The Flaws in the Free Schools Plan

‘I have been excited and flattered by the extent of interest and enthusiasm’ said Michael Gove talking about his new free schools plan, where members of the public have the power to start their own schools. He went onto say that the number of free schools being set up at the start of the next academic year was ‘well in excess of my hopes’. 16 free schools are being set up over the next year. 16. Mr Gove, with respect, there’s been about as much ‘interest and enthusiasm’ as you’d get from a middle aged man from Newcastle seeing an advert for the release of High School Musical 4. Instead of spending the last 4 months twiddling his thumbs waiting for a morsel of interest in his ‘flagship’ free schools programme why didn’t Mr Gove actually do his job and improve the education of our children rather than push through this ridiculous idea of some bloke down the road opening up his own school. Moreover these schools will pop up in affluent areas, run by a couple of pushy parents with too much time on their hands and will result in money being drained from normal schools by this ideologically driven nonsense. But the worst bit is that no one really cares. Well 16 people do.


This whole free schools business is a lot like David Cameron’s ‘big society’ it’s a lovely little idea, people skipping around, opening up youth centres for gangs, hostels for the homeless and perhaps a library or two; all of course, out of the goodness of their hearts with not a dime for their troubles. Now of course, it would be wonderful if all this were to happen, but is this in anyway realistic? Popping down to do some free work at the local post office. I may sound cynical or lazy, but the fact is this, people don’t work for free, and only a small minority have the time or the willpower to spend hours sorting post for nothing other than self-satisfaction. I have huge respect for those who do, and the rest of us should learn from them, but I highly doubt the ‘big society’ will the phenomenon of the decade that Dave is hoping it will be. I think this is best summed up in the words of Tim Canterbury from ‘The Office’:

‘It's a title someone's given you to get you to do something they don't want to do for free - it's like making the div kid at school milk monitor’

The Mystery of the Front Line Service

Now this is a tricky one. Obviously throughout the centuries the English language has changed greatly, meanings and spellings of words have changed a good deal. However I, as I’m sure you have, have noted a more rapid change to the term 'front line service’. This term first came to our attention in the build up to the general election if you remember back that far. All three leaders promised that there would be no cuts to front line services and only efficiency savings. I do not question the trustworthiness of the politicians of course, but am provoking the debate into the reason behind the rapid definition change of this term. At the general election the accepted definition for a front line service seemed to be a policeman or a teacher or the nice people who make soup in hospitals but after plans emerged to cut back on staff in these fields we were politely informed that these were, in fact, not frontline services. Hmm. I guess I then assumed that school buildings would be on the front line? I then felt very embarrassed when the 'Building schools for the future' project was axed which basically makes sure school walls and other school related debris doesn't fall on pupils. I felt this was pretty front line; however I had been corrected again and told by Education Michael Gove that it was most definitely not front line because it was 'wasteful'....whatever that means. I had a deep think and then thought that imprisoning criminals must have been kinda near the front? I was left red faced when Ken Clarke outlined his master plan to 'take action and shut off this revolving door of crime and reoffending' which involved, er......putting less criminals in prison...wow. Number 10 insisted, that this was, of course, not a front line service. So now I am very confused indeed...