I see that the BBC has taken the catastrophic failure of the Al-Madinah free school in Derby to create the impression that ALL free schools are a disaster unlike the wonderful State controlled sector (well, the part of that which isn’t ON STRIKE today) I heard an interview on Radio 4 just after 5pm which was a full on onslaught into the concept of free schools which managed to avoid the one central fact in the whole matter – namely Al-Madinah’s problem isn’t that it was a FREE school but rather that it is an Islamic school. It’s quite a wonder to match the BBC seize the total dysfunctionality of Islam and twist it into a contrived attack on the Coalition.
FREE SCHOOLS AREN’T THE PROBLEM…
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Yes, I listened to this report and the BBC was trying everything to avoid the fact that the main issue why the school was failing was due to the outrageous behaviour employed by the Muslim governors.
Quite apart from the fact that in this school it was deemed acceptable for boys to always sit at the front and girls at the back, boys to have their lunch before the girls was the acceptance of the BBC that this was acceptable in a school located in England.
As for the attempt by the BBC and the awful woman who they had on to debate / attack the calm teacher from one of the successful free schools that was a clear own goal.
Everytime the activist woman (and ex journalist) thought she had the killer line, along came the teacher who pointed out that actually schools in the normal state system have on average a worse rating than free schools etc.
state controlled sharia law schools with funny sounding arabic names run by sectarian,bigoted,separatist,supremacist taliban type islamists and muslim parents might go down well in saudi arabia or pakistan but not here in christian england,when is this madness going to stop,this is a christian country called england,why cant micheal gove the most dopey education minister ever understand that is beyond me.makes you mad innit.
If it’s anything to do with Islam, then the BBC , and the whole wimp British establishment, have to go into damage limitation mode. But why? What is it about Islam that they wish to protect, promote and celebrate? Personally, and I apologize to Mr Vance for being frank, I find it a vile, aggressive and dangerous cult that has supremacist objectives and a complete disregard for whatever nation it finds itself in. Islam is the biggest threat to the world. It has no place in the civilized world.
Actually it is quite offensive if you think about it. It was the same with the PM’s defence of Islam after the Kenyan mall slaughter. Government and the BBC are really saying that they don’t trust the mass of the peoples of these isles not to rise up and slaughter the Muslims in their beds.
Any incident that reflects badly on Islam is immediately followed by ‘damage limitation’ propaganda by the politicians and the BBC, all the “this isn’t Islam” or” this isn’t what ‘moderate’ (whatever that is) Muslims think” or the paranoia that “right-wing groups” are poised for the kill.
It is strange that these hideously non-Muslim bien pensants know so much about Islam but know so little about the calm, cool, tolerant people that used to think of these isles as home.
How true Jim . Civilised people being imposed upon by Barbarians aided by our own “representatives!”
Alex, why have you included an apology in your clearly held view about Islam?
There is no need to apologise, just continue to state your views.
Yes, Alex. Speak plainly about the vile for they be worthy of foul scorn.
Alex,
No need to apologise to most of us here, we all know that Islam is a vile, medieval death cult.
It is an aggressive, proselytising, brutal, supremacist creed whose only message is “submit to Islam or die”.
It is, as you rightly say, the biggest threat to the civilised world. I think it’s too late for the UK to wake up to this as they are not so much ‘at the gates’ but firmly inside them.
You only have to listen to any world news (including the BBC) to realise the dischord, mayhem and murder occurring everyday in the name of this cult.
The BBC (and in fact ALL Western media) play this down to an unbelievable degree. Are they complicit in our destruction or just to scared to speak out?
“Islam has no place in the civilized world.”
Completely accurate Alex. well said
It was the same all day on Radio 5.
I caught it too… grim …
1 free Islamic school (had to grin at that!) is failing the same as 420 ‘normal’ schools but that proves ‘normal’ schools are better….
the problem is in the Islamic… not the free part….
What the liberal will never admit is that our schools are rapidly becoming useless. Even the better ones have problems that are never admitted to lest the sacred cow of comprehensive education is weakened.
In my small town the local shops have just about had enough of the thieving at lunchtime and two household names have banned all children. And this is your supposedly quiet rural area where one would expect the law to be obeyed. What on earth is it like in inner cities?
Today the teachers, if that is what they call themselves, went on strike. A terrible example and indefensible.
We are breeding a semi literate and lawless generation presided over by so called teachers who are just not worth their pay. This is how a country fails. When it abandons the young to ignorance and lawlessness.
Not the well heeled classes of course. They still have their bolt holes. But even these in time will fail.
Whenever I hear the ignorant and sloppy left wingers of the BBc and the liberal media bleating on about rubbish I now just ignore them. It is past time on these fools.
Well said.
What the liberal will never admit is that our schools are rapidly becoming useless.
You misunderstand the ‘liberal’ mindset.
To them the goal of education is not to educate. The goal is to indoctrinate the kids with the proper political opinions and to engineer a ‘fairer’ society.
As far as they are concerned rubbish schools are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
That’s the problem.
Absolutely right and the BBC are fully behind
the education establishment’s social engineering project
Evidence? – Waterloo road
Oh-that failing free school is Islamic is it?
The BBC haven`t mentioned that on The World Tonight headlines…why not, I ask myself?
As if I need ask!
Apologising for Islam since a Muslim shot the Pope in 1981…
Perpetual tongues twisted to excuse condone or perp for Islam.
Reckon I despise these Beeb dhimmis even more than the fundis that militate for Mo…what scriptures do the BBC have for their actions apart from an old Commie tract and bloody Lennon on the iPhone.
The left is a cancer on humanity.
I heard a Muslim cleric saying on a Luton radio show that in an ideal world gays would be executed. I couldn’t believe what I heard – why would a Muslim care about an ideal world when Islam would obviously not be present in it?
I was watching Stephen Fry’s latest publicity vehicle, err I mean ‘programme’ about what it’s like to be gay in various places around the world.
I’m not really a fan of the ubiquitous Mr Fry but I found the program rather moving and distressing.
In the episode I watched he was (rightly) haranguing some dimwit Russian provincial official about the oppressive new laws against ‘promoting’ homosexuality.
I look forward to the episode where Stephen’s visit Saudi Arabia, Iran or any of the benighted Islamic states where they hang people from cranes, or stone them to death just for being gay – or did I miss that episode already?
They may not hang him for being gay, they may blow him up for being Jewish instead.
Good point.
Perhaps he’ll settle for a cosy sofa chat with some kindly old imam from Newham instead.
Yep, ever cowardly as hell bBC can never get enough of those soft options.
That awful woman referred to was probably the lovely Fiona Millar, wife of one Alastair Cambell, a lovely man who owns the BBC
Replace the word ‘free’ with the word ‘Muslim’ and you get the truth. The school is bad because the parents of those children don’t care about education standards, as long as the children are brought up in the religion. You reap what you sow. Simples.
On Sky they had the words ‘muslim free school’ on the ticker.
I had hopes. (think about it)
Just perhaps adding the hyphen between muslim and free would have been even better.
One point that seems to be missed in this debate, deliberately by the left, but a mystifying oversight by the Tories, is that state schools have had qualified teachers for decades and yet we are virtually bottom of the OECD league. We spend a fortune on education but get precious little for it. As mentioned above , after decades of liberal education theory we have gone backwards in educational standards. The Tories should use it as a mighty weapon to beat Labour and the unions with.
It is clear that in the UK being a qualified teacher doesn’t mean that you are a good teacher or even a half decent one. Obviously Labour and the BBC are rallying round the teachers unions to try and ensure that they can keep their closed shop and if they can damage Free Schools so much the better. Their tactics are so transparent as to be laughable.
As to the Islamic aspect of the story , what do you expect from a system stuck in the middle ages? Come on BBC don’t blame free schools put the blame where it belongs, Islam.
Many teachers spend their time on crowd control and social engineering, not on education. That’s the legacy of the disastrous experiment with comprehensive schools.
Interesting results of the YouGov opinion poll on the teachers’ strike, by the way. Half of the general public opposed the strike, but Labour voters backed a strike by a margin of more than 2:1. Surprise, surprise.
That’s an interesting political break down.
First thing I note is that Lib Dem voters oppose strike 46 / 29 % and UKIP are less ‘right wing’ than the Tories 68/21% as opposed to 75/12% against
The overall figure 49% for 33% against would represent a landslide win for any party receiving same in general election.
I wonder if BBC will reflect that in the tone of there reporting? ( is there such a thing as a sardonic face icon?)
Well teaching isn’t a closed shop in the sense that you HAVE to join a union. You don’t. It’s optional. Most teachers join unions not because they are raving leftists but in the event of a false allegation being made by a pupil the union will pay for a lawyer to defend the union member in court. This is the unique selling point of unions to teachers.
Having said that the NUT activists/agitators that you see on the marches I wouldn’t want working along side me. These people, however, appear to be losing ground as opposition to Academy schools has been patchy.
I take your point about qualified teachers. However, even at good private schools which have traditionally allowed excellent non qualified staff to teach a formal UK qualification i.e PGCE still carries a lot of weight and will often be a deciding factor in making an appointment.
Why are we near the bottom of the league tables? There are many different answers to that question but this might possibly be a contributing factor.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2463685/Five-schools-pupil-English-language–240-far-behind.html
It was essentially a madrassa. End of.
Schools like this don’t go down well in some Muslim countries either. In Bahrain a parent complianed that Catholic School displayed a cross and as such offended him and his children (which he sent there). The school govenor, a member of the Bahraini Royal Family told him to wind his neck in or take his children out
This saga also shows that ‘Free Schools’ are still accountable for professional standards and equality. Free from political control but not wildly unaccountable. The fact that Labour effectively will continue them shows they’ve lost the argument on this.
FREESCHOOLS are all about improving state education in areas of dire need. These are areas that parents (like me) are extremely worried about poor schooling standards that are routinely run by left dominated ‘London Education Authorities’ that were increasingly dominated and manipulated by Labour Ministers (such as Edward Balls, who clearly had no idea on teaching any more than he knew ‘how to run the economy’ under Gordon Brown). The BBC never reports how well other religious Freeschools (or others) operate with a high degree of independence that is quite refreshing (true diversity). What a big disappointment for the BBC to have to admit that they will have to report a failed Islam Freeschool (a school found full of – shock- discrimination) and not a Catholic one to kick and ridicule, as they usually do. The BBC liberal vision of a secular partnership (with Islam) has failed again. The BBC states that this is the obvious fault of ‘Freeschools’, when in fact OfSted are obviously trying to to raise the UK’s already low based of state education from abysmal to average. The fact that the BBC cannot see failed management is far more revealing.
When I first saw the term, “muslim Free School” I thought, “At last! But aren’t the liberofascists going to get angry?”
muslim Free Europe I can only dream about.
Satire never goes out of fashion, and sadly its truth is enduring:
The bit missing from this clip is of course the truth that the education system in the UK exists not to serve the pupils, but rather the teachers (iirc, that statement is made either somewhere else in the episode, or in the book version).
In order to knock the free schools concept, the BBC has had to disingenuously report on the failure of a muslim school, as by and large most free schools are likely to be much better than the state-run alternatives. That point on its own tells one everything one needs to know about the state of our education system.
I think it was the same episode of Stephen Frys programme in which he interviewed the Russian minister that he also watched a video of suspected gay men being hung, and spoke to an Iranian forced to flee for his life. Or it could’ve been the 1st episode.
Tried to post this earlier, but looks like I was banned again.
I think it was the same episode of Stephen Frys programme in which he interviewed the Russian minister that he also watched a video of suspected gay men being hung, and spoke to an Iranian forced to flee for his life. Or it could’ve been the 1st episode.
Tried to post this earlier, but looks like I was banned again.
Another David Vance post that bears no relation to reality. You’ll find the Ofsted ratings for all free schools in the online article that was the headline. In terms of the school failing because it was Islamic, read the report first before you comment. You don’t even try anymore.
Headmaster,
I think you need to go and read the Ofsted ratings, you then need to run a simple analysis which will show you that Free Schools have a better rating than the average State school.
As for this specific school the issues surrounding it have been known for some time, unlike State run schools the problem has been resolved within a reasonable timeline.
Why is it that you have A) failed to accept that the Islamic attitude to how children should be treated (e.g. boys given preferential treatment to girls) and that ALL female staff must wear a Nijab caused much of the problems with this school?
B) why have you not provided evidence that shows that State Run schools are better run than Free Schools?, I know you cannot but I would like to hear your excuse.
C) Why are you trying to smear all Free Schools with the problems faced at one?, should we not also smear all State Run schools due to the problems highlighted by Ofsted at almost 500 of these State run schools?
Come along Headmaster share with us your supposed wisdom, and as someone who uses such a moniker it is your responsibility to provide the evidence to support your claim.
P.s. If you convert the Ofsted report figures into a database I suggest you try using VLookup understand the comparison values and then go and sit in a corner and accept that you should not accuse others when you yourself are the guilty party.
At this stage, with a tiny sample, there’s actually no difference between free and ‘non-free’ schools on quality that can be attributed to the differences in how they were opened and the autonomy they operate under. The way the government has used the statistics is to compare the % of frees getting good or outstanding when compared to non-frees inspected over the same time period. However, because schools with lower prior inspection ratings are sampled more quickly, then lower scoring schools are always over-sampled in any one time period. So if you compare *all* frees to a *sample* of non-frees, then you are going to find a % bias in favour of free schools.
If you look at what has happened over time in the US, (42 out of 50 states now have free-type schools, with some having had them for 20 years), what you see is that the quality tends to be quite varied to start with (so, some very good school and some very bad ones – a bit like what we are seeing in England now), and then they all tend towards a mean that looks almost exactly like the non-free school distribution of quality. In essence: in the end, free schools will be about as good as non-free schools.
On the upside, there is increasing evidence that the existence of the schools – when operated correctly through a fair and transparent system – helps edge the average quality of all schools in an upwards direction. So even though we may see spectacular failures, if they are dealt with well, then we can still see a good thing come from Free Schools overall.
Did the BBC get across these nuances well? Not really. But it’s quite hard when everyone wants to yell about their pet theory [“i hate free schools”, “i love free schools”]. Which is a shame.
You don’t even try anymore.
You’re implying Vance ever tried in the first place. I fear that trust is misplaced.
Scott,
have pointed you to the Official Government website where the information is clearly found which shows that Free Schools outperform their State run counterparts.
Yet strangely you find it impossible to discuss this instead you make your usual childish comments and even provide a link to an ex teachers / activists website???
There’s a very good blog post based in fact which Vance and his fact-free acolytes would do well to read. Of course, they’ll probably just read that the author has written for the Guardian and ignore it, because it’s easier than admitting that Vance is wading into yet another subject he knows nothing about (I know, right? Who’d have thought the failed egotistical politician would expose his own inadequacies on yet another topic? Surely he’s running out?)
http://lauramcinerney.com/2013/10/16/5-lessons-from-derby-the-significance-of-al-madinah-free-school/
Yes, the failures of this school are shocking and atrocious. But the free school system makes it far easier for them to have happened in the first place, and far harder to do much about it.
Perhaps Vance ought to do his research before shooting his mouth off. Then again, why change the habit of a lifetime now?
Scott,
Your post is pathetic. All you have done is attack someone you seem to have ideological issues with. If that is the best you can do why do you even bother posting on this site?
I can only think that you have some unresolved personal issues which forces you to post idiotic comments hoping that someone might find you “interesting”.
So you’re not going to debate the points, you’re just going to make personal attacks?
How wonderful for you. If you feel a little better about yourself for doing so, I suppose there’s at least some small benefit from your attempt at being a patronising git.
Scott,
What should I be debating?, the merit of your personal attack on the owner of this blog or your attack on anyone who reads this blog?.
I think you should go away and consider who is a “patronising git” and also how pathetic an individual must be too keep using such school yard level insults to try and make a point which constantly backfires and makes them look so, so stupid.
Scott,
I have come across the website you link, and of course what you fail to mention is that the blogger is herself a dyed in the wool Labour supporter who like all good Labour supporters went to Oxbridge and has spent the majority of her spare-time writing for the Guardian and New Statesman.
Anyway unlike Scott and his “friend” the HeadMaster I can at least back up my claims, here is a link to a site that will provide you with access to official Ofsted reports.. If you haven’t seen it yet, there is a new website http://www.watchsted.com/
I’m not entirely sure why my going to Oxford has anything to do with my arguments about Free Schools. If it does, however, then I would suggest that my having gone to a failing comprehensive (now closed), an FE college for A-Levels (also now closed), and studied at Open University might help balance it out. But I can’t for the life of me see what it has to do with whether or not the government has adequately implemented the free school system.
As for “dyed in the wool Labour supporter”, it is no secret that I have faced constant grief for trying to help free schools. I never agreed with Labour’s stance of wanting to close them, I have helped people in Gove’s team to try and make this policy better. As a teacher, all I care about is whether or not the schools work for the students in them, and I will criticise either side – red or blue – when they get it wrong.
‘Of course, they’ll probably just read that the author has written for the Guardian and ignore it’.
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Yep, Scott has got me sussed alright 🙂
I won’t be providing evidence for those points as.I didnt make them. Now, go stand in the corner.
Headmaster,
You explicitly mentioned the Ofsted report, so actually you do need to provide the evidence to support your claims.
So once again I suggest that you go and stand in the corner and reread your comments before trying to airbrush your claims out of existence.