A proposal for a free school staffed by former armed forces personnel has been approved.
The Department for Education (DfE) turned down plans for the Phoenix Free School in Oldham, which aimed to “keep kids out of gang culture”, last year.
But school director Tom Burkard said that decision was overturned after the proposal was resubmitted.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has said it is time to recognise the “natural and legitimate consequence of devolution” by having separate exam systems in each part of the UK.
GCSEs and A-levels have been central to the education systems in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for many years, and though Scotland already has its own separate system, significant new reforms are in the pipeline.
So how different has state-sponsored schooling in the UK’s constituent parts become?

Copland Community School in Wembley has been told by the DfE that it must become an academy. Unless agreement can be reached for a way forward for the school ATL, NASUWT and NUT* members at Copland will be on strike on Thursday 23rd May 2013 after they voted overwhelmingly for action.

Guest Post from @Brixtonite
In 2002 Jo Shuter took over Quintin Kynaston School in St John’s Wood, north London. Her appointment wasn’t popular with everyone – 100 staff left in her first year, 70 in the first term – but despite such a high staff turnover (which might have raised eyebrows elsewhere) she soon acquired the unofficial title of ‘superhead’ and the approving eye of Tony Blair, who used the school to launch his Children’s Services Green Paper in 2003.

An academy running four schools is paying its US parent company £100,000 a year to use its patented global curriculum, which has been criticised by Ofsted for lacking a “local” focus.
Aurora Academies Trust insists that the Paragon curriculum is transforming the fortunes of the primary schools in East Sussex. But unions and local Labour activists question whether the licensing deal represents the first step in plans to allow private companies to run schools for profit. Tory modernisers are said to be keen on the idea.