The Independent Education News

There was one voice missing in the debate earlier this month over when children should start reading Dickens – that of the children themselves.

In the sports hall of a north London comprehensive, Deji Davies, sharp-looking in his banker's suit, is standing in front of an audience of 11- and 12-year-olds explaining what he does for a living. "I work as a trader. In trading you buy and sell things, and what I buy and sell is company debt." But he is also standing in the forefront of a potential revolution in how state schools can tap into their alumni – and grow stronger and prouder as a result.

Whisper it not but I think I have found a role for those 5,000 head teachers that the new Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, says are not up to scratch.

I always like to see a touch of optimism in the face of what is perceived to be adversity.

Once you've drawn up a shortlist of the possible schools for your child, the next hurdle to clear is securing a place. While there are never any guarantees of success, it is possible to prepare yourself and your child for the impending application process.

It seems the trend of headteachers likening themselves to famous American cowboys is continuing.

Even though the Government is doing some tinkering with the relationship between state and independent education – in particular, allowing free schools to be run by private groups and funded by the government – the landscape has not yet experienced any seismic changes, and doesn't seem likely to in the near future. There are, after all only around 100 free schools open or due to open this year, set against well over 20,000 state-controlled ones, and the proportion of children involved in this reform remains tiny.

Okay, folks, prepare yourself for the all singing and dancing new government exam league tables! The secondary school performance tables, to give them their proper name, have been given a makeover by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Four years ago it was the fourth-worst performing school in the country. Only six out of every hundred pupils obtained five A* to C grade passes at GCSE, including maths and English. Now its pupils are brimming with a new sense of confidence – spending three years instead of two on their GCSE studies, starting them at the age of 13.

I knew when I quoted Chris Keates saying last year's teachers' union ballot on pensions proved her union was the biggest in the land, that would not be an end of the matter.

All the headlines on 30 November last year were about how the one-day public service strike over pensions was closing the majority of the country's schools. However, a potentially more significant dispute in education started the following day, when members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teacher s (Nasuwt) started a national work-to-contract over conditions in schools.

A word in your ear, Education Secretary Michael Gove. You might like to get your speech-writer to check whether his or her spellchecker is functioning properly.

When David Cole and Louise McKillop travelled to the Thai border and visited schools set up for the children of Burmese refugees, they were not entirely sure what they would encounter. They had read about the cramped conditions and lack of resources, but what they could not prepare themselves for was the emotional impact. As McKillop later explained, they rapidly found themselves becoming attached to the children and the schools.

It was some time after the opening of her new school that headteacher Jane Sculpher was being confronted by a journalist."I don't get it," he said. "All I can see here is a rather good primary school." He was obviously expecting something radical to leap out from the classrooms when he visited one of Education Secretary Michael Gove's first tranche of free schools.

A new word appears to have entered the world of education jargon – webalogue.

Not many head teachers celebrate a new job by picking up a paintbrush and giving their school a makeover. That, however, was what Sue Mortimer did before she even took up her post as head of Rose Hill primary school in Oxford.

If you went to a school where 45 per cent of the pupils do not speak English as a first language at home; where 50 pupils a year enter Year 7 without speaking any English at all; whose student body speaks up to 70 different language and where pupils come from pretty much any war zone that you read about in i – from Aghanistan to Somalia – you might have a different view of the news from people who did not come from one of the poorest areas of London.

If you went to a school where 45 per cent of the pupils do not speak English as a first language at home; where 50 pupils a year enter Year 7 without speaking any English at all; whose student body speaks up to 70 different language and where pupils come from pretty much any war zone that you read about in i – from Aghanistan to Somalia – you might have a different view of the news from people who did not come from one of the poorest areas of London.

To the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust conference in Birmingham, where headteachers were told that they should not take the Government's education reforms too seriously. The exhortation came from Sir Ken Robinson, the international expert on promoting creativity in education, who said that if they wait for government reforms to raise standards, many of their pupils will miss out because they will have left school.

Stephen Twigg is bubblingly enthusiastic over a school visit he has paid early that morning. It was to a girls' school in Tower Hamlets, east London – one of Britain's most disadvantaged boroughs, where the largely Bengali intake has achieved far higher-than-average GCSE results. A total of 78 per cent of pupils at Mulberry girls' school obtained five A* to C grades at GCSE, including maths and English, and 80 per cent of the pupils are going on to university.

Finding four maths teachers in the same classroom cannot be a common occurrence in today's education climate. After all, maths is a "shortage subject" and many pupils in state secondary schools have to do without a specialist in the subject to take their lessons. They would give their eye-teeth for just one for a class, let alone four.

Our education leaders do choose some surprising role models these days. First it was the new chief schools inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, likening his role as a headteacher to that of Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry and the Man With No Name" films.

It is with a heavy heart, disappointment and determination that I will be striking on Wednesday. Disappointment, because I recognise the disruption this will cause. After a career spanning 34 years as a teacher and 21 as a Barnsley head, dedicated to improving the life chances of all children, to turn them away even for a day does not sit comfortably. It hurts.

To the Royal Opera House, for its launch of its education programme for the year ahead. A dominant theme was what its director of education, Paul Reeve, describes as the "unintended consequences" of government policies, which are likely to put the squeeze on things like ballet and opera. For instance, a survey of schools has shown that 57 out of the 95 who replied were planning a cut in music provision during the next 12 months.

The education awards season and the celebrations that go with it are still in full swing. (Memo to teaching staff: better make the most of it this year because the cuts could be about to bite.)