Trust founder’s 15-minute Facebook interview with former Brexit Party MEP fails to spell out wider pressures it is facing from DfE

Why would you spend a 15-minute interview talking about the pressures from government on your academy trust, without disclosing that the Department for Education had in effect threatened to wind it up if it did not comply with a string of demands to improve its financial management and governance?

The thought occurred as I watched a surreal encounter, on a Facebook channel, between the principal of a free school which has featured twice recently on this website, and the former Brexit Party MEP who is the channel’s “chief presenter”.

David Perks, principal of the East London Science School (ELSS), had been in the media in late February over his decision to “defy the Government’s guidance on face masks in the classroom”, by refusing to insist that face coverings be worn in lessons.

Perks set out the thinking behind that decision in the interview last week on the Facebook channel “Unlocked”. This describes itself as a “new common-sense media channel for those abandoned by the MSM [mainstream media]”.

Remarkably, Perks also went into detail on the pressure he said had been put on him and the trust running the school, by the Regional Schools Commissioner, as well as a behind-the-scenes stand-off with another academy trust over the ongoing lease of temporary buildings for the school’s sixth-form.