# The Corrupt Academies/Free Schools Thread



## Orang Utan (Aug 3, 2016)

There's going to be a lot of cases like the one below, so might as well have a thread on them and keep the info on one thread.
The head and two staff at Bradford Kings Science Academy have been convicted for fraud.
Bradford Kings Science academy staff convicted of fraud - BBC News
They are likely to go to jail. Good.


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## chilango (Aug 3, 2016)

Good idea Orang Utan.


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## catinthehat (Aug 3, 2016)

Disciplinary hearing for suspended college principal
Maybe we could include colleges - this case is not recent but there has been a lot of this sort of thing.  Colleges were taken out of LA hands over a decade ago and run like fifedoms in some respects - tax payers money but private business mentality.  Commercial income generation taking precedence over students and education.  In some ways the colleges were the dry run.


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## trabuquera (Aug 3, 2016)

Channel 4 Dispatches had a whole enraging 26 minutes on this recently - will be up for another 21 days and I guess still on All4/ digital services:
Dispatches - On Demand - All 4


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## Orang Utan (Aug 3, 2016)

They were corrupt right from the start:
Scandal of Blair's £31m flagship school: A leaking roof, broken designer toilets and a useless computer system


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## BigTom (Aug 3, 2016)

Perry Beeches saga: who was involved

Perry Beeches academy chain in Birmingham pays £1.3m to company that headteacher is director of and gets a £160k wage from. Not sure if the academy chain actually had the schools taken off them or not.


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## souljacker (Aug 3, 2016)

Orang Utan said:


> They were corrupt right from the start:
> Scandal of Blair's £31m flagship school: A leaking roof, broken designer toilets and a useless computer system



Id be interested to know what went wrong with the IT. The mail says it failed from day one and had to be replaced at a cost of 1.2m. I put WiFi and LANs into a few BSF schools and I don't get how failure of the systems would cause the school to have to fork out money. It would be up to the integrator to fix it, not the school.


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## comrade spurski (Aug 11, 2016)

Used to work in a primary school which has just become an academy.
The head and deputy head were never interviewed for their jobs. They were appointed by the Executive Head.
One of the management teams brother was appointed in a leadership position . The best friend of another  (and chief bridesmaid) was appointed in a leadership position. The Heads partner was employed as a teacher without an interview. The parent of one of the leadership team was appointed as senior finance officer. Siblings and friends of  favoured staff were also appointed.
In the 18 months of having a CEO at least 12 staff left. All new staff were known to someone in leadership positions (close friendships, family or previous work relationship). 
The lack of interviews, employing family and friends and having a family member as the finance officer makes the school look corrupt imho. It felt very uncomfortable working there as there was a clear difference between how staff were spoken to.


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 11, 2016)

Tautological thread title


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## Orang Utan (Aug 11, 2016)

Loads of staff at my 'current' school were appointed without interview or advertising.
The head has brought about 20 people from their previous school, and many ex pupils from there work as support staff


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## Anju (Aug 11, 2016)

comrade spurski said:


> Used to work in a primary school which has just become an academy.
> The head and deputy head were never interviewed for their jobs. They were appointed by the Executive Head.
> One of the management teams brother was appointed in a leadership position . The best friend of another  (and chief bridesmaid) was appointed in a leadership position. The Heads partner was employed as a teacher without an interview. The parent of one of the leadership team was appointed as senior finance officer. Siblings and friends of  favoured staff were also appointed.
> In the 18 months of having a CEO at least 12 staff left. All new staff were known to someone in leadership positions (close friendships, family or previous work relationship).
> The lack of interviews, employing family and friends and having a family member as the finance officer makes the school look corrupt imho. It felt very uncomfortable working there as there was a clear difference between how staff were spoken to.



I experienced the same thing, though not in a school.  Nepotism, cronyism or whatever you want to call it is always bad for an organisation and leads to corruption and cover ups. I have a friend who works in Lambeth early intervention and they have a lot of problems with Academies covering up a absences of at risk kids just to keep their attendance figures up. 

It may be worth reporting them as I think it is illegal to just award jobs and they should also be advertised.


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## catinthehat (Aug 11, 2016)

The spate of redundancies that came along with regionalisation of colleges in Scotland threw up an interesting take on redundancy for some senior staff.  Large redundancy package, standard rules that post not person is redundant and bar from being re employed for two years.  We had several take redundancy only to turn up next term as 'consultants'.  Cronyism and nepotism - an individual who was on a part time post as a library assistant, no other work background, no teaching experience or qualification got promoted to a full time post as Director of Learning.  From a pro rata 15k part time junior admin role to a 55k senior management role.  But she is a 'twitter expert'.  I guess someone forgot to tell the Principal that so are 90% of the students.  A lot of the cases of fraud never see the light of day because the individuals retire early and the problem vanishes.


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## catinthehat (Aug 11, 2016)

Adam Smith College four may face fraud charges
ela.blogspot.is/2015/10/ministers-sack-board-of-college-after.html
Glasgow college principal suspended just months after winning OBE
Adam Smith College boss appears in court charged with £3m fraud


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## DotCommunist (Aug 11, 2016)

grace and favour residences for senior staff should be abolished from uni VP positions, to be going on in schools is just as disgraceful. You get enough money to rent/mortgage. The TA's aren't housed for free. Rip off cunts. Now think that they wanted to turn every school into such cash cows. The cheeky cunts


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## Idris2002 (Aug 13, 2016)

This may be a bit international for the thread, but I think it's relevant. Recently, the government of Liberia announced that it would turn over it's entire school system to an American for-profit corporation called Bridge International. The unique selling point of this group is that they try to replace actual trained teachers with a collection of randoms who are pulled off the street and given some cursory instruction in doing rote learning off a computer tablet.

An Africa first! Liberia outsources entire education system to a private American firm. Why all should pay attention

What could possibly go wrong? Well, this group's activities in Uganda were being studied by a Canadian researcher. They arranged to have him arrested by the Ugandan peelers on a trumped-up charge:

The weird story of the arrest of a Canadian education researcher in Uganda


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 17, 2016)

Not education sector, but same approach applies:

Two G4S police control room staff fired over 999 'test calls'



> ...It had been claimed that the handlers made hundreds of illegitimate calls in October, November and December 2015 in order to meet their target of answering 92% of calls within 10 seconds or less. If the target is not met G4S is fined, and figures showed 724 calls were made across those three months...
> 
> ...In October the number jumped to 139, then 236 in November and peaked at 349 in December.
> 
> The figures showed that the control room received 8,153 calls in December of which 349 were test calls. Only 89% of the genuine calls were answered within the target of 10 seconds, but the inclusion of the test calls pushed answering performance one percentage point above the target of 92%.





> ...The five suspended officers were all former Lincolnshire police employees who transferred to G4S four years ago when the private security company took over a £200m contract – the largest ever – to run the force’s back-office services.
> 
> G4S claimed the contract would save the force £6m a year and hailed it as a potential model for the rest of British policing...


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## stockwelljonny (Sep 15, 2016)

Jesus, "From January, there will be a new chief inspector of schools: Amanda Spielman, the secretary of state’s choice, whose appointment was confirmed in the face of fierce opposition from the Education Select Committee. Spielman has never been a teacher; her background is in corporate finance and management consultancy. More recently, she was on the original management team of Ark Schools, the UK educational arm of Ark (Absolute Return for Kids), an international children’s charity set up in 2002 by a group of hedge fund bosses...."

LRB · Matthew Bennett · Ed Tech Biz


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## BigTom (Oct 10, 2016)

BigTom said:


> Perry Beeches saga: who was involved
> 
> Perry Beeches academy chain in Birmingham pays £1.3m to company that headteacher is director of and gets a £160k wage from. Not sure if the academy chain actually had the schools taken off them or not.



And oh look, the academy chain has a £2.1m deficit, I wonder why.
Deficit of £2.1m found at Perry Beeches The Academy Trust - BBC News


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## catinthehat (Oct 24, 2016)

Lecturers in strike threat at Edinburgh College

Here a lecturer is suspended for -  among other spurious charges -  calling a student Honey.  The students name is Honey.  Union rep who represented him has now also been suspended.  As she says in the article 'the only people bringing the college into disrepute are the SLT and HR'.  She is a very effective rep - hence constantly at the end of a management purge.  EIS motto should be #the more they hate you, the better a job you are doing#


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## Idris2002 (Oct 26, 2016)

catinthehat said:


> Lecturers in strike threat at Edinburgh College
> 
> Here a lecturer is suspended for -  among other spurious charges -  calling a student Honey.  The students name is Honey.  Union rep who represented him has now also been suspended.  As she says in the article 'the only people bringing the college into disrepute are the SLT and HR'.  She is a very effective rep - hence constantly at the end of a management purge.  EIS motto should be #the more they hate you, the better a job you are doing#



From the comments thread on that link:

"I don't care whether these allegations are true or not; what matters is that they are true. Sack every one of these leftie union whingers and make them reapply for their old jobs on zero-pay contracts. And then ban them from applying for work at any other employer, and from claiming any state benefits."


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## catinthehat (Oct 26, 2016)

Idris2002 said:


> From the comments thread on that link:
> 
> "I don't care whether these allegations are true or not; what matters is that they are true. Sack every one of these leftie union whingers and make them reapply for their old jobs on zero-pay contracts. And then ban them from applying for work at any other employer, and from claiming any state benefits."



Maybe the 'author' needs to use a college to get support for logic, reasoning and structre.


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 4, 2016)

catinthehat said:


> Maybe the 'author' needs to use a college to get support for logic, reasoning and structre.


It's like a claymore mine packed with deadly balls of stupidity


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## alex_ (Nov 8, 2016)

I thought this was quite interesting 

The One Type of Leader Who Can Turn Around a Failing School

The most rewarded school leaders are the ones with the worst long term contribution to school performance.


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## alex_ (Nov 8, 2016)

catinthehat said:


> Adam Smith College four may face fraud charges
> ela.blogspot.is/2015/10/ministers-sack-board-of-college-after.html
> Glasgow college principal suspended just months after winning OBE
> Adam Smith College boss appears in court charged with £3m fraud



Presumably with his invisible hand he thought he'd get away with it.


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## Idris2002 (Nov 8, 2016)

alex_ said:


> Presumably with his invisible hand he thought he'd get away with it.


I wish I'd thought of this.


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## extra dry (Nov 26, 2016)

Usa is now on a similar track, intresting to see how much money goes in and what gets shat out.


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## chilango (Apr 14, 2017)

Sneaky fuckers setting up back door grammar schools


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## BigTom (Apr 15, 2017)

There's another Birmingham academy under investigation for fraud: Baverstock Academy: Police in fraud inquiry over collapsed school


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## purenarcotic (Apr 16, 2017)

BigTom said:


> There's another Birmingham academy under investigation for fraud: Baverstock Academy: Police in fraud inquiry over collapsed school



It's so sad what's happened to that school, really feel for the community in Druids Heath.


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## cantsin (Jul 26, 2017)

not in the 'corrupt' bracket ( so far ) , but in the absence of a general FS thread, thought I'd leave a progress update on our local £15-20M free school


140 pupils have joined in 3 yrs, so the school was fined £250K by ofsted in Feb for the chronic under attendance ( the claimed high demand for places that helped win personal intervention from Gove to get planning through was vigorously questioned by those in the know from the off - unsurprsingly, in a rural area, with several good, underattended schools in the locale
They didn't feel able to enter A SINGLE YR 11 PUPIL FOR GSCE'S THIS YEAR ( see TES link for deets )
Ofsted has now put school into special measure , deemed ' inadequate'
Free school that entered no Year 11 pupils for GCSEs is put in special measures

North Devon’s first free school rated as ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted


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## Orang Utan (Sep 2, 2017)

The first Academy has been absorbed by the Harris Federation after it went into special measures, following a huge deficit that led to a massive staff cull:
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pioneering-london-academy-absorbed-by-harris-federation/


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## Orang Utan (Oct 10, 2017)

DotCommunist posted this on the fingerprint thread, but it's worth a repost here:
LRB · George Duoblys · One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me!


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## Orang Utan (Oct 22, 2017)

Pure banditry here:
Collapsing academy trust ‘asset-stripped its schools of millions’


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## alex_ (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> Pure banditry here:
> Collapsing academy trust ‘asset-stripped its schools of millions’



The way it’s been going on for a while either suggests it was standard practice or a pyramid scheme.

Alex


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## Red Cat (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> DotCommunist posted this on the fingerprint thread, but it's worth a repost here:
> LRB · George Duoblys · One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me!



Thanks for posting this (I get the print version but hadn't seen it). The high school (part of a multi-trust academy) most of the kids from my 10 yr old's class will go to seems to be a school like this. I went to an open day on a Saturday and quite liked the emphasis in the head's talk on the children feeling safe, importance of relationships and predictability, but I visited on a school day and the the kid who showed us around managed to scare our kids by talking about rules, detention. When I pointed out that as R and her friend are only in yr 5 and they don't need to know all this, she told me that they were better learning it now before they started. I've since looked into it a bit more, and reading that article provides some context, and there's a definite 'new discipline' thing going on there.


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## snadge (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> DotCommunist posted this on the fingerprint thread, but it's worth a repost here:
> LRB · George Duoblys · One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me!




This made me laugh.



> ‘Year 7s study the _Odyssey_,’ my guide told me as we joined an English class, showing me a copy of the textbook the students were working from. ‘Mr Kirby [Michaela’s deputy head] rewrote it, taking out the chapters we don’t need to read. It saves us a lot of time.’



Am I getting this right, someone rewrote the odyssey and missed out a load of chapters as they were not going to be tested on those parts of the story?


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## Orang Utan (Oct 23, 2017)

snadge said:


> Am I getting this right, someone rewrote the odyssey and missed out a load of chapters as they were not going to be tested on those parts of the story?


I think it's quite commonplace not to read the whole book unfortunately


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## snadge (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> I think it's quite commonplace not to read the whole book unfortunately



What is the point of reading half a book? When I was at school we were recommended to read the whole book, to get context, now, pupils are even being denied that experience with re written books missing half the narrative.

Is this a teaching for the test type thinking.


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## SpookyFrank (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> DotCommunist posted this on the fingerprint thread, but it's worth a repost here:
> LRB · George Duoblys · One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me!



So, establish an informal atmosphere but only as a trap to get the kids to let their guard down so you can punish them later on. Sadistic twat


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## Plumdaff (Oct 23, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> I think it's quite commonplace not to read the whole book unfortunately



That's just tragic


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## May Kasahara (Oct 30, 2017)

Orang Utan said:


> DotCommunist posted this on the fingerprint thread, but it's worth a repost here:
> LRB · George Duoblys · One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me!



Thanks for posting this OU, very interesting indeed.

Re. Wakefield City Academies Trust, I was very interested to read their (glowing) outcome letter from Ofsted's focused MAT inspection in 2015. What a difference two years makes, eh?


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 30, 2017)

snadge said:


> What is the point of reading half a book? When I was at school we were recommended to read the whole book, to get context, now, pupils are even being denied that experience with re written books missing half the narrative.
> 
> Is this a teaching for the test type thinking.



Sadly, taking the lead from the private education sector of teaching to the test, not teaching for the expansion of knowledge.


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## catinthehat (Nov 9, 2017)

This is the sort of school you can get if the mucky fingers of profit are not in it.  140 students.  20 teachers. 3 admin/support.  Excellent systems.  Set their own policies.  No inspections.  No exams.  The place is as calm as a spa. No hierarchy.  If I taught here you would have to physically remove me at the end of the day.  Max of 15 per class - any more and the teacher gets paid extra.


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## alex_ (Nov 10, 2017)

catinthehat said:


> This is the sort of school you can get if the mucky fingers of profit are not in it.  140 students.  20 teachers. 3 admin/support.  Excellent systems.  Set their own policies.  No inspections.  No exams.  The place is as calm as a spa. No hierarchy.  If I taught here you would have to physically remove me at the end of the day.  Max of 15 per class - any more and the teacher gets paid extra.



Where is that ?


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## Orang Utan (Nov 10, 2017)

alex_ said:


> Where is that ?


Doncaster


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## catinthehat (Nov 10, 2017)

Snafellsness in Iceland (but typical of schools here).  Though Orang Utans answer is better!


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## scifisam (Nov 10, 2017)

snadge said:


> What is the point of reading half a book? When I was at school we were recommended to read the whole book, to get context, now, pupils are even being denied that experience with re written books missing half the narrative.
> 
> Is this a teaching for the test type thinking.



Nah, the Odyssey is our current written version of a centuries-old story that was handed down by oral tradition for generations. It's not a book that has one official with a definitive author. It's more like looking at one episode of Eastenders and asking about the storytelling tropes therein. 

There's nothing wrong with studying parts of it, quite apart from the fact that the length would make it impossible for any teacher to cover in full, especially in year 7. The kids then get something that is not British, was extremely influential for world literature and comes up in fiction all the time even now, and has some cool monsters in it. You can easily miss out the bits where the bard was probably filling time while everyone went off to get more ouzo.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 14, 2017)

bit in the groan today might be of interest:
Take heart – the monstrous academy system is running out of road | Fiona Millar


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## catinthehat (Nov 28, 2017)

Our local FE college is currently advertising for current students to take roles as teaching assistants - as unpaid volunteers.  They must have a qualification one level above those they will be teaching 'in large or small groups delivering key skills of Maths, Communication and IT'.  Their reward will be a 'Bronze Level Badge' which is awarded by the college.  Scores of qualified lecturers redundant, replaced by unqualified instructors on zero hours contracts and unpaid student volunteers.  But all is not gloomy - management and administration jobs have increased and the principal and senior managers have a new 'suite' and enhanced salary.  Which is handy as most of them send their kids to the local private school.  Where there are qualified teachers on full time contracts and no teaching done by a 16 year old with a C in Maths!


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## 8115 (Dec 3, 2017)

40,000 children trapped in ‘zombie’ academy schools


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## BigTom (Jan 10, 2018)

Outrage as school splits kids playground into 'rich and poor' zones

Wednesbury Oak academy asked parent's to pay for new sports/playground equipment, then stopped children whose parent's hadn't paid from using parts of the playground. Grim.


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## Idris2002 (Jan 10, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Outrage as school splits kids playground into 'rich and poor' zones
> 
> Wednesbury Oak academy asked parent's to pay for new sports/playground equipment, then stopped children whose parent's hadn't paid from using parts of the playground. Grim.


The head in that piece seems to be arguing that the money isn't that much - but that makes it even worse, that she's punishing the kids to get back at the parents.


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## Winot (Jan 10, 2018)

Jesus Christ.


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## BigTom (Jan 10, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> The head in that piece seems to be arguing that the money isn't that much - but that makes it even worse, that she's punishing the kids to get back at the parents.



Yep, seemed like she was bitter not many parents had paid anything. Really horrible stuff from her i thought.


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## Poot (Jan 10, 2018)

There's nothing like finding out your place in the word early doors, is there?


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## alex_ (Jan 10, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Yep, seemed like she was bitter not many parents had paid anything. Really horrible stuff from her i thought.



Totally pathetic.


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## chilango (Jan 10, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Outrage as school splits kids playground into 'rich and poor' zones
> 
> Wednesbury Oak academy asked parent's to pay for new sports/playground equipment, then stopped children whose parent's hadn't paid from using parts of the playground. Grim.



Wow. 

I mean the entire education system essentially works like this, but this is brazen.


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## BigTom (Jan 10, 2018)

hang on a minute...



> Of some 450 pupils she said only 50 parents had paid the £6, which amounted to just "15 pence per week", and all that was purchased was a football a rugby ball, a slinky, two skipping ropes and some a tennis balls.



£6x50 = £300. A football, a rugby ball, a slinky, two skipping ropes and some tennis balls. For £300?


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## chilango (Jan 10, 2018)

BigTom said:


> hang on a minute...
> 
> 
> 
> £6x50 = £300. A football, a rugby ball, a slinky, two skipping ropes and some tennis balls. For £300?



Perhaps from a “preferred supplier” with some sort of exclusive rights who have _absolutely no connection at all_ with the bosses/board/governors/head?


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## BigTom (Jan 22, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Perry Beeches saga: who was involved
> 
> Perry Beeches academy chain in Birmingham pays £1.3m to company that headteacher is director of and gets a £160k wage from. Not sure if the academy chain actually had the schools taken off them or not.



School chain 'collapsed owing nearly £500k over unfilled pupil places'

Collapsed owing £500k to the government for school places that weren't ever filled but they calimed funding for. Schools have been transferred to two other academy trusts/groups.


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## BigTom (May 17, 2018)

Shocking images reveal squalid & seedy 'sex lair' in HEADMASTER'S office



> Stewart also spent the stolen funds on hotel stays in London and sex toys which he kept in his desk drawer, Cambridge News reports.
> 
> Investigations revealed that the £120,000-a-year headmaster had made £80,000 worth of bogus expenses claims to buy luxury items including smoked salmon and oysters.
> 
> ...




The defrauding of academies seems pretty run of the mill now... it's the sex dungeon in the school that is so shocking here.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 20, 2018)

An academy head has been awarded an 850,000 pound severage deal after trousering the proceeds from multiple businesses he was running on the school grounds, including a dating site.

Former academy head given £850,000 payoff

Among this guy's ruses was to charge the school to use its own swimming pool, which he'd somehow transferred to a private company of which he was director. How this joker is now getting paid roughly ten times more than I've earned in my entire life as a reward for getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar is beyond comprehension.


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## Libertad (Nov 21, 2018)

SpookyFrank said:


> An academy head has been awarded an 850,000 pound severage deal after trousering the proceeds from multiple businesses he was running on the school grounds, including a dating site.
> 
> Former academy head given £850,000 payoff
> 
> Among this guy's ruses was to charge the school to use its own swimming pool, which he'd somehow transferred to a private company of which he was director. How this joker is now getting paid roughly ten times more than I've earned in my entire life as a reward for getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar is beyond comprehension.



Let's just hope that they were school approved regulation trousers.


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