When support is provided, the quality is often so poor that the pupil would be better off without it. Often the work is done for the pupil, preventing learning from taking place.
Those who spend their time in classrooms and rigidly follow the handbook may fail to meet the individual needs of each pupil.
The reality of local authority control of schools was not democratic, but rule by officers and party hacks.
At the local level, there is also good news in the successful reform of Great Yarmouth Charter Academy.
It is funded at a lower level than schools, and yet is expected to put right much that has gone wrong. Technical courses need higher esteem.
The perpetrators of school violence and disruption inflict more harm on the education of other pupils, and to the morale of teachers, than they do on themselves.
Teaching children to spell is not an act of cruelty – they have a large smiles on their faces when they get something right.
Grammar school expansion should be focused on extending their sixth forms and opening them up to qualified entrants from other local schools to widen opportunity.
The key issue was planning, and our fate was sealed before the first leaflet was delivered. Developers would steamroller the council to get unwanted schemes approved.
Rather than allowing the greatest opportunity for each individual to excel, the educational establishment want to hold them back – in the interests of “levelling attainment”.
The Education Endowment Foundation is not impartial. It was an error to set it up and it should receive no more public money. Others are better suited to the challenge.
Free schools and academies have found that setting improves standards. It’s time to stop giving huge public funds to academics who disregard this evidence.
Tougher exams are not to blame. Too often children’s time for the first three years of secondary school is wasted.
My advice to parents seeking help from local authorities is not to bother – as it would probably be worse than useless. Their methods ignore the way the brain works.
Conservative policies to date have done little to improve the situation, and have sometimes made it worse. These bureaucratic impositions must be lifted.