Are there any commercial arrangements between the Trust school and Educentre or the Developer?

No, bar the lease rental. Educentre and the developer will sign warranties to the effect that they will never have any financial interest in the operation of the school, except from the property lease. For the avoidance of doubt, there will be no selling of books, training courses, IT equipment, furniture or any ' arrangement with other companies who do so. On the contrary the whole point of The Educentre Franchise is to provide the school with high quality central services that are free.

What happens if the developer goes bust or pulls out for any reason?
The short answer is nothing that will effect the school. The school trust signs a long lease to occupy the educentre, effectively in perpetuity, according to the terms of the lease. It does not matter to the school who owns the lease. The ownership of the lease will operate as any normal lease. In the event of the bankruptcy of the lessor, the lease would be sold by the liquidator to a new lessor who would be legally bound to comply with the terms of the lease.

Further, the Education Act 2006 specifically says that if there were ever not to be a school on the site, the school assets will revert to the local authority ownership.

What happens if the developer does not make a profit on the lease?
The short answer is nothing that will effect the school. The school trust signs a long lease to occupy the educentre, effectively in perpetuity, according to the terms of the lease. It does not matter to the school who owns the lease. The ownership of the lease will operate as any normal lease. In the event of the bankruptcy of the lessor or a stratgeic decision to pull out, the lease would be sold by the lessor or liquidator to a new lessor who would be legally bound to comply with the terms of the lease. The fact that the lessor has invested £26m in the facility means that if they were to decide to withdraw, the sale price of the lease would have to reflect the rental income being achieved. If the rental did not justify a price of £26m, then the lessor would have to sell at a discount, in the same way as any other property development.

Further, the Education Act 2006 specifically says that if there were ever not to be a school on the site, the school assets will revert to the local authority ownership.

Why is the Educentre Franchise Model Better Value for the public sector than PFI or BSF?
Because in PFI and BSF the private sector always gets their return, even if the new school is failing. In the Educentre Franchise Model, the developer's return declines if parents do not support the school, so the developer's risk and the parent's risk are fully aligned. They are rowing in the same direction. If the parents win, the developers win and vice versa.

The Educentre Model also saves the public sector £26m per school, or £2.5 billion for every 100 academies. Should the public sector be paying for services that the private sector will provide at its own risk?

What happens if the developer wants to open a McDonalds?
The Educentre Franchise sets out the sort of desirable tenants to occupy the Educentre and the undesirables. The franchise will be scoped out by the first 15 Educentre CEOs in the two years of transition whilst they are being built, in partnership with Partnership for Schools, The Department for Children's Services and existing governors. The restaurant services will draw heavily on the advice and guidance of The School Food Trust for example.

Small is beautiful: aren't all big schools bad?
Is Eton a bad school? Of course not, but it is a very big school.

The future in education is now clear: there will be a mixture of very large classes, perhaps of up to even 90 students, each with perhaps 5 teachers of different specialisms helping each other in the class. A SuperStar teacher with a proven track record of electrifying a class. A subject specialist. A learning platform specialist. And perhaps one or two mentor-teachers specially trained in social pedagogy.

These large classes will be combined with very, very small classes of perhaps 5 or 10 students.

The control of this envigorating, personalised learning programme is made possible by technology, in particular by a learning platform which has high quality learning resources in each subject, at every level, differentiated according to where each student is in their learning programme.

And the technology and redeployment of teaching resources are all made possible by a new flexible building design which also ensures  a calm, productive and secure working environment.

Small schools or old fashioned schools - even if newly built - will find it virtually impossible to match the level of personalised support which is designed into an educentre.

We are also allowing for the possibility for several schools to consolidate into the same educentre facility, keeping their own brands and identities but all operating under the same Educentre franchise and enjoying the same stunning facilities.

As in life: small and large are beautiful. It's just a matter of good design.

What happens if Educentre's student capacity of 2500 is not reached?
In short, nothing that will effect the school. Please refer to FAQs number 2) and 3). In fact the developer will achieve an adequate return at student levels of circa 800. If the school is very successful, for example because it achieves its mission to ensure that all students gain at least a grade C in GCSE Maths and English, and go on to become sufficiently mature emotionally to achieve Independent Learner Certification, so that they all fulfill their full individual potential, then all the better for all parents in the area and the developer.

Strategically this will mean that other schools in the area will face stiff competition from the local Educentre, but the price of resisting this competition, of sticking with the discredited status quo, is measured in the ruined lives of local children.

That's why we want to work with local authorities as they implement their BSF, Academy and school consolidation programmes.

But if anyone believes that the status quo is OK, that the UK can quaintly resist the global forces of competition, that the UK can afford to accept 1 out of 2 of all our children, on average, failing to achieve grade C in either Maths or English at GCSE any longer, then perhaps the following presentations will help shift you so that you better understand the threat to our civilisation of our continued complacency and the opportunity that Educentre is offering: starting with a holistic and economically viable plan that gives schools a real chance of tackling the emotional immaturity of our children, whatever their background and whatever personal disadvantage they have experienced to date. Now more than ever, “Every Child Matters” and none of them can be left behind.

SHIFT HAPPENS

WHAT IF?

Is Educentre effectively the privatisation of education?
Not really. Socialism is about people voting for something which increases fairness and equality. It's about giving the government of the day a mandate and the money to get the job done. In this respect Educentre changes nothing.

What Educentre does is to give the government and local authorities new options in how to get the job done. The public sector still pays via the lease rental but it only pays if parents want the Educentre service. So Educentre is about achieving a socialist goal expressed through the ballot box by giving the people who actually use the service more choice.

Yes, it might cause a bit of a headache to local authorities in the short term if educentres are very successful, or indeed if other private operators are successful in the same area. Local authorities will have to juggle their provision and manage the transition. But that is what we vote them in to do. That's their job. A few short term transitional difficulties is a small price to pay for ending long term and endemic failure which ruins local children's lives. Furthermore local authorities who embrace educentres will be kick starting the regeneration of their areas based on high quality knowledge based new services which will spiral out from the educentre. This effect cannot be over-estimated: look at the presentation Shift Happens above and you will understand how new jobs appear seemingly out of thin air...but only if you allow them to by deregulating the knowledge sector. Educentre represents just such a deregulation. Call it Socialism, call it Social Capitalism. Call it what you like but there is no doubt that its time has come. Our kids deserve better. Our country needs to be better and whatever our ideology, we need to make it work better for everyone. Today.

What if some governors are risk averse and too worried to change?
They should consider their position.

If they do not have a viable plan to ensure that the - on average - 1 out of 2 students who fail to achieve at least grade C in either English or Maths do get those grades; if they do not have a viable plan and effective social pedagogy implementation strategy to teach emotional intelligence to all their students; then they should hand over to a team of governors who do have such a plan.

Or stay on board and help see the changes through.

Doing nothing, staying with the status quo, being risk averse but ignoring the principal risk of continuing endemic failure, is surely not a morally attractive option? Not when there is an alternative on offer? Indeed, it is not necessarily even a legally safe position.