"Education breaks down barriers that holds young people back" Bishop of Newcastle spot on

Could not agree more with the Bishop of Newcastle who has said today:
"Education is the only means to break down some of the barriers that hold young people back. To build an aspirational culture that values, encourages and equips every child it has to permeate all that we do, so that we can overcome the disadvantage in which our children find themselves and enable each of them to be the best that they can possibly be."
Full story here:
http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/bishop-newcastle-must-solve-education-6848362

Educational improvements are the key to aspiration. I go regularly to the Excelsior Academy in west Newcastle, which is an inspiration to many.
Really welcome news about the rail academy in Newcastle today as well.

Labour would bar experts from teaching - if not qualified

What do Stephen Hawking [science], Lord Sugar [business], Jessica Ennis [PE / Fitness], David Miliband [Politics / History], have in common? None are qualified teachers - yet all have provided some form of teaching - why? Because they are experts. Under Labours bizarre education proposals only qualified teachers would be allowed to teach in school. Forget if you have 25 years life experience in the army, or a specialist profession like Alan Sugar, or politics - Miliband. Such people would be banned. This is madness. And it is proposed by the one man who should understand that some teachers are brilliant, even if they are untrained - Tristam Hunt. He is himself a historian, and unqualified. As to Free schools Hunt’s thinking on Free Schools started with a “vanity project for yummy mummies” then became a desire to want to “put rocket boosters under them” to the current “dangerous ideological experiment” only just short of child abuse. To say that the son of Lord Hunt was roasted in the Commons on Wednesday was an understatement.

At the school I visited last week I forgot to ask if every teacher was qualified. But as the numbers of these went up under Labour I better ask my upper school heads when I see them next. The honest truth is that I am interested in the quality of the teacher, not their qualification. The labour policy is still unclear on what happens to the poor unqualified but brilliant teachers that do exist in our schools up and down the country.     

UPDATE: I have received plenty of feedback on this, mostlyt very positive, and one criticism that this blogpost was an attack on teachers - it could not be further from the truth. I value the QTS but I do not think its absence should bar a good teacher from teaching, even if they do not have it. Surely that is a matter for the headmaster and the governors?

Further: on the issue of the status of unqualified teachers: Hunt states that every teacher in a state school must have QTS or ‘be working towards’ QTS. Would he sack outstanding teachers who refused?
What does ‘working towards getting QTS’ mean? Could a teacher claim to be ‘working towards’ it for more than a year, three years etc.
Obviously this plan would stop academies and free schools having the existing freedom to hire any teacher for their children, regardless of whether they have a QTS.
Hunt told the Mail on Sunday, ‘we are not going to go back to the old days of the local authority running all the schools’. I would again question whether he will try and ensure local authorities get the power to interfere in academies and free schools.
But my point remains. We should value all teachers. I do not see the absence of a QTS as being a bar to a great teacher continuing to teach. Again this shgould be up to the headmaster, governors and parents.

Free Schools: Laws and Browne are right - Clegg is wrong

I am amazed at Nick Clegg's about turn on free schools. He has supported them wholeheartedly before the 2010 election and ever since. Now he is undermining them. He is manifestly wrong. David Laws and Jeremy Browne have made it clear they disagree with their boss.
Last week I was in the chamber to support David Laws, the Liberal MP and the Schools Minister. I like David, and he certainly impressed our teachers when he visited Hexham QEHS this summer.

The background to the Q and A was the problem with one free school in Derby, over which the government is rightly taking action. Our exchange went like this:

Guy Opperman (Hexham, Conservative)
I welcome the action taken in respect of this school and the fact that the majority of the 170 free schools are outperforming local authority schools. Does the Minister agree that one bad apple does not spoil the barrel, and has he learned anything about Labour’s policy on free schools?
Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 17 October 2013, c895)

David Laws (Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is interesting that the shadow Secretary of State who speaks for the Opposition on these matters has not concluded that the Labour party’s last academies programme was deficient because some of those academies have failed. There is a basic lack of logic in Labour’s position and an ideological resistance to innovation in the school system.

As to Labour they backed them last week and have now come out against them.

I suspect that David Laws is at one with Michael Gove and surprised at his boss's change of heart. Gove is Education Secretary, Laws is schools minister – and here’s the official statement from the department which they run:-

‘Free schools are raising standards and giving parents more choice. They are run by teachers – not local bureaucrats or Westminster politicians – and are free to set their own curriculum, decide how they spend their money and employ who they think are the best people for the job. This Government is not going to take these freedoms away. Independent schools have always been able to hire brilliant people who have not got QTS. Free schools and academies now have the same freedoms as independent schools to hire great linguists, computer scientists, engineers and other specialists so they can inspire their pupils.’

The DfE also released the following information, to combat the criticism of Clegg about ‘qualified’ teachers.

Non-QTS teachers: The successful independent school sector has always taken the opportunity to employ teaching staff who do not hold QTS. Ensuring the highest quality of teaching is paramount to the success of each school. Head teachers know this, which is why we trust them to employ staff that they believe to be well-qualified for the job. All schools continue to be held accountable for the quality of teaching through Ofsted inspections and the publication of school performance data.

Going forward I am a fan of free schools and academies. Up to last Sunday David Laws and Clegg were too. We now have a bizarre situation where David Laws is being undermined by his own boss. I fully understand we are in a Coalition but there is a real issue here and Laws is definitely right.