Tory propaganda: celebrating free school's 'achievements' before it opens...

Anyone who doubted that free schools are a Conservative political project should be convinced by the public relations offensive launched by prominent Conservative politicians.

The latest was a reception in the House of Lords hosted by Schools minister Lord Nash for free schools due to open in September. The Kilburn Times LINK reported:

It is yet to open but the achievements of a new free school in Kilburn has been celebrated in the House of Lords.

What a fantastic new concept - celebrating achievements before they happen! Parents of as yet unborn children can throw parties to celebrate their child's first steps and football clubs can tour their cities on open top buses to celebrate their league achievements before the season opens.

Of course we have been here before with the Michaela Academy free school declaring itself  'Exceptional' on a massive, illegal billboard outside its Wembley Park building before most staff had been appointed, children recruited or any lesson had taken place.

This was followed up by Boris Johnson, a few months after the school had opened, declaring on a visit in his usual understated way that 'this is one of the most extraordinary schools I've seen' comparing it to Eton and hailing Michael Gove's darling Katharine Birbalsingh as a “powerful and visionary head teacher”.

On Twitter @Mapesbury commented:

Surely that Gladstone free school deserves a celebration more for having 120 pupils but no school! That's a mean feat.

By the way, Gladstone is also 'Exceptional' before it opens or teaches anyone and Kilburn Grange Free School still has vacant places for its reception class in September.

Now I'm off to organise a celebration of the Green Party's 2020 General Election victory hosted by Baroness Jones in the House of Lords to take place in September.

Roke parents get DfE and Harris 'flustered' on forced academies as they take legal action

The Save Roke parent group, along with school governor, Malcolm Farquharson have instructed a lawyer specialising in academy law to prepare a legal challenge to the plans of Michael Gove to hand their primary school over to a private academy.

The group started fund raising on Tuesday and they received their target amount within 24 hours.

Roke campaigners believe that they may have a case in law to challenge the Secretary of State’s actions, which they believe have gone beyond his powers by referring the state primary school in Kenley to the
Harris Federation when the school is not a “failing” school and also on issues surrounding the legality of the consultation process.

Roke parents joined forced with parents from other protesting schools yesterday and issued a statement  in which they announced a new campaign organisation 'Parents Against Forced Academisation'. They called for an immediate public enquiry into bullying behaviour and fake consultations endemic in forced academisation of schools.

Yesterday evening, Roke parents received the first of several what they termed 'sham consultation' meetings run by the preferred academy sponsor the Harris Federation at the school. Parents received no representation from any other party and Lord Nash has already declared the decision irreversible.

The campaigners said:

After we announced our plans for legal action on our facebook group and the Save Roke website, and after the DfE received had complaints from Roke parents about the legality of the consultation process and the fact that parents had not even been asked if they wanted to become an academy on the official consultation questionnaire, the DfE and Harris last night moved pre-emptively, and issued a new consultation questionnaire with the question added. This suggests that the initial consultation document was not indeed not legal, and that we had got them flustered enough to move very quickly to close this legal loophole. This demonstrates that legal process has not been followed with due diligence by the DfE or Harris.