From Brent National Education Union
AFTER TAKING THEIR CAMPAIGN TO PARLIAMENT AND THE DFE IN ELECTION WEEK, UNION MEMBERS AT BYRON COURT SCHOOL SECURE MEETING WITH BRIDGET PHILLIPSON
NEU members at Byron Court Primary School, who have now taken 16 days of strike action to try to stop their school being taken over by HARRIS FEDERATION may have earned a reprieve. The new Education Secretary has agreed to pause the process whilst a meeting is arranged. STRIKES CONTINUE THIS FRIDAY AND MONDAY 22ND JULY in a “LAST PUSH” to stop the privatisation.
The school’s forced “academy order” follows an intimidating Ofsted inspection which, for staff, had parallels with the experience of Ruth Perry and resulted in the same “inadequate” one word judgement. The new Labour government have pledged to get rid of Ofsted one word judgements and the hope is that they might now intervene and revoke the academy order to keep this as a community school.
BYRON COURT SCHOOL HAS PUBLISHED A REPORT TO PARENTS SHOWING RAPID IMPROVEMENT SINCE THE INSPECTION PLUS STRONG DATA RESULTS WITH YEAR 6 SATS ABOVE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE.
Jenny Cooper of the NEU national executive has stated:
We feel we could be winning this campaign. We have secured an agreement to meet with Bridget Phillipson and have been assured that there will be no academy transfer before this occurs. Well done to all our members and parents for persisting with fighting this injustice.
5 comments:
The Labour Government need to scrap the policy of "automatic" switch to to an Academy for schools failing an Ofsted inspection introduced by the Blair Labour Government when they were obsessed with Academies as the default solution.
The option of support from a local Council to help with improvements needs to be given a fair chance before an Academy is forced through. The "local management" of this school seems to have failed for some time.
The priority should be the quality education of the children and not the political interests of the Trade Union.
Good luck! The school has improved so much and that's all that matters - a good education for the kids. The ideal scenario is that it improves and doesn't lose its identity and heritage. Seems no need for an academy if its on its way up.
The local management including previous HT have left as well some of the previous governing body. Some strong results this year and evidence of improvement
Time for all local politicians to stop making assumptions based on hearsay and actually commit to regularly visiting the school in person to make a tangible difference. Seems like all parties have been keen to capitalise on what's going on in this school for their own means. Actually visit then make up your mind.
Great work from the Save BC Campaign, NEU and teachers. These impressive SAT improvements and the tenacity shown to push this all the way to the Education minister show that parents and the community don't have to meekly submit to faceless bureaucracy, SLT and HT hidden agendas, BC management team and private business conspiring together and Ofsted stacked reviews, we can make a difference and preserve our local culture and community!
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