The long-serving Conservative schools minister Nick Gibb has been knighted in the new year’s honours, with former union leader Geoff Barton to receive the CBE. Gibb, who served for over ten years across three separate terms under four prime ministers, is widely seen alongside Michael Gove as the key architect of Conservative education policy over the past two decades. He championed the academies and free schools programme, a knowledge-rich curriculum and strict behaviour policies, and was once dubbed by this newspaper “The Immovable Nick Gibb” after surviving yet another reshuffle. Gibb, who stood down as an MP in July after 27 years in the House of Commons, is one of 60 people with links to England’s state school system recognised in the new year’s honours (read the full list below). He did not respond to a request for comment. CBE for ex-ASCL chief Barton, a former English teacher and secondary head, became general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders in 2017 after challenging the union’s preferred candidate in the first contested election …