His autobiography was titled Big Cyril, and he was a larger-than-life politician in more ways than one. Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister led tributes to Sir Cyril Smith, who died in his sleep aged 82.Gove's schools revolution begins with a whimper
September 3rd, 2010 by Elizabeth
A mixture of teaching union pressure, legal hitches and a lack of interest from schools marred the first day of the Government's blitz to boost the academies programme yesterday.
Only 32 schools will transfer to academy status on the first day of term, despite a claim by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, to MPs earlier in the summer that 1,100 were waiting to take advantage of the Government's offer. However, a further 110 have been given the go-ahead to transfer from local authority control later on in the school year.
The low initial figure prompted teachers' leaders – who wrote to every school in the country advising them to think twice before switching – to claim that the policy had "simply not caught the imagination of school leaders".
Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "For a policy that was supposed to be a flagship change for education, it is something of a failure to have so few schools opening at this stage. The Government has been given a clear message: the break-up of the state education system in England is not wanted."
The Government, however, insisted that the 142 schools set to transfer in the next year represented "the first wave of converters in a rolling process that allows schools to convert at any stage".
Mr Gove would have expected opposition from teachers' unions to his proposals, but in the run-up to legislation paving the way for what he termed a "rocket boost" to the academies programme, there was also opposition from the Catholic Church and the National Grammar Schools Association.
The Church was worried about the transfer of land from dioceses to the newly set-up academies, while grammar school heads have been concerned that academy status might make it easier for schools to halt their selection process.
One headteacher opposed to the move, David Hudson of Wickersley school in Rotherham, said: "If we were to become an academy, it would in essence take money and resources from all the other Rotherham schools and schools across the nation and simply give it to us.
"I am head of an outstanding, high-performing school. I'm already doing very nicely, thank you very much, so why give me extra money at the expense of other schools that need it?"
In the end, the emergency legislation – allowing primary schools to become academies for the first time, plus all schools rated as "outstanding" by the education standards watchdog Ofsted – only passed through the Commons within days of the end of the summer term.
Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "We don't think it is an unduly low figure. If it had been any higher we would have been concerned. We've advised our members to plan carefully before seeking academy status and they're obviously doing this."
However, Labour's education spokesman Ed Balls claimed yesterday's announcement was "a further embarrassment for Michael Gove". He added: "After claiming over 1,000 schools had applied to become academies and railroading his emergency legislation through Parliament, it now turns out only a tiny fraction of that number are opening for the start of the new term."
drive from www.independent.co.uk
An emergency cancer fund planned by the Government to increase access to expensive life-prolonging treatments for patients is in danger of being overwhelmed unless drug manufacturers cut their prices, a report says today.
Kevin Pietersen has been dropped from England's NatWest International Twenty20 and NatWest Series squads to face Pakistan, and will instead play for Surrey on loan for the remainder of the season.
Steelworkers were celebrating tonight after news that a huge plant mothballed earlier this year with the loss of more than 1,000 jobs is to be sold under a multimillion-pound deal to a Thai company.
When Samuel Pepys came across a captivated crowd watching the street performance of an anarchic little puppet called Punchinello and his beleaguered wife Joan, the diarist chronicled the event in his diary, dated 9 May 1662. Over the years, the marionette morphed into a hand-puppet, Punch, and his wife into Judy, and together the outrageous, squawking couple provided street entertainment for over three centuries. Now, a paper archive has emerged that reveals how the Punch and Judy phenomenon grew and waned in popularity, with remarkable Victorian photographs, rare books, scripts, drawings and newspaper cuttings, which have never before been seen by the public. The archive of about 200 items has been acquired by the nation and will be kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was painstakingly collated by the eminent late historian George Speaight, and experts say it provides a significant record that traces the development of Punch and Judy's performances as marionettes in the Restoration era, to their 18th-century reinvention as glove puppets in fairground booths and on London streets and as children's seaside entertainment in the 20th century. The material includes the earliest known Victorian bioscope photography of a Punch and Judy show and coloured prints from the 1790s. The collection was recently accepted by the Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the V&A's Theatre and Performance collection. Catherine Haill, the museum's curator of popular entertainment, said Punch and Judy were born out of the flamboyant Italian tradition of Comedia dell'arte of the mid-16th century, and provided dark entertainment that gripped the imagination of viewers of all ages. Crowds of adults watching shows in Covent Garden and Bartholomew Fair in London would laugh and tut at Punch, a thoroughly reprehensible character who is known for hitting his wife and his baby over the head with a stick. The public slipped coins into a bottle at the end of each street show to show their appreciation. "This was entertainment for adults and children. It was basically knock-about comedy and Punch certainly got his comeuppence, when he had the constable, the devil and the hangman come for him. He didn't get away scot-free; he was a real villain and he was hanged for it," she said. The performances included a repertoire of stories, some of which had biblical themes; one 18th-century tale featured Joan caught up in Noah's floods.
When Gilles Goujon met his wife-to-be at the age of 18, he gave her a warning. "I want three Michelin stars. Cooking is an overflowing passion and this is my holy grail." Thirty years on he has achieved his ambition.
A judge has overturned a decision by Barack Obama to relax rules on funding US government research using human embryonic stem cells which promises to revolutionise medical science in the 21st Century.