Common sense prevails for a change!

June 29, 2010

I was delighted to hear the news that the new Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is looking to introduce School Olympics in a bid to increase the amount of competitive sport in our schools.

Thank goodness that the PC brigade have been over-ruled on something. I don’t know anyone who is happy that their children are having to participate in non-competitive sports days on the basis that no child should be made to feel bad for losing. All this will serve to do is give us a country of losers! We struggle enough in sporting success on national level – England football, British tennis champion (Mr Murray aside) – and so I am delighted that schools should be encouraging children in team working and striving to be the best they can be.

Of course in this sense the independent sector is ahead of the curve with a much greater percentage of school time being allocated to physical activity in addition to inter-schools competitions.

Using available space to generate revenue…..

I also wanted to make you aware of a recent article in FMX magazine which shows an excellent example of self-funded school St John’s in Marlborough making excellent use of their space in order to generate additional revenue for the school. In these more challenging times any schemes to bolster income can only be positive and I would urge all bursars to continue to look at new and innovative ways of increasing school income from commercial activities.

Kinnarps are a Swedish based furniture company and Angus Kaye, who wrote the article, also gives some interesting insights in to the ‘much talked about’ Swedish free schools model. On a more local level the Kinnarps Account Manager, who worked with the school to help more their ideas to realisation, is Steve Jones who was clearly an integral part of the success of the project.

Kinnarps are currently running a competition where you can win the school a FREE space plan or a Swedish picnic Pack!

And finally…….

If you have missed it, here is a link for the details of all of the schools who have registered their interest in becoming an academy. This was apparently only revealed after a Freedom of Information Act request!

So a mixed bag of updates on the blog today. Hope they’re useful

Posted by Lorraine | Filed Under Uncategorized