The School Organisation Review report will be published on the Council’s website on Wednesday November 4th when the officers will almost certainly recommend a change to 2-tier. The Mayor and the Executive will then meet on Wednesday November 11th and, should they refer the decision to Full Council, the vote will be taken on Monday November 16th at the Corn Exchange. If this is the case, and when the venue and time is confirmed, we will publish that here and would encourage you to attend – democracy in action and all that.
We believe that we have made a rational case for an evolution of our three tier system which does not risk the education of a generation of children or the financial stability of Bedford Borough.
If you want to help get that message across to councillors, please contact them by email or phone and let them know that you support us.
Save Middle Schools - The Blog 
I see that the Head of an Upper School has sunk so low as to ask people to support the move to 2-tier based on “Keep Frank’s memory alive”. So short of evidence but the education elite is as determined as ever to force their self interest on Bedford Borough.
JamesD, since this Head of an Upper School promoted his own petition and used Frank’s memory in the BOS, his number of signatures has gone up from 151 to 160. I suppose the elite would say this is a massive increase of 9. Maybe this head could ask Martin Fletcher of Hastingbury for ideas to improve his figures! ED
So Hastingsbury’s online poll showed 2/3 in favour of retaining 3-tier. SMS had 9,000+ signatures in support of 3-tier, the petition to No10 has 1,129 signatures in support of retaining 3-tier. Mr Berrill’s counter petition has the massive support of 160 signatures! (But he did achieve a massive 6% increase by appealing to the late Mayor’s memory). In the Mayoral election first round 60% voted for candidates supporting 3-tier and the only candidate un-equivocally supporting 2-tier came next to last.
Without a referendum on this matter it looks fairly convincing that the people of Bedford want to keep our 3-tier system. We have a General Election in 6 months and a Local Election in 18 months – what will our Councillors decide in the next 2 weeks? Will their decision be based on evidence or just the belief trotted out by the self interested education elite? (Stealing JamesD’s words) Or will they be just looking to the very short time before they have to stand before the public and justify their actions?
Agenda
Standards Committee
Thursday, 5th November, 2009 6.30 pm
Attendee Role Attendance
Mr Christopher Ensor Chair Expected
Reverend Graham Miles Vice-Chair Expected
Councillor Apu Bagchi Committee Member Expected
Councillor Nick Charsley Committee Member Expected
CouncillorJudith CunninghamCommittee Member Expected
Councillor Carole Ellis Committee Member Expected
Mr David Hebblethwaite Committee Member Expected
Parish CouncillorAnnLovesey Committee Member Expected
Councillor Sue Oliver Committee Member Expected
Parish Councillor PaulQuirk CommitteeMember Expected
Item
12. Requests for a Dispensation by Members of the Borough Council
Is this what it is rumoured to be – a dispensation so that those Councillors who are school governors may vote on the School Reorganisation Proposal? What about those that do not have children in Bedford’s maintained schools?
The lawyers may have great fun and earnings from this!
Did I get the information correctly – at the Council briefing Professor Jacques and Mike Berrill were still ignoring DCSF, OfSTED and Ministerial evidence that there is no difference in attainment between those LA that have 2-tier and those that have 3-tier.
Formal analysis of a problem should start by investigating the differences that may be causing the problem and then identifying which are the most significant (termed the driving conditions). The other way is to start from a “belief” that you know the answer and then only search for opinion and cherry pick any evidence or research to only back your “belief”. This is called spin or propaganda not analysis.
I am not surprised that Mr Berrill continues to ignore evidence over faith and opinion, which was his line when he gave a presentation to parents. I am shocked at the Professor’s approach, not just to ignore nationally and officially gathered evidence but also the myriad of peer reviewed and published academic research that supports the retention of 3-tier schooling. A key finding from the latest Cambridge University study on primary education was the “retention of middle schools and small country primary schools”.
Professor Jacques is said to have quoted research that showed that the optimum size for a school was 1500 pupils; she did not reference or date that opinion. The latest research on optimum school size, as far as I am aware, was based on US studies in Boston and New York this gave the maximum size as 400 to 500 pupils for an individual school. This has already been adopted in the UK by Bristol where they are building 500 pupil schools with shared major facilities.
This should be a rational, evidence based decision about our children’s and grandchildren’s future not about ego and belief.
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