Contact
Professor Becky Francis, Commission Director
Professor Becky Francis has followed a research career focusing on education and social justice. She is Director of the Pearson Think Tank, and Professor of Education and Social Justice at King’s College London. She was previously Director of Education at the RSA, and Professor of Education at Roehampton University. Becky’s policy research and analysis includes her recent influential work on ‘Satisfactory’ schools, in relation to social disadvantage; and she is best known for her academic work on gender and educational achievement.
For general enquirers, please contact Prof Becky Francis at becky.francis@pearson.com
For media enquiries, please contact Luke Robinson, RSA Head of Media, on 07799 737 970 or luke.robinson@rsa.org.uk
Having carefully read the commission’s remit, it appears the impact on pedagogy of the move to academies is unlikely to receive specific attention.
I hope you are able to confirm the implications for pedagogy are fully addressed in the commission’s work.
Hi Kenneth. Thanks for your interest in the Commission. As you can see from the remit, and given the ‘speed’ of this exercise, the Commission is concerned centrally with pupil outcomes, due diligence and accountability. However it is inevitable that, given the freedoms given to academies, issues of pedagogy and curriculum will arise in our call for evidence and we will attempt to attend to this as much as we can. However there will no doubt be areas that deserve greater exploration after the Commission has reported and we very much hope the Commission will be able to point to areas that demand further policy attention in its final report. We will be opening the formal call for evidence in the next few weeks so do keep looking at the website for news of how to submit evidence.
Hi Kim,
I’d be very interested in playing a role in the Commission. I’ve been involved in both LA run schools in four authorities as well as being a consultant for the Building Schools for the Future Programme, which incidentally, involved me being embedded on secondment at the RSA Academy for fifteen months. I’m critically aware of the purposes and practicalities of Academy set up and operation and am keen to support the work of the Commission.
Best wishes,
David Hughes FRSA
Hello David. Many thanks for your interest. I have sent you an email about how you can contribute. Kind regards, Kim.
You published article in todays news that Academies causing segregation,
wonder what is causing you not to say that we already got this parallel education system which is causing more segregation than what you can see….
We already got known three tier system
General (academies), selective – grammar schools and posh – private schools are these not causing the segregation?
Why are you not fighting to eliminate these differences ? I am sure you are not capable of doing that and hence highlighting the easy way to be in the news.
Thank you for your comment and interest. There are indeed issues in the non-academies schools (including the ones you mentioned), but in some instances, the academies system may cause further issues due to the changes in admission/appeal processes and accountability. This Commission has a focus on academies, so we did not have the space to discuss wider issues extensively in our report. We certainly support fair and equal access for all and have a genuine interest in improving the education system to serve all children and young people.
Forgot to add another tier, Religious school…. I am sure these are also selective…
Re Academies causing segretation. Our local non faith based Academy (Tudor Grange, Solihull) is trying to give higher admissions priority to the two faith based schools it has recently developed “links” with over catchment kids. Can it be right for Academies to use the admissions system to convert non faith schools into faith schools with no consultation?
Thank you for your comment. Sorry we cannot comment on particular examples; however, all admissions to maintained schools, including academies, must be made in accordance with the School Admissions Code. Anyone who has concerns about how any state-funded school is admitting pupils can formally object to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.