On the release of the Education Committee's report on Regional Schools Commissioners, Su Turner, Director of Children and Young People at the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny said: "The drive for academies and free schools has not been accompanied by sufficient consideration of how schools should be scrutinised leading to an accountability deficit. At best this means schools are unclear about who they are ultimately answerable to at worst it is going to endanger school improvement plans and impact student outcomes. Parents are going to be confused about which bodies they need to approach should they want to complain about performance, ...
Schools are at the heart of our communities yet the distance between the head teacher’s office and the town hall seems further apart than ever. How well do ward councillors really know the schools in their patch? I have been asking this question over the last eighteen months and more often than not the answer is ‘not well enough’.The immediate response might well be, “why should they?” I would argue now is a crucial time for councillors to understand and get to know their local schools better. With the government’s ambition to turn all grant maintained schools in ...