As the dust began to settle following GCSE result day 2016 and we looked forward to a bank holiday weekend, the Department for Education (DfE) published a judgement by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) regarding the non-compliant admissions policy of our local free school, Becket Keys. While the ruling was made on the […] Continue reading
There has been much celebration in the local press this week about the newly published Ofsted report of one of our local secondary schools, Brentwood County High School (BCHS). The school has received an across the board “Good” rating having been judged as “Satisfactory” since 2001. Much of the coverage centres on the acknowledgement within […] Continue reading
I have lost count of the amount of times that I have written about my concerns regarding the rapid increase in privately run chains running schools in the state system. I wrote about it throughout the period leading up to the opening of Becket Keys Free School and I wrote about it most recently in […] Continue reading
I am well aware that I keep an unusually close eye on education news for a non-professional. This has caused me on occasion to consider that I may be exaggerating the effects of the breakneck change that we have seen nationally, and locally, in the last couple of years. As little concern seems to be […] Continue reading
I read a letter by a previous correspondent of ours in the Brentwood Gazette with interest this week. Justine Burrows was responding to a recent article on the first term of Becket Keys Free School. I was not surprised to read about her concern regarding claims made within the piece that she felt were unprovable […] Continue reading
Just as the dust appeared to be settling on an extraordinary year or so in education in Brentwood, we receive news that there may be more change in the offing. The following article appeared on the “This is Total Essex” website on Tuesday, too late to make it into the week’s papers but none the […] Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago, in common with all parents of Brownies in the “Essex West” region, we were sent an e-mail on behalf of Girlguiding UK by Dr Rosemary Spencer the Chief Commissioner of Girlguiding Anglia. To our surprise it was about a school’s admissions policy in a neighbouring town. The clear message of […] Continue reading
We are now well into this year’s round of open events in Brentwood’s schools and I have been fascinated to see how each of the secondary schools that serve the five parishes of the town has set about attracting students for next year. It has underlined to me how important it is to visit schools […] Continue reading
