Today’s announcement by the Government that it is to scrap all national schools tests (SATS) for 14 year olds from next year is welcome but long overdue. It seems (despite denials) that it has taken this summer’s marking fiasco to force a decision which the teaching profession has long called for.

However, it seems that national tests for 11 year olds will carry on, and presumably therefore the whole system of school league tables which is so counterproductive and divisive, and largely irrelevant to the education progress of individual pupils. Why won’t the Government listen to teachers about this as well?

The saga of the review of secondary education in Nuneaton & Bedworth took another unexpected turn at today’s meeting of the Conservative Cabinet of the county council.

After eight months of review, debate and consultation, the Cabinet had been presented with detailed proposals to renew and redevelop secondary school provision in Nuneaton & Bedworth district. The proposals were controversial but had a clear logic behind them, with the most contentious area being in East and Central Nuneaton, where declining pupil numbers argued for two schools rather than the current three. Wrapped up in all the proposals was the apparent opportunity to achive early release of BSF (Building Schools for the Future) funding from the government, and also the assertion that this would only be possible if at least one Academy was included.

At the Cabinet meeting today these proposals were unexpectedly replaced with a new set of recommendations, which ducked the contentious issue of three schools into two, and called for more analysis and discussion pending the opportunity to find out what the latest government thinking was on both BSF and Academy funding - the goverment seems to moving the goalposts yet again.

I am not in favour of Academies in principle, nor are the Liberal Democrats as a national party - nor by his own admission is the Conservative leader of the council, and many other members of all parties. Yet they are basing their whole strategy around academies on the grounds that this is what the government wants - ignoring the Conservative party’s advice yesterday to councils to stop co-operating with the Labour government on policies they don’t agree with! The only remaining question seems to be is it two Academies or only one?

In the meantime, the uncertainty hanging over Nuneaton schools - staff, pupils and parents - is allowed to continue on into the Autumn. A very sorry state of affairs.

On Wednesday I accompanied Nigel Rock, our Lib Dem PPC for Kenilworth & Southam constituency, to a meeting at the University of Warwick with the Registrar and the Community Relations Manager. Half of the university campus is within Warwickshire (the other half in Coventry), and within my electoral division of Kenilworth Abbey. In addition the university is a major local employer, with several hundred people in my division working there in one capacity or another.

We had an interesting wide-ranging discussion covering national and local issues. I was particularly interested to hear about the activities of the Warwick Volunteers, which unusually is run by the university rather than the students themselves, and which gets many undergraduate students directly involved in projects and activities supporting the local community.

Last year I took part in an in-depth review of the Demand for School Meals in Warwickshire, which resulted in the acceptance by the county council Cabinet of a wide range of recommendations to improve school meals and promote healthy eating. The background to this was of course the Jamie Oliver programmes on TV, that had had the unfortunate consequence of putting people off school meals across the country, so that demand was down and many local authorities school meals services had been pushed into deficit.

Yesterday at the Children Young People & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee we had our first review of how our recommendations had been followed through in practice. There has been limited but real progress in some areas, and the good news is that demand is creeping back up again and deficits are reducing. A lot more remains to be done, though, and we shall review progress again in another six months.

I am a governor at St. John’s Primary School and Nursery in Mortimer Road, Kenilworth. The road is part of the diversionary route for buses and other vehicles during the 25 week closure of the Warwick Road which commenced yesterday morning.

It was therefore the worst possible morning for the usual school crossing patrol person to be away ill, as traffic volumes were much higher than normal. Conditions were so difficult for children and parents crossing that the headteacher ended up going out and stopping the traffic personally - far from an ideal state of affairs.

Luckily in the afternoon the local police Safer Neighbourhoods team were able to respond with a PCSO on duty, and this morning the sergeant did the honours, for which the school was extremely grateful. Hopefully our usual crossing person will be back on Monday.

What this demonstrated was that there is no back-up available in the system at all, not even in such exceptional circumstances. The county council’s Road Safety Unit, who manage the school crossing service, could provide absolutely no one to cover on an emergency basis. While the legal position is clear, that parents are responsible for their children’s safety until they reach the school gate, the reality is that many families come to depend on the school crossing service to enable their children to walk to and from school unaccompanied.

I plan to take this matter up with Cllr. Martin Heatley, the county council’s Cabinet Member responsible for the Environment. While I know resources are tight, the safety of our school-age children must be a paramount concern for all elected members.

I had confirmation today that county council officers are pushing ahead with preliminary design work for a pelican crossing at Beehive Hill, Kenilworth - good news that I was able to share with the St. Augustine’s School parents’ action group and headmistess, who have been campaigning with me to make the case for a crossing on this difficult and dangerous road for school children.

We must of course be patient while the necessary processes of consultaion and final design work are completed, but I am very hopeful that the crossing will be in place before the end of the year. If this is achieved, it will have been one of the fastest (successful) crossing campaigns in Warwickshire’s history!

With a number of high profile data loss stories very much in the news recently, the spotlight has fallen on the vast quantities of personal information being routinely collected by central Government on children young people and families. Most of the data is collected and transmitted to central government by local councils, who however have no discretion in the matter - the data requirements are enshrined in law.

County councillors reviewed the full extent of central government’s data requirements this week in our Scrutiny Committee - see the committee papers at:

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/AgendaManagementSheet26-2-08

Although I accept the need for central government decision making to be based on statistically sound data, what they ask for today is already overkill and yet still growing. For school children in particular, there can be no justification for the data to identify names and addresses. Each pupil is already allocated a UPN (unique pupil number) when they enter the school system, which should be quite enough.

I think our concerns about this whole system are entirely justified, and I shall be supporting strongly all efforts to get central government to change course. 

On Monday we had yet another Government initiative on ‘failing schools’, with Ed Balls threatening to put hit-squads into any school not achieving at least 30% of students with 5+ A*-C grades at GCSE including English and Maths.

As chance would have it, the very next day the WCC Childrens Young People & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee was reviewing the Key Stage 4 (i.e. GCSE) performance of Warwickshire schools. We are fortunate to have very few schools at around the 30% achievement level or less, but those that are serve some of the most deprived communities in the county.

Has Ed Balls not heard of the ‘Contextual Value Added’ (CVA) measure of achievement, which is the main yardstick used by Ofsted and most people who understand education? Why do he and his civil servants persist in looking at raw attainment scores? CVA is the best measure we have of the real impact a school has on its pupils - i.e. is the quality of pupil they turn out better than what they take in.

The irony is that at least one Warwickshire school that might be on Ed Balls’ hit list is nearly the top-performing school in the county in terms of CVA, with an inspirational head and excellent leadership team.

I wish national goverment would just set the ground rules and leave local people to get on with the job. Some hope …… !

Last week I attended a SACRE meeting held in the Chapter House at Coventry Cathedral. The venue was wonderful of course, especially as we were given a guided tour of the cathedral before the meeting. What an inspiring place it is.

SACRE is a most interesting body, with representation from all the faith groups represented in Warwickshire schools, including Humanists and most recently Pagans. It has a number of statutory duties, advising the local authority on matters connected with religious worship and education in schools

Today I attended the Youth Parliament Election Results event at Kenilworth’s De Montfort Hotel. 29 young people from across Warwickshire had put themselves forward for election for 8 positions - 4 members and 4 substitutes. After a record number of votes, up 19% on last year, the winning candidates were chosen. I congratulated the new members personally and gave certificates and thank you gifts to the outgoing members.

An early task for the new members will be to meet the Young People’s Concessionary Travel review panel next month, and to give us their perspective on the needs of young people in Warwickshire. The Youth Parliament has been campaigning on this issue for three years now, so I was delighted that we could announce a major step forward for them today.