Once upon a time, schools were schools. Some of them were good, some of them less so. But they were all schools – and they were all called schools, whether they were grant maintained, comprehensive or foundation.

Then the Labour Government of Tony Blair conjured up academies, failing schools taken out of local authority control run by sponsors in a bid to raise standards. Today there are 8,500 academies, some of them free schools, some studio schools, and some others university technical colleges. And they are all still schools. It’s just some of them aren’t so obviously called that.

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