ARK ACADEMIES

* The ARK Master Funding Agreement states:

24) The core subjects of the National Curriculum (being Mathematics, English and Science) must be taught to all pupils in years 7-11 except where, in the opinion of the head teacher, it is inappropriate for an individual pupil or groups of pupils to be taught one or more of those subjects.

ARK does not say what students will study instead.

It also states:

100) Subject to article 101, the Directors shall ensure that a copy of:
a) the agenda for every meeting of the Directors; b) the draft minutes of every such meeting, if they have been approved by the person acting as chairman of that meeting; c) the signed minutes of every such meeting; and d) any report, document or other paper considered at any such meeting,
are, as soon as is reasonably practicable, made available at every Academy to persons wishing to inspect them.

101) There may be excluded from any item required to be made available in pursuance of Article 100, any material relating to ……..c) any matter which, by reason of its nature, the Directors are satisfied should remain confidential. (1)

So, any minutes, documents, notes etc from Directors’ meetings, can have information withheld from the public, at the decision of the Directors.

* ARK Academies are involved with the Teens and Toddlers programme, also known as ‘Children Our Ultimate Investment’ (COUI). (2)

* ARK, Teens and Toddlers, Children Our Ultimate Investment and Psychosynthesis Education Trust work together:

Diana Whitmore MAEd, Founder, Teens and Toddlers UK
Diana is a director of Children Our Ultimate Investment UK, vice-president of the Board of COUI (USA) and the international director. She is President of the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust and is one of the UK's leading trainers of counselling and psychotherapy.(3)

* ARK funds Children Our Ultimate Investment and sets targets; from the website Guide Star, where charities’ details are recorded:

COUI UK continued adhering to its four year business plan, compiled with the ARK, the major funder. We consistently met all of the ARK performance targets in terms of number of teenagers reached and number of Teens & Toddlers Sustainability Replication Programmes sold. Performance targets for selling programmes for 2007 2008 have already been achieved. (4)

* The Psychosynthesis Education Trust, from the website ‘Guide Star’;

The Trust's main purpose is to gain recognition for the central role of Soul and Self in psychology and to renew the soul in the everyday life of individuals, the family, groups, organisations and society.

Legal (from the Public Register of Charities)
Date of charity registration:
10 September 1999
Legal charitable objects
TO FOSTER PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH INTO THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION BODY, MIND, EMOTIONS AND SPIRIT AND THE SYNTHESIS THEREOF (KNOWN AS BIO-PSYCHOSYNTHESIS) AND ITS DISSEMINATION TO THE PUBLIC THROUGH EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES. (5)

*) Non Legal version of this charities objects include:
Training Psychosynthesis and non-Psychosynthesis counsellors and therapists.

*) ‘Children Our Ultimate Investment’ also run ‘Project Caressing’ : which teaches young children about tactile relationships with men. (6) The founder of ‘Children Our Ultimate Investment’, Laura Huxley, wife of eugenicist Aldous Huxley, had this to say:

Huxley said bonding between young and old is accomplished through caressing and would like to see more men become involved in the nurturing process.
“It’s very good for men to do this because they also need the feeling of being caressed,” she said. “Kids need to see men as much as women. It’s never too ate to start…………It’s makes them feel happy and there’s nothing more beneficial than a little tiny hand coming over, touching and reaching out,” she said. (7)

Washington Post quotes Laura Huxley, founder of COUI:
"Children are our ultimate investment and also very much the ultimate investment of the tobacco companies, the ultimate investment of the liquor companies and, for sure, of the gun companies," she told an interviewer. …….In practice, the organization featured programs uniting the elderly with babies, based on the belief that both were emotionally needy and could benefit from a healing touch. Liability issues later ended this effort. (8)

ARK is also a part of Clinton's Global Initiative. (9)

References:

(1)  http://www.dfes.gov.uk/foischeme/_documents/DfES_FoI_279.pdf
(2)  http://www.arkonline.org/?p=56
(3)  http://www.teensandtoddlers.org/biographies.htm
(4)  http://www.guidestar.org.uk/gs_activities.aspx?CCReg=HrSAjmXn3v%2bj4Zy8uKa%2f6A%3d%3d&strQuery=psychosynthesis%20education%20trust
(5)  http://www.guidestar.org.uk/gs_organ.aspx?CCReg=HrSAjmXn3v%2bj4Zy8uKa%2f6A%3d%3d&strQuery=psychosynthesis%20education%20trust#content
(6)  http://www.children-ourinvestment.org/PCpage.htm
(7)  http://www.children-ourinvestment.org/PCLiving1.htm
(8)  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121401997.html
(9)  http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Document.Doc?&id=108