Tony McNulty gives a helping hand to Brent Labour

There was an interesting tweet from Cllr Krupesh Hirani yesterday when he was out campaigning for Labour in Dudden Hill ward.

Tony McNulty is the former Labour MP for Harrow East who resigned his ministerial position after  allegations that he claimed expenses for a second home, occupied by his parents, which was only 8 miles away from his primary residence. As a minister McNulty had said, 'We are absolutely determined to stop benefit thieves stealing from the British taxpayer.'

McNulty is married to Christine Gilbert, Interim Chief Executive of Brent Council. Gilbert's arrangement for her salary to be paid into her private company Christine Gilbert Associates LINK though legal, have come in for criticism.

Yesterday I blogged that  a report by Fiona Ledden, to be considered by full council, recommends that the permanent Chief Executive post is not advertised until after the 2014 Council Elections.

One of the stated reasons is:

Council will be aware that there will be an election in the Borough in May 2014 when all Council seats will be up for election and this is clearly an important matter for the authority not only in terms of operational management but also in relation to reputation management. The continuance of the current interim arrangements will ensure that the overall planning and management for that election can be organised and properly overseen by an interim Chief Executive who has developed a full understanding of the organisation.

It is reassuring that so much trouble is being taken to protect the reputation of the council.

Copland staff and parents issue challenge to Michael Gove and Brent Council

The teacher unions at Copland High School, Wembley, which is facing forced academisation by the DfE and an Interim Executive Board imposed by Brent Council,, have issued the following press release:

Since the very well supported strike action on 23rd May, Copland Community School staff in Wembley have set up an action group. On Thursday 13th June at a lively parents meeting at the school parents decided to also set up an action group. They will be coordinating jointly to continue their opposition to the imposition of an Interim Executive Board (IEB) and a forced academy.

Key demands are a secret ballot of all staff and parents before any decisions are made and a commitment from the Government to rebuild the appalling school buildings that the HMI said were not fit for purpose and adversely effected pupils' education.

Parents and staff, as well as the Headteacher and Chair of Governors, were very disappointed that neither Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of the Council and a Copland school governor, nor Cllr Michael Pavey, Lead member for Education attended the meeting despite claiming that parents views were important. No-one came from Brent Children and Families either despite claiming to support the school and its Headteacher.

It was clear that the parents remain loyal to the school and are prepared to defend it. Questions asked by Hank Roberts, ATL President in his letter to Labour Councillors at the end of May (see below) remain unanswered. 

The Unions and Action Groups have also asked to meet with Michael Gove. The letter reads:

You will be aware of the situation at Copland Community School in Brent. After a parents meeting last week to discuss the Ofsted report and its ramifications, parents set up an action group which will be co-ordinating with the staff action group.

Representatives from these action groups request an urgent meeting with you before any decisions are made about Copland's future. We are aware that you have met with representatives from Gladstone Park Primary School. We would hope and expect, therefore, that such an invitation be extended to Copland as well.

 The joint unions are looking for another day of strike action before the end of term if  they cannot get agreement from the Local Authority and the DfE that Copland will not be forced to become an academy.

Questions yet unanswered by Councillors

1) What actual educational evidence, other than Government propaganda, do you have that turning a school into an academy improves teaching and learning?
2) Why would you seek to ignore the Ofsted Report's recommendation that there be “an external review of Governance” at Copland, which is not an imposition of an IEB?
3) How do you answer the detailed points raised in the Chair of Governors letter, written on behalf of the Governing Body, explaining what had been done and crucial background information?
4) If Brent is claiming to be acting in the best interests of pupils' education then will you be asking the Governors to call a meeting of parents and carers to actually establish their views, or do you intend to have no consultation with parents?
5) As the last IEB at Copland failed to overcome the school's problems, what leads you to believe, and what evidence do you have, that it will succeed this time, especially if the staff did not want to co-operate with this imposed undemocratic body with no proper staff or parent representation?
6) Why would you and a Labour Council be acting to implement Gove's policies and do his 'dirty work' for him?

Council sells off more land for Bridge Park development - but no new secondary school

Stonebridge bus garage before conversion

Bridge Park Leisure Centre with Unisys House in background

Indicative scheme for the site

Tomorrow's Executive is to consider another council land sale financed development along similar lines to that at Willesden Green Library which provoked so much controversy. DETAILS

The Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre would be rebuilt as part of the scheme with some of its council owned land sold to the developer. A compulsory Purchase Order would be served on the car breakers that occupy part of the site. Bridge Park includes a number of business units and the separate Technology House office block is used by a children's nursery and a church.

The Centre was built on the site of the old Stonebridge bus station (I seem to remember trolley buses) and was partially a response to fears of disorder on the Stonebridge Estate in the wake of the 1985 riots.

Before land sale and compulsory purchase order

After land sale and CPO

The Unisys site is owned by General Mediterranean Holdings and they plan to build 512 dwellings and a hotel on their part of the site. The proposal differs from that for Willesden Green in that this involves a direct land sale rather than an agreement with a third party. Brent Council would procure its own architects and builders to build the new sports centre rather than developer such as Galliford Try.

The report states:

The Sale Agreement passes the risk of residential and commercial sales to the developer. So for example the council considered GMH carrying out the whole development on behalf of the council including building the sports centre. While this would remove the sports centre build cost risk to the council it would raise other issues. If the council for example set out its requirements for the sports centre and imposed an obligation to deliver the new sports centre in accordance with that specification then it would have tocomply with the European OJEU procurement rules and undertake a fully compliant and separate procurement process. This is despite the fact the landowner (GMH) has no intention of selling to a third party. A land sale avoids this protracted procurement process. The council would have to procure its own architects and build contractors but can do this effectively by using existing pre-OJEU procured frameworks.

It appears that the council has learned some lessons from the Willesden Green Library Centre development. However as with most schemes sold as 'gift horses' it is worth a closer look, particularly, as in the case of Willesden Green, the repercussions of occupying a smaller site as the result of the land sale.

Among the potential losers are the 37 business units in the Bridge Park complex. The Council  suggests they could be relocated in the commercial floor space proposed by GMH, relocate to other council owned space such as Harlesden Design Works or to 'other industrial spaces' in Park Royal. The current conference rooms in the Centre would not be replaced although the large function space would be, although a swimming pool could be installed instead as an option. It is noted that the latter would be a significant cost but would help secure the financial viability of the Centre.  The report notes that the proposed swimming pool on the site of Dexion House in Wembley 'shows no sign of being developed'.  In line with some of the schemes for school expansion a possible domed 5-a-side football pitch on the roof of the new sports centre is suggested.

There are no plans to replace the children's nursery although there is an option for a children's play area. The report merely says that it will 'look at further options to replace the nursery during the consultation process'. Remember the Willesden Bookshop...

Perhaps most importantly, in terms of the predicted shortage of secondary school places in Brent and the dearth of secondary schools south of the North Circular Road, a possible redevelopment involving an 8 form entry secondary school AND a shared sports centre on the site is rejected. This is because:

...there are currently no allocated funds to build a new school (c£18m), a new sports centre (c£9m) and additional flood storage (part of the site is in a identified flood zone) (c£1-2m)

512 new dwellings will of course add to the pressure on school places. I will be interesting to see how these proposals develop and are received by current users of the site. Certainly the Unisys site, empty and decaying for so long, needs to be utilised for something useful.

Declaration for People's Assembly June 22nd

 

The declaration below represents the beginning of a democratic process leading towards a second People’s Assembly in early 2014. This declaration represents the views of all those who initially called for the People’s Assembly. We hope it will be endorsed by the People’s Assembly on 22nd June. It will then be open to the local People’s Assembly’s, union bodies and campaign groups who support the People’s Assembly to suggest amendments, additions, or deletions. These will then all be discussed and decided upon at the recall People’s Assembly in 2014.

  

The plans for action are simply the most obvious rallying points for a national anti-cuts movement for the remainder of 2013. They are not intended to supersede local or sectional action by existing campaigns or trade unions. They are intended to be focus national, collective action by the whole anti-austerity movement.

The People’s Assembly, meeting in Westminster Central Hall, declares:

We face a choice that will shape our society for decades to come. It is a choice faced by ordinary people in every part of the globe.

We can defend education, health and welfare provision funded from general taxation and available to all, or we can surrender the gains that have improved the lives of millions of people for over more than 50 years.

We do not accept that government’s austerity programme is necessary. The banks and the major corporations should be taxed at a rate which can provide the necessary resources. Austerity does not work: it is a failure in its own terms resulting in neither deficit reduction nor growth. It is not just: the government takes money from the pockets of those who did not cause the crisis and rewards those who did. It is immoral: our children face a bleaker future if our services and living standards are devastated. It is undemocratic: at the last election a majority voted against the return of a Tory government. The Con-Dem coalition has delivered us into the grip of the Tories’ whose political project is the destruction of a universal welfare state.

We therefore choose to resist. We refuse to be divided against ourselves by stories of those on ‘golden pensions’, or of ‘scroungers’, or the ‘undeserving poor’. We do not blame our neighbours, whatever race or religion they maybe. We are not joining the race to the bottom. We stand with the movement of resistance across Europe.

We are clear in our minds that our stand will require us to defend the people’s right to protest, and so we support the right of unions and campaigns to organise and take such action as their members democratically decide is necessary.

We stand with all those who have made the case against the government so far: in the student movement, in the unions, in the many campaigns to defend services, the NHS, and in the Coalition of Resistance, the People’s Charter, UK Uncut, the environmental movement and the Occupy movement.

We do not seek to replace any organisations fighting cuts. All are necessary. But we do believe that a single united national movement is required to challenge more effectively a nationally led government austerity programme.

We have a plain and simple goal: to make government abandon its austerity programme. If it will not it must be replaced with one that will.

We will concentrate on action not words. We aim to provide the maximum solidarity for unions and other organisations and others taking action. We support every and all effective forms action and aim to build a united national movement of resistance.

Our case is clear. The government’s austerity programme does not work; it is unjust, immoral and undemocratic. Alternatives exist. Debts can be dropped. Privatisation can be reversed and common ownership embraced. A living wage can begin to combat poverty. Strong trade unions can help redistribute profit. The vast wealth held by corporations and the trillions held by the super rich in tax havens can be tapped. Green technology, alternatives to the arms industries, a rebuilt infrastructure including growth in manufacturing are all desperately needed. We are fighting for an alternative future for this generation and for those that come after us.

Proposed actions:

The People’s Assembly will support every genuine movement and action taken against any and all of the cuts. We support all current industrial actions by the unions. We encourage and will help to organise the maximum solidarity action with the PCS and teaching union members taking strike action the week after the People’s Assembly, as well as with other action by unions planned for the autumn.

Peoples Assemblies against the cuts should be organised in towns and cities across our nations, bringing all those fighting the cuts together into a broad democratic alliance on a local basis.

The national and the local Assemblies, in partnership with Trades Unions, Trades Councils, campaigning and community groups, can unite our movement and strengthen our campaigns. Local Assemblies will help us to organise a recalled National Assembly to review our work in the early spring of 2014.

We will work together with leading experts and campaigners both here and abroad, and friendly think tanks, to develop rapidly key policies and an alternative programme for a new anti-austerity government. We will continue to welcome support from all who fight the cuts.

We will call a national day of civil disobedience and direct action against austerity.

We will call a day of co-ordinated local demonstrations in the early autumn.

We will work with the trade unions and others to call a national demonstration in November.

Michaela Free School fails to convince teachers or the local community

Apparently there were only about 40 people at the Michaela Free School meeting today and this included the Michaela representatives and parents with their children and members of a church group. Some were from outside of Brent, including Harrow and Islington.

Katharine Birbalsingh made a short presentation, comparing her school with Eton (!), and to people's then moved away without any Q&A session.

Cllr Michael Pavey, lead member for children and families on the Brent Council Executive, has expressed opposition to the Michaela Academy.

The Brent teacher unions have made  the following statement about the Michaela proposal:

As you know the education unions as a whole are against the 'free' school movement as they are designed to take money away from local schools and local authorities so leading to the break up of state education. There are clear proposals by this Government that such schools will be run for profit as the Breckland 'free' school already is.

We are also concerned that 'free' schools open the way for charitable foundations to profit by stealth through the payment of inflated salaries and bonuses to these who control those foundations.

The money already spent on Ms Birbalsingh's unsuccessful 'free' school proposals for south London are being kept from the public despite requests under FoI. Further public money is now being spent in Brent, again with no accountability. It is our understanding that in January 2012 a Freedom of Information request was made to the Department of Education about how long approval for the school was to be held open. The response was that normally, following approval, it would be expected that the school would open within a year i.e. January 2013 at the latest. So we do not understand how this new proposal can be linked to the first and question the propriety of the DfE and others in this case.

The details of the proposed school are still vague and contradictory and this makes it difficult to make specific responses. You have had a couple of years to put in the detail. In particular there is nothing in the information that gives us any reason to believe that you have in reality signed up to the partnership values of the Council despite saying that you have.

However, what we can say is that we are very concerned that another secondary school in this area will have a potentially detrimental effect on the local secondary schools, including the ARK academy which is just over the road from the proposed free school. There is currently, enough and in fact spare, secondary capacity. Your argument is that that is the only available building. This confirms that you are just aiming to set up a school wherever you can and have not taken into consideration the local needs. Not what we would call a 'community' decision.

The ethos of the 'private school' is not one of inclusion and is selective in its very nature. For the Michaela school to just concentrate on the purely academic is to narrow the education of children and means they will be learning through rote and over learning. It cannot call itself a community school when it will obviously only cater for one type of learner. One concern was that we were told that science would be taught in classrooms and no mention was made of laboratories which means scientific learning will be through books not practical and experimental.

Jenny Cooper, NUT Health and Safety Officer and a member of the Brent Health and Safety committees, has written to you about areas of concern which we are restating here. Regarding SEN, she makes the point that no that you will welcome applications from all persons regardless or background and ability. Oxford University also welcome these applications. It does not, of course, mean that these people get a place. Your response to with regards the curriculum was that it will be inclusive in order to suit children with SEN.

However, your website says, “traditional academic subjects .......Pupils will be required to study the five academic subjects that form the English Baccalaureate: English, Maths, Science, History/Geography and a foreign language.....In addition to these mandatory subjects, pupils will be able to choose from a range of options, including Art, Music and Drama......We believe knowledge is a prerequisite of skills development....Sport will be competitive and pupils will take Games for one afternoon per week”.

Jenny Cooper is an SEN specialist, and we agree with her that we cannot see how your proposed curriculum can be described as inclusive. Most teachers who have worked with SEN children (and indeed many parents) would agree that to be overloaded with academic subjects and to leave the creative subjects as non-mandatory, to focus on knowledge acquisition not skills development and to restrict physical education to solely competitive games occurring only once a week is a recipe for disaster.

Are you aware that Hirsch's theories on education, which you refer to in your curriculum information, were highly contentious in 1960s-70s America because of the very fact that they were considered non-inclusive? It was thought that he did not acknowledge differences in learning styles. And also, interestingly for the Brent community, he was criticised for not including the contributions of African Americans to society in the body of knowledge and culture that he decided should be taught. This attitude is simply not welcome in Brent. Brent teachers and parents are proud of our diverse community and we/they will not tolerate this kind of prejudiced narrow mindedness amongst us.

Regarding Health & Safety, Brent's policy on asbestos goes beyond that of the statutory requirements. All Brent schools are scheduled to have asbestos removed within the next few years on a rolling programme. It is no longer the policy simply to manage and cover up. The reason Brent have gone this step further is following poor management of asbestos which led to improvement notices being served after pupils and teachers were exposed. If this occurred in your school, you would be responsible for the insurance money available to pay compensation, as Brent are having to do for their ex-pupils. We noticed a van from an asbestos firm at the proposed site and would hope that their findings would be made known.

We all raised the question of lack of play area which was agreed to be inadequate. Children will be expected to study all day and then do sport but at the moment there is no agreed place for this to happen. Will parents be expected to pay for sports facilities at another school or sports centre? How else will the school afford this or is this in fact something that will either not happen or the parents will pay. All educationalist know that exercise is very important for children particularly in the teenage years yet there is to be one sports session a week. Playtime will also be very limited.

The emphasis on discipline – straight lines, standing up straight in assemblies – and the lack of creativity and exploration in the curriculum are all reminders of a Victorian system.

The admissions policy is all about taking tests and banding leaving admissions open to take just the most able pupils. 'Free' schools are able to do this as they face less scrutiny.

We are further concerned about the governors which we have been told have been self appointed. Parent governors will be 'recruited' rather than elected.

In conclusion

We think that the planning for school places has to be done in collaboration with the local community. Putting this school in the north of the borough of Brent will directly compete with our existing local schools and is not where the school place shortages are.

We believe that the evidence from ‘free’ schools has shown that they lead to increased social segregation, lower attainment and have been run for profit. Brent schools are in the top 10% of schools in the country so have a proven track record improving attainment for all children ensuring equal opportunities for pupils from all backgrounds.

We believe that all children need decent school buildings, investment in their schools and smaller class sizes. Free schools have been funded by cutting two desperately needed grants, including the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) money promised to our existing local schools. We know that the cuts to education and public services and the raising of tuition fees will harm our communities. The free school movement is Michael Gove's experimental pet project and is part of the plan to privatise our services and will worsen education for all.

What a creative curriculum can produce

Chalkhill School prepares to celebrate the opening of the new park

 Jean Lambert's statement that the arts, humanities, physical education and citizenship are as important as English, Maths and Science LINK in the primary curriculum made me reflect on my experience at Chalkhill Primary School in Wembley where I am Chair of Governors.

The plans to build a new park close to the school presented a great opportunity for work across the curriculum. More than three years ago children were involved in submitting  possible plans for the park with ideas for the kind of equipment that should be installed. They had to think about provision for all ages and safety issues.

The School Council got involved when plans for the park were delayed. They wrote lettes to local Brent councillors, e-mailed them and spoke to them face to face to urge action to complete the park, emphasising how important it was for children on the Chalkhill Estate to have somewhere safe to play and the importance of exercise and play in adopting a healthy lifestyle.

When  completion neared they were again involved in putting forward ideas for the opening ceremony and pupil delegates went to one meeting where activities, within budget constraints, were planned. In School Council they came up with the idea of a Junior Friends of Chalkhill Park to litter pick and take care of the equipment. Within th school there was a competition to make posters to urge the public to look after the park, pick up litter and clear up after dogs. The best of these were placed on the park notice boards.

For the opening ceremony the children and staff worked with Mahogany Arts to create carnival costumes, the staff steelband rehearsed, a pupil samba band was formed, Bollywood dances created and the school choir chose pieces to sing on the day.

Meanwhile Year 3 pupils collaborated with the Brent and Kilburn Times  to produce a page of the newspaper about the park.

The pictures below give some idea of the results of all this work.

Gilbert to hang on to Brent Chief Executive job despite second job in Haringey

 The next full meeting of Brent Council is to consider a recommendation that Chief Executive, Christine Gilbert, retain her position as interim Brent Council Chief Executive. Gilbert, whose salary arrangements have already been a source  of controversy, was last week appointed to a second job in Haringey.

The report says that the recruitment process for a new permanent  Chief Executive should be delayed because the current recruitment process for  three other CEs in London boroughs would limit the quality of candidates, to allow the restructuring of council senior management to go ahead smoothly, and  to ensure continuity and reputation management over the move to the Civic Centre and the 2014 local elections.