SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
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An end to the academy school gravy train?
As the government moves to rein in academy freedoms, former darling of conservative education reform Katharine Birbalsingh cries ‘Marxism.’ Education columnist ROBERT POOLE examines how academisation has failed our children while enriching executives and empowering ideologues at the expense of democratic accountability
CONSERVATIVE POSTER CHILD: School head Katharine Birbalsingh
RUBY ALDEN GIBSON believes Scottish parliament has enough powers to curtail Westminster Labour’s savage attack on welfare
KEVIN DONNELLY reports from Monte Faudo and its annual remembrance of the region’s WWII partisan anti-fascist battles
The Trump government is seizing overseas students from their homes and campuses and even off the streets, with no legal grounds and no due process, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
As global fascism grows, ROGER McKENZIE urges the left to reclaim May Day’s revolutionary roots — not as an act of nostalgia, but as fuel for building a ‘community of resistance’ against exploitation and the rise of fascism
Our unions need to make a firm stand against so-called ‘defence spending’: the boss class say there’s no magic money tree — and there should be no magic mushroom cloud either, argues NATHAN HENNEBRY
KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations
THERE is perhaps no more controversial figure in education than Katharine Birbalsingh, the head teacher of Michaela Free School in Wembley Park. Birbalsingh was the darling of the Gove-led Conservative education team and once boasted of having a framed letter from him on her office wall. So revered by Conservatives was she that she was invited to speak at Conservative Party conferences and was even appointed chair of the Social Mobility Commission.
Birbalsingh was the poster child for conservative education reform. Although she describes herself as a “small-C conservative,” her pedagogy is deeply connected with the Conservative Party. Her school, while an excellent exam factory that produces impressive results, is run like a military boot camp. Children sit in silence, walk down corridors in silence and sing God Save the King.
The question here is, first, do the ends justify the means? Second, who decides that the end result is what we really want anyway? Pupils excel in public exams based around a narrow curriculum focused on recalling knowledge, but is this the only metric that matters?
More from this author
The NEU’s annual conference promises heated debate, with motions on international politics, curriculum reform and union amalgamation likely to provoke strong reactions and challenge the status quo, writes Education for Tomorrow editor ROBERT POOLE
The series unveils uncomfortable truths about youth alienation and online radicalisation — but the real crisis lies in austerity and the absence of class consciousness in addressing young people’s disillusionment, says teacher ROBERT POOLE
From colonialism to the Troubles, the story of England’s first colony is one of exploitation, resistance, and solidarity — and one we should fight to ensure is told, writes teacher ROBERT POOLE
ROBERT POOLE reports back from his mission to Cuba delivering aid and learning from Cuban educators
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NEU conference urges Labour to fix school funding crisis by getting rid of academy bosses earning over £500,000
The teaching watchdog was declared 'not fit for purpose' in 2007. The time has come to abolish it once and for all, writes BERNIE EVANS
