The School Report: The Hidden Truth About Britain's Classrooms

Over a period of 18 months Davies researched for the Guardian a special series of stories investigating the condition of our state schools. They were published in three batches between September 1999 and July 2000 at lengths varying from 600 words to 7 000. The series attempted to go beneath the surface issues to expose the fundamentals - the undeclared but highly successful policy to kill off our comprehensive schools; the bogus analysis of school failure used by Ofsted; the fabrication of facts by Ofsted's chief inspector Chris Woodhead; the gross dishonesty about funding by the Secretary of State; the link between the success of private schools and the failure of state schools; graphic stories about underfunding about the lives of truants; an expose of how teachers have joined children in cheating to deliver the exam results which the government demands; some pointers to solutions based on Dutch schools. The response was huge.