine Chapman. It is a specialist sports school. I knew that only so many schools could achieve academy status in the first wave. So I took the matter up with Ministers and officials in the Education Department and spoke up in the House of Commons in favour of Castle Community’s bid.
I was delighted that Education Secretary Michael Gove decided that Castle Community will be among the first schools to shift to academy status from September. This is national recognition of the achievements of this exceptional school. And it shows that even a new Member of Parliament can help make the difference.
Yet it’s not just a local thing. The new academies promise to make a massive difference to education up and down the land. Could we be seeing the beginning of an education revolution? I look forward to further reforms to give our children the best start in life and help Britain compete on the world stage in the years to come.
( 3 comments ) Tags: academies, Castle Community, Deal, Dover and Deal, education, House of Commons, Michael Gove
Comment by Ray Turner on August 10, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I’m sure these acadamies will change education in Dover and Deal, but not necessarily for the better. Beware of reading the inferred hallelulahs into this headline.
My reason for saying this, is that the school I went to (a long time ago) recently merged with a neighbouring school to form a new Academy. Literally within the year, there were headline stories in the local newspaper of the kids running riot in the school…!
What had happened was that there were historically tensions between the two schools and neighbouring communities, so by carrying out what looked like a sensible exercise on the balance sheet, a much bigger problem was created because the fresh-faced bureaucrats fast-streamed into jobs for which they didn’t have the neccessary life-experience simply didn’t understand the local communities…
Comment by DawnieL on August 10, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Can please someone clarify the law now on children being looked after by friends. Ofsted looks oblivious. I would like my child looked after by a friend. its not commercial and we mutually do stuff for each other. So what is the ruling please!
Comment by John Halstead on August 17, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Please will someone explain the difference between an academy and a school, Also, do academies give better education than schools?