What Might Have Been

It was sad to read the obituaries at the end of the year for Peter Newsam and Tim Brighouse. Both were visionary educational administrators, with a passionate concern to make good education available for all children. In any sensible country, people like them would have been in charge of the system - organising, encouraging, spreading the belief that all children matter.

Here, they were shoved to the fringes, part of the education blob that wasn’t to be trusted. Only division and competition could produce results, and anyone supporting teachers was bound to be suspect. That was the Tory view, but then Tony Blair came in, and decided it was his view too. Chris Woodhead was kept on, and Alastair Campbell talked disdainfully of “bog-standard comprehensives.”

Blair’s rightly remembered as the architect for our involvement in the Iraq War, but for me he’s just as culpable for his undermining of our schools. However many times he talked about “education, education, education”, as I remember it his impact was disastrous.