WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
The two big news-worthy events this week as far as I’m concerned have been the two E’s - the Education Bill and, of course, EduPress! 
First things first, of course, so lets look at the proposed changes which were promised to ’shake up’ the education system. As I said in the microblog when I first reported the main points of the Bill, the majority of it smacks of propaganda and lip-service. For those who missed these main points, here they are again:
- Collaboration and partnership: Schools will have the opportunity to acquire a trust. Trust schools will build on the experience of specialist schools and academies in harnessing the experience and energy of community and business partners.
- Curriculum entitlements: The bill will enable every young person aged 14-19 to access any of the 14 new specialised diplomas.
- Better discipline: School staff’s powers to tackle disruptive behaviour and impose order in classrooms and discipline in pupils will be set down in primary legislation. Powers on confiscation, detention, using force and tackling unacceptable behaviour on the way to and from school will be set.
- A powerful strategic role for local authorities: Local authorities will become strategic commissioners which will champion the needs of parents and pupils and drive up standards.
- Fewer failing schools: Inadequate schools will be put on one year’s notice to improve. If progress is not made within a year, they will enter special measures.
- No return to selection by ability: Interviewing parents of prospective pupils will be outlawed and schools will have to act in accordance with a much tougher admissions code. Every school will sit on local admission forums.
- Parental choice, rights and voice: Parents will be able to ask for new schools to be set up to reflect local need and demand. Local authorities will be duty bound to consider them as part of their role to promote choice and diversity.
- Healthier school meals: New minimum food-based standards will be introduced in all schools by September, effectively banning low quality foods high in fat, salt and sugar.
If you still feel that you need to get up to speed, there’s a Q&A article at the Times and a very detailed section on the NUT website (these links via primary-teacher.co.uk). The New Statesmantar has a special issue about the Education Bill, although only one article per day can be read online… 
The Periscope quotes from one of the New Statesman articles saying that:
Alongside the National Health Service, the comprehensive school is the last surviving totem of the old Labour tribe. Public ownership, trade union power, state planning, free university education, high taxation of the rich - these and many more, once articles of faith, are now forgotten. But the NHS and the com- prehensives remain as enduring monuments to British social democracy, the one associated with Aneurin Bevan, the other with the scarcely less important figure, to a later generation, of Anthony Crosland. Take them away, and you may as well write off the first century of Labour history.
That’s a very interesting point, one that I hadn’t thought about, and which (as a History teacher) interests me! The trouble is that, with so much political to-ing and fro-ing, the so-called ‘reforms’ might end up doing more damage than good. I think the reform which worries me the most is the introduction of the diploma system. Whilst I think it’s a good idea per se, I have concerns about how, in practice, it will work. It all sounds very noble and Tomlinson Report-like, but given the way that the average 13/14 year-old chooses his or her options (i.e. by which teacher they like and what their mates are doing) I worry about the academic futures of some more able pupils. 
There are, of course, some positive points to the Bill - not least the increased powers of teachers regarding discipline. The sometimes farcical situation of a pupil being ‘untouchable’ once outside the school gates will be ended, with teachers given the powers of ‘confiscation, detention, using force and tackling unacceptable behaviour.’ I don’t like the idea of Saturday detentions, but their use will be set on a school-by-school basis, I should imagine.
The rest of the reforms - Jamie Oliver-style meals, the token nod to parents being able to ’set up their own schools’, the ambiguous statement that local authorities will have ‘powerful strategic roles’, etc. don’t really concern me. I think the two main points of this Bill are to do with discipline and diplomas (the two D’s!)
Related links:
And in other news… some of you may have noticed that I was rather pleased yesterday to announce the launch of EduPress. This is a Wordpress-powered blogging/website creation solution for teachers which comes with a whole host of ‘plugins’ (giving it extra functionality) and step-by-step guides.
I’d noticed, especially on the Schoolhistory Forumt, that many teachers were interested in having their own blog/website but didn’t really know how to set one up. Yes, could set up a free blog using Blogger, etc. but webspace is needed to host things like podcasts, homework files, etc. Whilst I’ve tried to make EduPress as simple as possible, it does have a shallow ‘learning curve’. I don’t see this as a bad thing, as I want to encourage educators to improve their ICT skills and to become more confident with technology through (supported) interaction with it. 
Andrew Field suggested in this thread on the Schoolhistory Forum that teachers having to set up their own hosting renders EduPress a ‘convenience rather than [a] revolutionary move’. That’s fair enough, and I take his point on board, and I may offer hosting depending on the interest in EduPress but I come back to my point above: yes, teachers are busy and perhaps loathe to learn new ‘tricks’, but transferring a few files and clicking a few buttons to set up what, if used extensively and properly, could revolutionize the teacher-learner dynamic in your department isn’t too much to ask. As he also points out, edublogs.org already provides free Wordpress-powered blogs for teachers. With this service, you get 25MB of web space - enough, perhaps for a few documents, etc. and certainly worthwhile if you’re thinking of keeping it small. What I hope to offer through EduPress, however, is a way of installing your own blog/website in your own webspace - whether as part of your institutions domain or in your own, independent, one!
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