Dungeons, Dragons and Discipline – Gaming Entrepreneur To Open Two Free Schools
Education secretary Nicky Morgan has announced details of 22 newly approved free schools – the first of 500 that the government hopes to see open before 2020 – including two that will be opened by UK gaming entrepreneur, Ian Livingstone. Livingstone entered the UK’s then nascent gaming and hobbyist industry in the mid 70s importing […]
Education secretary Nicky Morgan has announced details of 22 newly approved free schools – the first of 500 that the government hopes to see open before 2020 – including two that will be opened by UK gaming entrepreneur, Ian Livingstone.
Livingstone entered the UK’s then nascent gaming and hobbyist industry in the mid 70s importing copies of the popular US role-playing game, Dungeon and Dragons – a business that would go on to become the Nottingham-based games publisher and miniatures manufacturer Games Workshop.
In the 80s he went on to popularise the concept of ‘gamebooks’ alongside GW co-founder Steve Jackson with the Fighting Fantasy series, and later held a senior role at UK video games publisher Eidos Interactive, where he helped launch the Tomb Raider franchise.
In 2010, he co-produced the independent Next Gen report, which highlighted the skills shortages encountered by the UK’s video game and visual effects industries among British school-leavers, and how these could be addressed.
The two ‘Livingstone Academies’ will be located in Tower Hamlets and Bournemouth, providing over 3000 places between them, and form part of the the Aspirations Academy Trust. in Both will pursue a curriculum rooted in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) and draw on Livingstone’s connections within the creative industries to offer learning with an emphasis on creative thinking and enterprise. Examples of what Livingstone Academy students can expect include Dragon’s Den-style contests mock start-up company exercises.
Other free schools announced included The Sutton New School 2, a new special school to opened in Sutton by The Greenshaw Learning Trust, the University of Brighton Secondary School, which will provide Brighton and Hove with a further 900 secondary places and Shireland High Tech Primary, which will open in Birmingham under the Collegiate Academy Trust. Details were also announced of three Islamic faith schools in Harrow and Manchester and a Christian faith school in Kent.
PCC free schools on the way?
In further free school-related news, Home Secretary Theresa May yesterday gave a speech to the think tank Policy Exchange, in which she mooted the possibility of having elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs) play a role in setting up alternative provision free schools. Citing the example of Northamptonshire PCC Adam SImmonds, whose Wootton Park School is due to open in September this year, May said, ‘I believe the next set of PCCs should bring together the two great reforms of the last Parliament – police reform and school reform – to work with and possibly set up alternative provision free schools to support troubled children and prevent them from falling into a life of crime.’
In subsequent comments reported by The Guardian, May referred to Wooton Park School as an ‘Early intervention” initiative, which would be looking to take “Young people on the cusp of crime, or interested in joining the police”, as part of the ‘Taking a generation out of crime’ initiative, outlined in a report published by Simmonds last year titled ‘Policing Our Future‘.
