Things started well enough at Monday's council cabinet when

members came to discuss the radical review of secondary schools

in the borough announced last week.

Both the Conservatives and Labour members agreed that if

children are going to succeed they need a good education.

And both agreed it was down to the council, as the local

education authority, to provide decent schools delivering that

good start.

But all too predictably, those points of agreement seemed to

get lost as the usual round of mud slinging came to the fore

after just a few minutes.

Labour leader Tony Newman professed his horror at the

Tories' handling of the announcement.

This saw the main details of the changes, including closing

four schools and creating two new academies, appear in the

Advertiser before headteachers, staff and parents knew what was

going on.

Cllr Newman certainly wasn't placated by hearing children's

services cabinet member Maria Gatland deplore the leak.

And chief executive Jon Rouse announcing a thorough leak

investigation at the council's Taberner House HQ, covering

phone calls and e-mails, didn't calm him either.

Cllr Newman's point was that if the Tories' handling of the

review launch treated headteachers with contempt, as he claimed

it did, how could anyone really believe the planned

consultation had any merit.

People, he claimed, would be left believing minds were

already made up about the changes.

Of course that kind of accusation raised Tory hackles and

they laid in with claims they at least were doing something

positive to improve schools.

Labour, council leader Mike Fisher argued, had run away from

making any decisions during its 12 years in power and the

result was some schools were now badly under-performing.

As the “you are worse than us” arguments raged the real

issues of consensus about a better deal for pupils sunk,

hopefully just temporarily, without trace.

At least, in the end, the cabinet did get round to approving

the public consultation exercise.

Everyone must now be hopeful the informed and, with a bit of

luck, non-politically driven debate is about to start.

CROYDON North MP Malcolm Wicks took time off on Saturday

from tackling the energy crisis to demonstrate his footballing

skills at St James the Great School, in Thornton Heath.

But by some accounts those skills left a bit to be

desired.

His contribution to the school's football festival was

taking five penalties against pupil goalkeepers of varying ages

and he missed the lot.

Fans of Mr Wicks are adamant he was anxious not to upset his

young opponents by crashing the ball past them into the

net.

Others believe the MP was actually concentrating on doing a

very passable impersonation of Chelsea captain John Terry's

penalty taking skills demonstrated in the recent Champions

League final.

Nevertheless at the end the day the festival was a success,

raising around £1,000 to improve football coaching at the

school.