The question of whether Consett and Stanley should have all five of their secondary schools closed, and replaced with two new academies, comes before Cabinet at County Hall today.

That would be in addition to just one other academy in the county which would replace Belmont and Gilesgate facilities.

Academies are schools run by a sponsor or sponsors, rather than by the local education authority. They bring in outside expertise, ideas and sometimes cash. At the same time, they leave a school with less local control.

The first thing that is clear is that the Government refused the original county proposal that its intended three academies would all be run by a consortium of Durham University, The Durham Association of Secondary Head Teachers, and the North East Chamber of Commerce. This is nick-named DEEP or Durham Excellence in Education Partnership.

Lord Adonis, who made that decision, was clearly influenced by an independent report, commissioned jointly with the council, and which described the consortium as a “partnership which does not exist”.

The same report added, “it has no track record of sponsorship of academies, and had little insight into the work involved.” The report concluded that the bid was “untenable”. The new proposal for Consett, however, is still that it should be sponsored by this consortium.

The other thing that’s clear is that Consett and Stanley getting new school buildings is being tied up with accepting Academies. Some would call it blackmail.

That’s not the position in Seaham, Sedgefield, Shotton Hall, Spennymoor, Bishop Auckland, or Durham Johnston. All these are getting new buildings without being forced to become Academies.

I want to see investment in school buildings in Consett - I taught here long enough to care - and I want the best possible education for all our children, but I do have reservations about the proposed academies which relate to:

• Their size (1,500 in Consett, 1,800 in Stanley)
• Who’s in control
• Lack of choice for local parents
• Whether this is just another “fad” experimenting with our children’s education

I’d be delighted to know what you think. Why not do the straw poll to the left? If enough people vote I’ll have something to go on more than my own prejudices.

If you see children filming with cameras in Consett - don’t worry. You won’t find yourself being made a fool of on prime time TV.

The younsters at St . Patrick’s Primary School will be filming their walk to school as part of the International Walk to School Week. They’re in the vanguard of the more than 120 schools in County Durham taking part in the week which is designed to highlight the benefits of walking to school.

If you’ve never really thought about the benefits of children walking to school, here’s just a few of them:

• More than one third of UK Primary school children take less than the recommended amount of exercise of an hour a day. This is thought to be one of the main causes of the rise in childhood obesity, which can lead to ill health later on.
• More than 1 million children are now classified as obese. Obese children are more likely to go on to develop heart disease and illnesses such as diabetes and osteoporosis.
• Children who exercise regularly get better test results. 79% of eleven year olds who were exercising regularly were scoring above average in national English tests.
• Obesity has trebled in England in the last 20 years. 50 per cent more girls than boys (under 11 years) are overweight.
• Approximately one in seven children suffer from asthma, and although not a cause, traffic pollution can trigger asthma attacks in 80 per cent of sufferers with an asthmatic condition.
• More than one billion car journeys of less than one mile are made in the UK every year.
• A generation ago 80 per cent of seven and eight years olds walked to school. Today only 20 per cent of primary school children go to school unaccompanied.
• One in five cars on the road at 8.50am are doing ‘the school-run’.
• Each pupil makes up to 5,000 trips to school and back during their 11 years of education.
• School children who walk to school inhale two thirds less traffic fumes than those that are driven.

If that’s not enough reasons why it’s better for the kids, just think what it would do for their parents to take the extra bit of exercise!

So look out for those children with their cameras, and tell them “Well done!” Their film will be part of a movement to change the world for the better. That’s something worth doing.

It happened again this morning - policy veering like the wind. It was only last year that government introduced “Contextual Value Added” (CVA) to school league tables, but today it ditched any continuing interest in CVA by declaring that any school where fewer than 30% of children are getting five A-C GCSE grades would have to improve or face closure and replacement.

CVA isn’t a perfect judgement of a school (for fuller information look at the BBC on  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7176947.stm ) but it does offer a real attempt to evaluate the principle that we all know - Loamshire Grammar School should get better exam results that Oil Drum Lane Secondary Modern. Exam results alone, therefore, do not prove which school does more for its puils in relation to their ability, domestic circumstances, previous attainment etc.

The 2007 tables told an interesting story. The School which scored most highly on CVA had only 17% of its pupils getting getting 5 GCSEs at grades A-C. Clearly it is an excellent school with a lot of disadvantage to make up. Conversely, amongst the schools listed with the lowest CVA were two where 54% of the children got 5 GCSEs at grades A-C.

All this goes to show is that making simple judgements on the back of exam results will lead to bad policy making. And it’s not just an academic question for us here in Consett. Amongst the schools listed on the BBC website as below the required standard ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7444822.stm) is Moorside Community Technology College.

Because Moorside Community Technical College is not in this ward I don’t know it as well as the other local comprehensive school, but I’ve spoken to enough parents and pupils to know that they don’t see it as a failing school. Their view is endorsed by its CVA score which at 1012 is well above average. Their view is also endorsed by Ofsted which describes it overall as a “good” school.

So perhaps it’s time that the government started listening to parents, teachers, puils, educational experts and Ofsted rather than its own spin-doctors. Then we might start to get some real educational policy-making.

I got an email today from a friend to notify me of a Government consultation paper on the future of informal adult education. Responses are required by June 12th. As she sees it, “In a nutshell…if you read between the lines… it says “Who needs informal classes when you can learn by typing stuff into Google now or watching the TV, Vocational classes  are so much more important. We might as well leave all this informal learning to volunteers and book groups”"

A website has been set up called “Save Adult Education” where you can read about it and sign an online petition. You can find it at http://www.saveadulteducation.co.uk/ 

Better still, for those with the energy and resilience necessary you can read the Government’s own consultation paper and submit your comments at http://www.adultlearningconsultation.org.uk/consult/