Has this mother of three changed the face of British education?

Furious at her son’s struggle to  get into a grammar school, Sarah Shilling launched a petition to build the first new one for 50 years. Yesterday, the revolution began!


Decrepit and semi-derelict, The Wildernesse School doesn’t have to try hard to live up to its name. Since it was swallowed up by a local girls’ school in 2010 to form a new academy elsewhere, the days when Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton du Beke — a former pupil known back then as Tony Beke — skipped through its corridors seem a very distant memory.

Hard to imagine, then, that this sprawling site on the outskirts of Sevenoaks, in Kent, could soon provide the spark for a revolution in British education.

Yesterday, a petition raised by thousands of parents in Sevenoaks calling for the building of what is effectively a new grammar school — though technically it will be an ‘annexe’ of an existing one — won overwhelming support in a vote taken by Kent County Council.

The petition was started by a mother of three from Sevenoaks called Sarah Shilling, who despaired at the hoops her son had to jump through to gain a grammar school place.

Now, a formal proposal will be drawn up by the council to identify potential sites for the school — with Wildernesse the favourite — and to establish which existing grammar schools may want to run it.

If such a new school opens, it will be the first of its kind in England for 50 years.

For families in Sevenoaks, this is a big deal indeed. They have long complained that because of the lack of local provision, more than 1,000 children from the town must take buses and trains every day to make journeys of an hour or more to schools  elsewhere in the county.

And yet the opening of a grammar in Sevenoaks will have a significance far beyond the purely local, because it forces the controversial issue of selective education — an idea so hated by the Left — firmly back on the national political agenda.

It puts selective schooling back on the agenda

Even before the decision was taken,  the discussion of the Sevenoaks plans provoked howls of protest from all the usual suspects.

Stephen Twigg, the shadow Education Secretary, has angrily accused Government ministers of attempting to expand  academic selection, and vowed that if Labour got back in to power it would reverse any move in that direction.

‘Instead of focusing on a few grammar schools, the Government should be trying to raise standards in all the 24,000 schools in England,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Fiona Millar, partner of former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and seasoned education activist, was quick to join the fight, furiously peddling the argument that grammar schools limit rather than promote social mobility.

‘The most successful systems in the world are fully comprehensive,’ she claimed. ‘Bringing back selection is the wrong solution to problems that still exist in our school system, most of which can still be addressed in all-ability schools with the right leadership, teaching, curriculum and commitment from central government.’

Their fear is that what is happening in Kent could be just the start of an expansion of the grammar-school system and that Education Secretary Michael Gove is secretly keen to give this the green light.
Government approval: Michael Gove has spoken of his support for the grammar school system - much to the outrage of some education activists who believe they endanger social mobility

Government approval: Michael Gove has spoken of his support for the grammar school system - much to the outrage of some education activists who believe they endanger social mobility

Supporters of grammars argue that these are the schools parents want — and that it is the Government’s duty to deliver them.

‘The areas that have retained selection top the league tables year after year, providing the standards that parents want, and opening opportunities for children from all backgrounds,’ Graham Brady, a Conservative MP and long-time supporter of grammars, told me.

The fact that the latest developments have caught opponents of grammar schools somewhat by surprise is a result of their belief that they had largely won the argument against selection.

Having promised to open new grammars as part of his 2005 leadership campaign, two years later Mr Cameron abruptly changed tack saying that he did not think they were a good idea after all.
This U-turn was interpreted by some as being a carefully-planned ‘Clause Four moment’ — a reference to Tony Blair’s decision to cut ties with Labour’s socialist past when he became leader.


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    HYWEL WILLIAMS: A grammar school revolution on the way to Kent

Cameron’s strategists calculated that by ditching an educational policy associated with Tory diehards, it would appeal to voters who had never voted Conservative before. In fact, all it achieved was a backbench rebellion and simmering resentment among supporters of selective education from all political backgrounds.

In an ICM poll in 2010, 76 per cent of respondents said that they would support the creation of new grammar schools.

Instead, Cameron decided to back Michael Gove’s academies programme — the creation of independent state schools, run by head teachers outside of council control.

Opponents have been caught by surprise

But in a separate move, new admissions rules were introduced late last year, meaning that councils can no longer block the expansion of existing schools — be they state comprehensive or grammar.
With school rolls rising across many parts of England as the effects of immigration and a higher birth rate take effect, the rule changes have been jumped on by councils and parents.

Currently, across England there are 164 grammar schools educating some 160,000 pupils. Kent, with 33, has the largest proportion of them, attended by some 28 per cent of the county’s children.
In Year Six, the final year of primary school education, all pupils in Kent have the option of sitting the 11-plus examination. Those who pass the exam can then choose a grammar school to attend.

If they have passed with very high marks, they can apply for a handful of the grammars that are ‘super-selective’ — those which base their intake on performance in the exam rather than a pass and a pupil’s proximity to the school.

In Sevenoaks, a prosperous commuter town half-an-hour’s train journey to the south-east of London, there are two schools.

One is the private Sevenoaks School, whose boarding fees are now a shade shy of £30,000 a year; the other is a mixed-ability state school, Knole Academy, formed just over a year ago from a merger of two struggling comprehensives (one being Wildernesse, whose pupils vacated their old premises). There are no grammar schools in the town.


NEWS BY:http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Top universities 'admitting fewer state school students'

Figures show the vast majority of top research institutions turned more places over to pupils from independent schools in 2010/11 and fell dramatically short of Government admission targets.

Amid an unprecedented scramble for degree courses, it emerged that around two-thirds of universities belonging to the elite Russell Group recruited proportionally fewer state school students.

This includes the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial College, the London School of Economics and University College London.

At Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, fewer than six-in-10 places went to state school students.

Alternative figures showed just over half of top universities also recruited fewer pupils from the very poorest families.

The disclosure will come as a blow to the Government which has piled pressure on the most selective universities to create a more diverse student body.

Last year, Nick Clegg warned that top institutions had a duty to ensure “British society is better reflected” in their admissions to justify state funding.

But the Russell Group defended the figures, insisting that large numbers of well-qualified students from state schools failed to apply.

Wendy Piatt, director general, said: “These statistics are a reminder of the particular challenges faced by Russell Group universities as we work hard to increase fair access. Every year we pump millions of pounds into our outreach work such as summer schools and access schemes to encourage poorer students to apply and attend our universities.

“But we can only admit students who apply and who have the right grades in the right subjects.”

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, some 88.7 per cent of university places were awarded to pupils from state schools last year, down slightly on 88.8 per cent a year earlier.

It coincided with a record rise in the number of students applying to university in 2010.

Figures show that fewer state school students were admitted by 16 out of 24 Russell Group universities. The group expanded from 20 to 24 earlier this month.

Those witnessing a drop were Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Exeter, Imperial College, King's College, Leeds, the LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton, UCL, York, Cardiff, Glasgow and Queen's University Belfast.

The propotion of state school students at Birmingham dropped from 77.6 to 76.1 per cent. It meant 3,235 were admitted to the university last year compared with 3,420 a year earlier.

The LSE turned over 70.8 per cent of places to state pupils in 2009/10 compared with 66.5 per cent 12 months later. It represented a drop from 515 to 445. Cambridge fell from 59.3 to 59 per cent, taking 1,560 state school pupils, down by 30.

Only Oxford, Durham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Queen Mary College and Warwick saw their proportion of state school students rise, while Sheffield and Liverpool remained unchanged.

Statistics also reveal the number of universities that are failing to meet centrally-set "benchmarks". Targets cover areas such as how many state school pupils are admitted and numbers from the poorest homes.

The statistics show that 51 universities – around 41 per cent – failed to meet their benchmarks for recruiting state school pupils. This included 16 out of 24 Russell Group institutions.

From next year, universities could be stripped of the power to charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees for consistently falling short of admission targets.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: "Demand for higher education remains strong, but we want to ensure that background is not a barrier to university. Our reforms expect institutions to do more to attract applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

NEWS BY:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Britain Has 'Underestimated' Flood Threats

For the last 50 years we have been concreting over our countryside, neglecting our drainage systems and busily building on flood plains.In other words; living as if flooding is a problem that happens elsewhere.

Now, a new report from scientists at Durham University says the UK has been lulled into a false sense of security, when weshould have been preparing for a period of floods on a scale "beyond most people's living memory".

The scientists looked at rainfall and river flow patterns over the last 250 years, since 1753.

They found that the UK's weather fluctuated between very wet and very dry periods, each lasting for a few years at a time, but also between very long periods of a few decades that can be particularly wet or particularly dry.

They discovered that from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the UK was relatively flood-free.

Now, they say records show we can expect a period of increased flooding, similar to that experienced before the 1960s.

Professor Stuart Lane from Durham's Institute of Hazard and Risk said: "We are now having to learn to live with levels of flooding that are beyond most people's living memory.

"More than three-quarters of country's flood records - on which risk estimates were based - started during the 1960s.

"We have not been good at recognising just how flood-prone we can be. We have probably underestimated the frequency of flooding much more often than we are used to."

May, June and July last year saw their highest level of rainfall since British records began.

A second report out today from the cross party Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee says the infrastructure set up to deal with last summer's floods is in chaos and the eight hundred million pounds funding pledged by the Government is "inadequate."

The MPs said at the moment, no organisation has overall responsibility for surface water flooding at a national or local level, nobody was responsible for issuing flood warnings and it was unclear who was responsible for overflowing drains.

They also recommended that the Environment Agency should take a strategic role in dealing with surface water flooding nationally, providing advice and guidance to local authorities who should have a statutory duty to deal with surface drainage.

Chair of the Committee, Michael Jack MP said: "The public will not forgive the Government if it is not seen to be responding to the lessons learnt from the floods of last summer.

"Our report has shown how confused and chaotic was the infrastructure when it came to preventing and dealing with surface water flooding.

"The Government must bring clarity to this situation so that the public, wherever they live, can have peace of mind that every effort is being made to avoid a repeat of the fiasco of last summer."

The Local Government Association too has waded in.

In response to the EFRA Committee's report, they agree that under the current system, it is often unclear who has responsibility for managing flood risk and maintaining drainage systems.

They say that in some parts of the country a myriad of different bodies - including the Environment Agency, councils, private landowners and water companies - have these powers but often do not share information with each other.

They recommend that water companies should be forced to co-operate with local authorities to prevent a repeat of last summer's floods, council leaders said today.

For once, then, the MPs and the scientists are in firm agreement: rather than dismissing last summer's floods as a one off event, they say we must be prepared for worse to come.

NEWS BY:http://news.sky.com

Entertainment news: Revel Horwood to star in Swan panto

THE High Wycombe Choral Society heard their music played across the airwaves on Classic FM as part of a drive to celebrate some of the best amateur choirs across the UK. One of the tracks, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, by Felix Mendelssohn from their Christmas CD was played on December 9. The station is joining forces with the charity, Making Music, and encouraging choirs to send in carol recordings. Ten choirs were chosen by John Brunning.

IF you fancy a wintry walk between Christmas and New Year to walk off all the turkey and mince pies, head over to Waddesdon Manor. The grounds, shops, restaurants and plant centre will be open daily from Tuesday, December 27 until Monday, January 2. And for those who just can’t get enough of Christmas the trees and displays inside the Manor will be still be open too. For more information, opening times and prices please see

CRAIG Revel Horwood will be playing The Wicked Queen in the Wycombe Swan's panto next year. The Swan have announced their panto next year as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves with the Strictly Come Dancing judge. The panto will run from December 7 until January 5. To book call 01494512000 or go to www.wycombeswan.co.uk. Lesley Joseph is currently playing the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella until January 8.

FOLLOWING the successful production of A Midsummer's Night Dream in Beaconsfield in 2011, which raised more than £9,000 for The Gardens Players nominated charity, they will be staging a new production of Twelfth Night in Beaconsfield from June 27-30, in aid of The Child Bereavement Charity. Read-throughs will take place at The United Reform Church hall in Beaconsfield Old Town on Wednesday, January 4 and at the Performing Arts Hall, Tennant Building, Davenies School, Beaconsfield on Tuesday, January 19 both commencing at 7.45pm. All are welcome. For further information, please contact Steve McAdam.

NEWS BY:http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk

Dakota Fanning's perfume ad banned in the UK for being 'sexually provocative' - Poll

A perfume ad featuring "Twilight" actress Dakota Fanning clutching a bottle of perfume has been banned in the United Kingdom after the country's Advertising Standards Authority found it to be inappropriate and "sexually provocative" because of the 17-year-old actress' age and appearance, according to the BBC.

The board said in a statement that the ad "could be seen to sexualize a child."

"We noted that the model [Fanning] was holding up the perfume bottle which rested in her lap between her legs and we considered that its position was sexually provocative," the statement said. "We understood the model was 17-years-old but we considered she looked under the age of 16. We considered that the length of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality."

"Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualize a child," the statement continued. "We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible and was likely to cause serious offence."

The ad was for the Oh Lola! perfume by Marc Jacobs and it can be seen above. Coty UK, the company behind the perfume and the ad, said they had not received any complaints about it, despite the fact that it had appeared in several fashion magazines in the country.

The ad first began appearing in print on August 5, 2011. According to the ASA report, Coty UK "did not believe the styling in the ad suggested the model was underage or that the ad was inappropriately sexualized because it did not show any private body parts or sexual activity. They believed the giant perfume bottle was provoking but not indecent."

In August it was reported that Fanning had graduated from high school and was set to attend New York University in the fall.

She is enrolled at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, a college spokesperson told OnTheRedCarpet.com on Thursday, August 25.

The Georgia native rose to fame as a child actress when she appeared alongside Sean Penn in the 2001 movie "I Am Sam."

In 2002, she starred in the romantic comedy "Sweet Home Alabama," which featured Reese Witherspoon in the main role, and played Allie Keys in the mini-series "Taken" in 2002. Fanning starred in the 2005 reboot of "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise and in the 2006 film "Charlotte's Web." In 2009, Fanning starred in the movie "Push" and played the vampire Jane in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," the second film in the hit series starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.

In 2010, Fanning co-starred with Stewart in the music biopic "The Runaways" and reprised her role in the third "Twilight" movie, "Eclipse." Fanning plays the same part in the fourth and final installment, the two-part "Breaking Dawn." Part 1 is set for release on November 18.

Fanning recently filmed the independent film "Now Is Good" and has several more movies in the works - "Effie" with Emma Thompson, "Mississippi Wild" with Mickey Rourke and "Very Good Girls" with Dustin Hoffman." All films are due out in 2012.

NEWS BY:http://www.ontheredcarpet.com