The week

15th July 2011, 1:00am

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The week

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/week-280

It would probably be fair to say that Rebekah Brooks has had a busy week. The News International chief executive has taken centre stage in the biggest scandal to hit Fleet Street in, well, er, ever; announced the closure of the News of the Screws; and been accused of involvement in all manner of other nefarious deeds. Phew. And now she’s under fire from yet another quarter: the NUT and NASUWT (page 6). They are unhappy about her role as an academy governor. Surely Rupert can stand by her no more.

Hosting the TES Schools Awards last week, Rory Bremner said News International staff had a history of being promoted into positions for which they were not qualified; Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and ... Michael Gove, former assistant editor of The Times. OK, it was a cheap shot, but it got a laugh from a roomful of teachers whose hard work was getting a little bit of the recognition it deserves (pages 1617). The ceremony was, of course, both glittering and the Oscars of the profession.

In his current job, Mr Gove no doubt has more important things on his mind than newspapers, such as who will fill the now vacant chief inspector’s chair at Ofsted. Speculation at the weekend suggested that the education secretary is rather keen on a man who he has previously described as a “hero”, Mossbourne Academy principal Sir Michael Wilshaw. The strict disciplinarian - that’s Sir Michael, rather than Mr Gove - rather sensibly refused to comment, but his odds at the book being run by The TES have shortened considerably.

Meanwhile, the Department for Education has announced (did someone say re-announced?) a set of behaviour policies, accompanied by some exclusion statistics dating back to 200809 which showed that more than 363,000 pupils had been suspended for abuse or assault. This was followed up by one of our daily newspapers - we’ll leave you to guess which - with a headline about “BRITAIN’S BROKEN SCHOOLS”, and claims that violent behaviour had doubled in just 12 months. Except, according to our reading of the stats, that number was actually 5 per cent down on the previous year. Perhaps “broken schools” are to blame for journalists’ bad maths as well.

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