Comprehensive Future is a member of the Reclaiming Education Consortium. We are pleased to announce that the consortium is holding two Zoom Conferences in March discussing, ‘Who Controls Our Schools?’
Who Controls our schools?
 
State-funded schools in the United Kingdom, apart from in England, are accountable to Local Authorities. The picture in England is very different. 78% of secondaries and 37% of primaries are now academies or free schools with around half of these belonging to Multi-Academy Trusts. The government wants even more schools to join MATs. These trusts are directly accountable to the DFE through Regional Schools Commissioners bypassing local authorities altogether. Who controls these schools and how have academy bosses extended their influence in the system? What impact are they having on the content and quality of English education? How do MATs spend the vast resources they receive? Is the attempt by the Tories to create an education market working? Why is the school system in England so different from other high performing jurisdictions? This event, the first of two, explores the current mess and addresses these issues.
This first Conference, ‘ The Current Mess’, will take place at 7.30pm on 16 March.
The Speakers are:
  • Meg Hillier, MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee
  • Warwick Mansell, Education Journalist, author of Education Uncovered
  • Louise Regan, NEU Equalities Officer
  • Melanie Griffiths, SEA NEC co-ordinator
The conference will be Chaired by John Edmonds of Comprehensive Future.
The link for registration is:
Who controls our schools? – The current mess
The second event will take place on 30 March at 7.30pm and will consider possible remedies, with speakers for this second event to be announced shortly. The link for registration for this second event is:
Who controls our schools? – The Remedies
We do hope you will register and enjoy these Reclaiming Education conferences.