Now the BBC repeats the big lie about Mossbourne Academy

On 'The One Show' last night there was a lengthy paeon of praise for Sir Michael Wilshaw, Principal of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, which repeated the plain lie that his Mossbourne Academy replaced Hackney Downs School. As I've mentioned previously, this is impossible since Hackney Downs School closed in 1995 and the Academy didn't open until 2004. As there are lots of lazy journalists, the lie keeps being repeated. So far, there's no sign that St Michael is going to come out and burst the bubble by telling the truth but the more times the lie is repeated, the more stupid he'll look when the media wake up to the fact that that they've been conned (by someone, not St Michael you understand). The twin lie which is nearly always trotted out in tandem, that Hackney Downs was 'the worst school in the country', was also disseminated more widely by the lazy BBC. If they read this blog they wouldn't make fools of themselves.

I wonder why St Michael needed this exposure when he has already secured such a dream job? A couple of years heading up Ofsted and then, no doubt, the world's his oyster in terms of an even more profitable future.

Another fortunate knight

Yesterday's Guardian Education had yet another profile of an education knight who appears to have engineered a very successful, and no doubt very lucrative, career on the back of his 'success' as a headteacher. He was knighted by New Labour but made his name under the Tories, enthusiastically embracing Grant Maintained Status because of the cash it brought. He claims this was a pragmatic decision and that he had nothing against the Local Authority, so he seems to be another one with no clear principles. Indeed, it's beginning to look as though this is an essential requirement for someone who wants to be knighted.

After working as a civil servant, he managed to net himself a job worth £250,000 a year (and it's funded by the taxpayer) setting up Academies and therefore continuing to draw money away from other schools so that more and more schools can be seen to be 'failing', i.e. not keeping up with much better-funded schools. It's amazing how often people such as ex-Ofsted chief inspectors and other assorted government stooges end up in these kind of posts.