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Wednesday 9 July 2008

Speakers for the motion:

Professor Chris Woodhead: Former Chief Inspector of Schools. Educated at Wallington Grammar School and Bristol University. After seven years' teaching, he held a number of national jobs in education, first running the National Curriculum Council, then the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority and, finally, OFSTED. He resigned as Chief Inspector of Schools in November 2000 in order to be able to speak out on educational and political issues. He now writes for the Sunday Times and other national newspapers and appears regularly on television and radio. He holds the Sir Stanley Kalms Chair in Education at the University of Buckingham.

Martin Stephen: Dr Martin Stephen was appointed High Master of St Paul's School in September 2005. Educated at Uppingham School, he has a BA from the University of Leeds and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. Having taught English at Uppingham School, Haileybury and Sedbergh, he became Headmaster of the Perse School in 1987 and High Master of Manchester Grammar in 1994. He was Chairman of HMC 2003-2004. He has written and edited many books on English literature and poetry, and on British warship designs and sea battles. His latest (and fourth) novel was published this year and is entitled Rebel's Heart.

Rt Hon Lord Tebbit: British Conservative politician and former MP. Educated at Edmonton County School, a selective state school in north London. He held a number of senior Cabinet posts under Margaret Thatcher before resigning as party chairman in 1987 to look after his wife who had been disabled in the 1984 IRA Brighton bombing. He refused Mrs Thatcher's offer to become Education Secretary in 1990 for the same reason. Since entering the House of Lords in 1992 he has been politically active, campaigning against the Maastricht Treaty, attacking aid to Africa and opposing the British Government's Gender Recognition Bill and Civil Partnership Bill. He has criticised the Conservative Party under David Cameron for alienating core Tory supporters and is patron of the cross party Better Off Out campaign which advocates British withdrawal from the EU. 

Speakers against the motion:

Fiona Millar: A journalist specialising in education and parenting issues and an active campaigner for fair admissions to secondary schools. She was a special adviser to the Prime Minister (1997 and 2003) and now writes a column in Education Guardian, as well as contributing to LBC radio, Commentisfree, the Guardian's online comment page, and frequent television and radio debates on education. She wrote and presented a film The Best for My Child about parental choice for Channel Four in 2004. She is chair of the Family and Parenting Institute, vice-chair of Comprehensive Future and a governor of two schools in North London.

Rt Hon David Blunkett MP: Secretary of State for Education and Employment after the Labour election victory of 1997. He became Home Secretary in 2001 until his resignation in 2004, and then took a leading role in fighting Labour's third term election campaign in spring 2005. From May to November 2005 he was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. After his second resignation he published The Blunkett Tapes: My Life in the Bear Pit in 2006, and has further pursued his long-standing commitment to the third sector in promoting voluntary, community and social enterprise. He has been the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside since 1987.

William Atkinson: Headteacher of Phoenix High School, Hammersmith and Fulham, since April 1995. He was the inspiration behind the Lenny Henry 'superhead' character who transformed a failing school in the 1999 BBC series Hope and Glory. William has been involved in a number of organisations and panels and was one of the original members of the DfEE Standards Task Force (1997-2001) where he chaired a number of sub-groups covering Schools in Challenging Circumstances. William has been widely featured in the media, most recently in the Channel 4 documentary series The Unteachables, where he undertook the role as headteacher on the project. In September 2004 Mr Atkinson was portrayed as a 'Minister' in the BBC2 series Crisis Command. In December 1999 he was the subject of a BBC2 profile Just William which portrayed a day in his working life. He has contributed to a range of TV and radio programmes, including Newsnight, Panorama, Any Questions, You and Yours, Today, Start the Week, Radio 5 Live, P.M. and most recently Sky Television's Adam Boulton programme, BBC Question Time and Breakfast Television.

The debate will be chaired by Joan Bakewell. Joan Bakewell's broadcasting career spans some 35 years, first making her mark in the 60s as a presenter of BBC2's Late Night Line Up and presenting travel programmes and Granada's Report Action. In the 80s she was Arts Correspondent for the BBC and in the 90s she presented the award winning Heart of the Matter for BBC1. Throughout this time she has sustained a career in Radio and as a print journalist.

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