By and large, I have kept this blog pretty local - I have occasionally touched on wider Kent issues, including aspects of my work in education, health and (earlier) broadband, but the main focus has remained on Darent Valley matters.
This morning I'll make a bit of an exception, though. The government's plans in a recently published White Paper to require every school in the country to become an academy by 2020-22 have stirred a lot of concern and opposition. As widely reported in the media - including the Daily Mail, the BBC and the Guardian - that opposition has included many Conservatives, especially those in local government. In my role as Cabinet Member for Education at KCC, I was one of those who expressed concern.
The result was that I had a rather busier than expected Easter weekend, with two national TV interviews, and I was then invited by the website Conservative Home to set out my thoughts on why the government's plans are flawed.
You can find the article here. As you will see, I am far from hostile to academies, and the thinking behind many of the academy freedoms. But I do object to compulsion and the imposition of a uniform model on schools. There are also big questions - currently unanswered - as to how the capacity for a large number of Multi-Academy Trusts, able and willing to take the huge number of (chiefly) primary schools across the country who have not yet shown any wish to convert to academy status, will be brought into being. In Darent Valley, we have seven primary schools, none of which is currently an academy - and all of which would be required to convert under these plans, whatever their wishes.
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