Thatcherism, Blairism, Brownite, Millibandwith, Con-Dem-Nation.
It can be fun to work out the diminutive or the shorthand name to describe a politician or their policies. Between Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair there was of course Mr Major who was dubbed the Grey Man and who went from Major to Minor fairly promptly.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if, as some of the commentariat suspect, Mr Balls will run a bid for the leadership of the Labour Party between now and the next election. Plenty of opportunity for sports related links.
But it's not just the names of the party leaders, also the names of some of their policies. take Academies as an instance.
Mr Blair first introduced the name Academy for a new type of school, the name remained current and even managed to make the transition into Con Dem speak so much that Mr Gove now talks about all schools being invited, cajoled or forced to become Academies, although I suspect that Con Dem Academies are not quite the same thing as the Academy introduced by Mr Blair which so shocked educationalists, teachers and above all teaching unions.
The Trustees of the organisation for which I worked at that time agreed to explore the possibilities of the charity sponsoring an Academy. We entered into a shared project with a third party to sponsor an Academy and I became the lead person, on behalf of the Charity. As such I was involved in the early stages of what was called 'storming and forming' in which the ethos, educational philosophy and specialism of the Academy was formulated.
Early starts from my home to the school, bacon sandwiches and tea and some of the most creative and exciting conversations that I have ever been involved with, happened as we began to hammer out an educational philosophy for our academy which had at its heart a debating chamber and as we began to appoint our leadership team the question of how the debating chamber could be used as a tool for both pedagogy and governance was the question to which I particularly tried to seek an answer.
I was constantly reminded in these discussions of how during my first year at primary school I failed to graduate from sheets of loose writing paper to an exercise book of my own. At aged five I was setting the standard for a school career of underachievement. Now I was arguing for every child to have not just an exercise book but a lap top or PDA and with the money available to pay for it.
So despite the objections of the teaching unions and the reservations of some of my old labour friends I persisted with the project. We were assisted by a range of consultants and had inputs from various organisations and agencies in the relevant Government departments, I was even offered tea on the Downing Street sofa.
I remain convinced that the original thinking behind academies was right and at no point did I ever doubt that the ultimate objective of the project was to offer better educational opportunities to young people from poorer backgrounds.
I came to the conclusion that far from some complex Machiavellian scheme to change the Labour Party for ever, the essential thinking behind the Academy Project was a desire to offer young people a better educational opportunity.
For Mr Blair that opportunity was best reflected in his own experience and educational background at Fettes College.
There are some interesting comparisons with Mr Blairs Academy project and the school he attended.
Fettes was wealthy merchant who bequeathed a very large sum of money for the education of poor children and orphans, which links with the business sponsors recruited intially for the Academy Project and which disturbed old Labour sensibilities.
The school has a distinctive uniform a practice which of course academies also adopted.
Fettes was assessed as “excellent” in four out of five Quality Indicators and “very good” in another again which again compares with the aspiration which was built into the Academy Prospectus.
I became convinced that Mr Blair, who obviously valued his education and the opportunity of learning at Fettes, simply wanted to offer this opportunity as widely as possible to as many young people as possible and the Academy Project was a way of achieving this.
As I am no longer involved in Academies or have any way of knowing the mind of Mr Gove I cannot say with confidence but my reading of the newspaper makes me suspect that the same kind of evangelical zeal does not inspire the Con Dem use of the name Academy.
A commentator recently asked where the name Academy came from, after all the notion of 'the academy' can be used quite dismissively as irrelevant dreaming spires stuff.
But again I am reminded that 'Academy' is more commonly used in Scotland to describe a school or place of learning.
My own academic experience was somewhat less impressive than Mr Blair's and I have less of a fondness for my academy, having achieved a GCE 'O' level in Woodwork I was told by the Headmaster in no uncertain terms that it would 'benefit neither me nor the school for me to remain there a day longer than necessary' so I left on a Friday, just after my sixteenth birthday and started work fitting tyres on the Monday, free, free at last from the academy ........
It can be fun to work out the diminutive or the shorthand name to describe a politician or their policies. Between Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair there was of course Mr Major who was dubbed the Grey Man and who went from Major to Minor fairly promptly.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if, as some of the commentariat suspect, Mr Balls will run a bid for the leadership of the Labour Party between now and the next election. Plenty of opportunity for sports related links.
But it's not just the names of the party leaders, also the names of some of their policies. take Academies as an instance.
Mr Blair first introduced the name Academy for a new type of school, the name remained current and even managed to make the transition into Con Dem speak so much that Mr Gove now talks about all schools being invited, cajoled or forced to become Academies, although I suspect that Con Dem Academies are not quite the same thing as the Academy introduced by Mr Blair which so shocked educationalists, teachers and above all teaching unions.
The Trustees of the organisation for which I worked at that time agreed to explore the possibilities of the charity sponsoring an Academy. We entered into a shared project with a third party to sponsor an Academy and I became the lead person, on behalf of the Charity. As such I was involved in the early stages of what was called 'storming and forming' in which the ethos, educational philosophy and specialism of the Academy was formulated.
Early starts from my home to the school, bacon sandwiches and tea and some of the most creative and exciting conversations that I have ever been involved with, happened as we began to hammer out an educational philosophy for our academy which had at its heart a debating chamber and as we began to appoint our leadership team the question of how the debating chamber could be used as a tool for both pedagogy and governance was the question to which I particularly tried to seek an answer.
I was constantly reminded in these discussions of how during my first year at primary school I failed to graduate from sheets of loose writing paper to an exercise book of my own. At aged five I was setting the standard for a school career of underachievement. Now I was arguing for every child to have not just an exercise book but a lap top or PDA and with the money available to pay for it.
So despite the objections of the teaching unions and the reservations of some of my old labour friends I persisted with the project. We were assisted by a range of consultants and had inputs from various organisations and agencies in the relevant Government departments, I was even offered tea on the Downing Street sofa.
I remain convinced that the original thinking behind academies was right and at no point did I ever doubt that the ultimate objective of the project was to offer better educational opportunities to young people from poorer backgrounds.
I came to the conclusion that far from some complex Machiavellian scheme to change the Labour Party for ever, the essential thinking behind the Academy Project was a desire to offer young people a better educational opportunity.
For Mr Blair that opportunity was best reflected in his own experience and educational background at Fettes College.
There are some interesting comparisons with Mr Blairs Academy project and the school he attended.
Fettes was wealthy merchant who bequeathed a very large sum of money for the education of poor children and orphans, which links with the business sponsors recruited intially for the Academy Project and which disturbed old Labour sensibilities.
The school has a distinctive uniform a practice which of course academies also adopted.
Fettes was assessed as “excellent” in four out of five Quality Indicators and “very good” in another again which again compares with the aspiration which was built into the Academy Prospectus.
I became convinced that Mr Blair, who obviously valued his education and the opportunity of learning at Fettes, simply wanted to offer this opportunity as widely as possible to as many young people as possible and the Academy Project was a way of achieving this.
As I am no longer involved in Academies or have any way of knowing the mind of Mr Gove I cannot say with confidence but my reading of the newspaper makes me suspect that the same kind of evangelical zeal does not inspire the Con Dem use of the name Academy.
A commentator recently asked where the name Academy came from, after all the notion of 'the academy' can be used quite dismissively as irrelevant dreaming spires stuff.
But again I am reminded that 'Academy' is more commonly used in Scotland to describe a school or place of learning.
My own academic experience was somewhat less impressive than Mr Blair's and I have less of a fondness for my academy, having achieved a GCE 'O' level in Woodwork I was told by the Headmaster in no uncertain terms that it would 'benefit neither me nor the school for me to remain there a day longer than necessary' so I left on a Friday, just after my sixteenth birthday and started work fitting tyres on the Monday, free, free at last from the academy ........
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