BLong Blog

Category Archives: Education

Judicial Review at the School refusing Academy Status

avatar By  Emily Brown | 29 March 2012

It’s all change at Downhills Primary School in North London. First it was the headteacher, Leslie Church, who resigned last month but now the governing body has been sacked – a very bold move by the Department for Education! Downhills was found “failing” in its last inspection by Ofsted although there are records apparently indicating [...]

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The fight for school places – results today

avatar By  Emily Brown | 1 March 2012

Around 600,000 children in England will today find out which secondary school they have got into. Think of all the nervous kids (and parents!) there must be today. Will they get into the school they want? Will they still be with all their friends? I haven’t as yet seen the actual figures, but over the [...]

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Working overtime for no pay? You’ve spent the first part of this year working every day for free!

avatar By  Emily Brown | 24 February 2012

Today, 24 February 2012, is the TUC’s “Work Your Proper Hours Day”. So if you often work unpaid overtime, and you worked all your unpaid overtime at the beginning of the year instead of spreading it out across the whole year, apparently you have been working from 1 January until today for free. Bit of [...]

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Education Bill Given Royal Assent

avatar By  Emily Brown | 13 December 2011

I wonder how much impact the much talked about Education Act 2011 will actually have now that it is, bit by bit, coming into force? The new Act follows on from the Academies Act which began to try to give schools their autonomy. This new one is meant to allow teachers to give same day [...]

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Studios Now on the School Menu

avatar By  Emily Brown | 13 December 2011

I’ve just seen that the Department for Education has published information on setting up “studio schools”, so adding to the variety of schools which we can now have: independent schools, state comprehensives, academies, free schools… etc etc Confusing? Perhaps, but I don’t think studio schools will be such a bad idea. Studio schools are a type [...]

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Say “Humbug” to no school play photos!

avatar By  Emily Brown | 29 November 2011

If, like many of us here at Birkett Long, you’re going to your children’s school play at Christmas, don’t forget the Information Commissioner’s advice! Christopher Graham, the Commissioner, confirmed that it really is a myth that the taking of photographs at school events such as concerts, plays and nativities, is forbidden by the Data Protection [...]

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Birkett Long helps Hilltop Junior School become an academy

avatar By  Emily Brown | 1 August 2011

We all like a good news story, and I am very pleased to confirm that Hilltop Junior School in Wickford today converted to an academy! Alison Waite, Headteacher at the school, contacted us in June to ask us if we could assist with the academy conversion process. She confessed that there was just one catch [...]

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Teachers’ Strike Over Pensions

avatar By  Emily Brown | 24 June 2011

It seems that both state and independent schools will be affected by the strike action by teachers following a vote by the Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL). The first strike is to start on 30 June 2011 with more strikes possibly coming in the [...]

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Academies Momentum Builds

avatar By  Emily Brown | 20 June 2011

At the beginning of January we were told that 371 secondary schools had become academies – the equivalent of 11% of all secondary schools in England. I have just found out that as of the beginning of this month, the number of new academies has continued to increase dramatically. In just one month, 46 more [...]

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Poorly performing schools to be transformed into academies

avatar By  Emily Brown | 16 June 2011

It will be announced today by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, that 200 of the worst performing primary schools in England will be transformed into academies next year in a movement to improve education standards throughout the country. There are over 1,000 primary schools which are below the primary “minimum floor standard” which means that [...]

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