Head criticises state interference

By Luke Coppen THE GOVERNMENT has intervened excessively in the management of schools, the headmaster of a prestigious Catholic independent school said last week.
Fr Leo Chamberlain, headmaster of Ampleforth College, claimed the Government had broken its promise to intervene only when strictly necessary, in a speech to fellow headteachers.
The Benedictine headmaster criticised the Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, for adding "to the already considerable pile of controls over schools" and described a 1999 regulation forcing heads to refer all admissions to their governors as a "crass example" of interference. He said: "Someone added up the sets of regulations covering education that had been issued in just nine months of 1999 by the DfEE [Department for Education and Employment]: the total was about 1000. There could hardly have been a clearer contradiction of the Labour party's manifesto of 1997: 'Our approach will be to intervene where there are problems, not where schools are succeeding."
In a witty and at times lighthearted speech to the Westminster Diocesan Secondary Headteachers' Annual Conference, Enfield, Fr Chamberlain looked forward to a future in which control of schools shifted from bureaucrats to headieachers.