From the National Education Union in Brent
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Teachers and
support staff at The Village School in Kingsbury, North West London, are
increasing their action to prevent the academisation of their special school.
Following their two days of strike action on 16th and 17th
January members of the NEU* have upped their level of opposition to three days
of strikes as management refuses to pause the consultation.
They will be
on strike on Tuesday 30th,
Wednesday 31st and Thursday 1st. Picket lines outside
the school will be in operation each strike day from 7.30 till 9.00.
On Tuesday
members and supporters will then take placards and songs to the civic centre
for a visible protest from 10.30-11.30.
After
Wednesday's picket 35 members will travel to Parliament for a scheduled meeting
with Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent
North.
At
Thursday's picket, members will be joined by Louise Regan, NUT NEU section National President, who is bringing
prizes for best contributions to the protest. This will be followed by a big
breakfast in the local cafe.
Further,
members also voted at a very well attended union meeting on Friday 26th
to strike again on the mornings of
February 20th, 21st and 22nd.
Brent Labour
Councillor Jumbo Chan said, “I give my full, wholehearted support to the
outstanding hardworking and passionate teachers and support staff at The
Village School, who work tirelessly
every day to nurture the school’s young students and maximise their
potential. Like them and many other members of
the local Labour Party and trade unions, I
strongly oppose the wholly unnecessary, unhelpful and misguided proposed plans
to academise such a valuable local asset, and urge others to do the same”.
Members have
signed letters of complaint to the
Chair of Governors and Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council. In a letter to
all staff Muhammed Butt has attacked the staff of The Village and the Union
Reps saying that their action is ‘to
punish these children’ and of
being irresponsible by taking strike action when the truth is staff are seeking
to protect it. He recognises the fact that is it the work of the overwhelming
majority of staff who oppose academisation who have raised the school to
outstanding. Yet he discounts the fact that, as at Copland, if its staff are
forced against their will into academisation very large numbers will leave.
Thus, as occurred at Copland when it became an ARK academy with experienced and
able staff leaving, education will be adversely hit for these very vulnerable
children. ARK Elvin is yet again at the bottom of the league for Brent
secondary schools, this year well below the others with only 31% A to Cs.
His own constituency Labour Party have
unanimously opposed his stance of
supporting the move for the school to be turned into an academy. The London
Regional Labour Party also oppose academisation. Barry Gardiner, MP opposes the academisation of The Village. Muhammed
Butt’s own Union the GMB opposes the
move to academisation. The
Headteacher and Chair of Governors, shamefully the Brent Council Labour Whip,
are arguing that the school has to become a privatised academy despite the huge
opposition to this of the staff and increasingly parents.
Muhammed
Butt wrote to all LA schools in December 2015 saying, “The only way to ensure
that our schools remain communities, and do not become businesses, is for them
to remain under the control of Brent
Council. On behalf of Brent Labour’s leadership, I urge you to do all you
can to ensure that they do.”
The only
clear tangible outcome of academisation has been shown to be vastly increased
salaries to those at the top and a wider pay gap between those at the top and
the overwhelming number of staff. Muhammed Butt has said that it is his aim to seek to ‘reverse the outsourcing of services’
that Brent has done previously and bring them back in house as a way of
providing a better and more economical service which we applaud. But at the
same time, in complete contradiction,
he is proposing support for the running of yet another Local Authority school
to be outsourced. Utter hypocrisy.
A week ago, many members at
the school dressed in black symbolising
the death of local authority schools.
On Friday, they again dressed in black and added red to show their anger. They
will continue to wear black on Fridays and the NEU would encourage anyone to
join in wearing black too as a show of solidarity. Please send us your photos
and we will pass them on to the NEU Reps at The Village
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