E-ACT moves to shrink Crest Academy

Architect's image of the Crest Academy building

The academy chain E-ACT has embarked on a consultation exercise to reduce the intake of Crest Academy (Planned Admission Number -PAN) from 330 a year to 200. If you take class size as 30 this reduces the number of forms from 11 to 7.

At first sight this seems in contradiction to Brent Council's claim in in its School Places Planning Strategy that MORE secondary school places are required as the primary school bulge, which meant expansions and bulge classes in that sector, move into primary schools LINK:

Demand for places in Year 7 increased in 2017 and this is expected to continue as the significant growth in pupil numbers in the Primary phase in Brent progresses into the secondary phase. The 2019-23 School Place Planning Strategy identifies the need for an additional 13 forms of entry (see section 5) by 2023/24. This additional capacity could be provided through a combination of permanent school expansions, temporary bulge classes and new free schools.

The Council is working with secondary schools that have expressed interest in expanding. In addition two new free schools that were approved by DfE in November 2016 will help to meet increasing secondary demand. The North Brent Free School, which will provide 900 secondary places, is expected to open in September 2020 on the Chancel House site. The Avanti Free School, an all-through school, is expected to provide a combined capacity of 1320 places (60 per primary year group and 180 per secondary year group). The school will be unable to open until a permanent site is identified by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). The Avanti Free School will have a Hindu ethos and is expected to attract students from a wide geographic area. As it is difficult to find sites, the Avanti Free School may not be located in Brent.

The North Brent Free School will be in the same planning area as Crest Academy although it may attract pupils from beyond that area. In a letter to parents Christina Fernandes. headteacher of Crest, states:

Our projections show that there will be sufficient places available for local children if the PAN for this school is reduced. Should the demand for additional places increase in the future, the Trust will consider raising the PAN again.

These are Brent Council's figures for the Crest's Planning Area that show sufficient capacity WITHOUT the North Brent Free School.

SCHOOLS: Capital City Academy, Convent of Jesus and Mary Language College, Newman Catholic College, Queens Park Community School, The Crest Academy

It could be argued that the North Brent Free School is needed for the Wembley growth area rather than Neasden  but its site depended on the availability of land and is decided by the ESFA rather than Brent Council. Pupils would travel south on the Jubilee line from Wembley Park to Neasden or via the 297 bus route. It will be counter to the present south to north flow of pupils going to Ark Elvin, Wembley Ark, Michaela and Preston Manor.

Clearly this is one consideration for Crest but there are others. Crest has had difficulty in filling up all its places despite the new £40m building, a major reason for the original academisation bid by the heads of the separate John Kelly Boys and Girls Schools.  When schools do not fill all their places it means that they become the school allocated to Year 6 pupils who do not get any of their choices of secondary school and for pupils who arrive in the country too late to apply for a place. This skews the intake and introduces a 'churn' when pupils leave as places become available at their school of choice.  This in turn presents a challenge for teachers and affects performance data.

A PAN of 200 could stabilise the school with E-ACT Braintcroft Primary School, just across the road from Crest, providing up to 90 of the 200 pupils.

Crest under its previous leadership in June 2015 scrapped the separate teaching of girls and boys inherited from the John Kelly Schools despite opposition from some parents.

Parents protest outside Crest  in favour of single sex education- then under construction

Mohsen Ojja, Principal at the time, explained:

Our outcomes are significantly low. We have to do something about it. The two factors driving this change - a duty to ensure every single pupils can access the best education possible by managing the performance of teachers appropriately, and recruiting better teachers and leaders - and our duty to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.

The move was supported by Ofsted and Crest was inspected in 2016  was categorised as 'Good'.  However there remains a group of parents who favour single sex education and resent the fact that it is not available  at secondary level except in Roman Catholic schools or the private sector. Crest may have lost some pupils to the private sector.

Ironically a monitoring visit by HMI and Ofsted in 2018 was very positive but noted regarding the building:

The extensive school site poses some challenges for school leaders. A school ‘line up’ happens three times a day and is intended to ensure that staff know where pupils are and are able to prepare them better for the next learning session. However, leaders accept that they need to give further thought to the rationale for this activity, the allocated time and the consistency of approach by pupils and staff.

The building, designed for 11 forms on entry will now house a much smaller number of pupils and raises questions about 'value for money' for the £40m spent on it.

Money is of course another factor, maintaining staffing and facilities for a larger number of pupils than actually attend produces a budget gap.  Cristalina Fernandes tells parents:

A large portion of funding received by schools is directly related to the number of pupils attending the school. If there are too many vacancies in our school this means that we will not receive the maximum venue possible. Therefore we are proposing to reduce the number of available places to enable the school to operate more efficiently and cost effectively.

Depending on how resources are deployed at present this may mean both a reduction in the number of staff and an increase in class sizes in the future.

More widely of course the whole matter raises the issue of the secondary sector academisation that has taken place in Brent, depriving the local authority of any real say in planning school places and creating a competitive 'market' between schools.

The consultation began on Monday July 8th and ends at 3pm on Friday 8th November.   Responses should be sent to The Headteacher, Cristalina Fernandes, The Crest Academy, Crest Road, London NW2 7SN.

Ofsted and Academy Trusts

I am grateful to 'Reclaiming Education' for this. CfBT took over Gladstone Park Primary School following forced academisation, despite a strong parent campaign to keep it as a local authority school. E-Act runs the Crest academies.

Chris Dunne's letter, "We will come to regret not having defended our education system",  in the Financial Times can be seen here

Henry Stewart's piece looking at the progress of academies against maintained schools can be read here.

And, in case you missed these pieces on where the money is being wasted and who benefits, there is this piece in localgov.uk and this piece in Schoolsweek

Ofsted condemns Academy Trusts:  The Government has announced that it plans to force all schools to become academies.  The major problem is going to be who will run these schools, given that Ofsted has some major criticisms of at least 8 of the large academy trusts.

Ofsted Inspections of Academy Trusts

Ofsted has carried out focused inspections of academies within 9 multi academy trusts.  Significantly, only one, the last and smallest one, is positive.  The full reports can be found on the Government website here.   A map of where the academies are can be found here.

CfBT:  11 primary/8 Secondary

“CfBT took on too many academies too quickly. The trust did not have a clear rationale for the selection of schools, a strategy for creating geographical clusters or a plan to meet academies’ different needs. As a result, standards are too low. The trust relied heavily on external consultants but did not ensure their accountability in securing rapid and secure improvement. Headteachers were unable to provide each other with the much needed mutual support or share available expertise. Current CST leaders openly acknowledge these errors.”  Full report

Academies Enterprise Trust:  32 primary/30 secondary/5 special

"After operating for nearly eight years, the Trust is failing too many pupils. Almost 40% of the pupils attend AET primary academies that do not provide a good standard of education. It is even worse in secondary, where 47% of pupils attend academies that are less than good......
"Children from poor backgrounds do particularly badly in this Trust. The attainment and progress of disadvantaged pupils, in both the primary and secondary academies, still lags behind that of other pupils, and gaps in performance are not narrowing quickly enough......
"The outcomes of the focused inspections failed to demonstrate that the Trust is consistently improving its academies.  Full report

Collaborative Academies Trust: 9 schools

“Collaborative Academies Trust was set up in 2012 by EdisonLearning ......
.........Too many academies have not improved since joining the trust. Of the five academies that have had a full inspection since joining the trust, only one has improved its inspection grade compared with its predecessor school. Two have remained the same and two have declined. This means that, at the time of the focused inspection, there were not yet any good or outstanding academies in the trust. “  Full report

E-Act (formerly Edutrust): 23 academies (was more)

“...Nevertheless, the quality of provision for too many pupils in E-ACT academies is not good enough.
......Standards in the secondary academies are too low. Previous interventions by the Trust to raise attainment and accelerate progress have not had enough impact and any improvements have been slow.
....Pupils from poor backgrounds do not do well enough. These pupils make less progress than other pupils nationally. This is an area of serious concern. “  Full report

Kemnal Academies Trust: 15 secondary/26 primary

“Less than half of your academies were good or better and there are no longer any outstanding academies in your chain. .........

.. an overwhelming proportion of pupils attending one of the academies inspected are not receiving a good education. “  Full report

Oasis Community Learning Trust: 50? Schools – DfE list and Oasis website appear to disagree.

The academy trust has grown rapidly, taking on 30 new academies in the last three years ...
Across the trust, some groups of pupils do not achieve well. Disadvantaged pupils, particularly boys, make significantly less progress than their peers nationally.......... there is no evidence of an overall strategy or plan that focuses on these particular issues.  Full report

School Partnership Trust:  41 schools

“The impact of the Trust’s work in bringing about improvement where it is most needed has been too slow. Where standards have been intractably low for some time, the Trust is not driving significant, sustained improvement. ...

......The standard of education provided by the Trust is not good enough in around 40% of its academies inspected so far. “ Full report

The Education Fellowship: 12 schools

“There is no clear record of improvement in the trust’s academies and standards across the trust are unacceptably variable. In around three quarters of the academies, standards are poor.
Standards declined in five of the eight primary academies in 2014. In the majority of the trust’s 12 academies, the gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their better off peers, both within the academies and compared with pupils nationally, remains unacceptably wide.”  Full Report

Wakefield City Academies Trust – the only positive one!

“Two years into its development, WCAT is making a positive difference to the quality of provision and outcomes for pupils within its academies. “ Full report

Crest Academies to go co-educational from September

Crest Academies confirmed this morning that classes will be mixed gender from September. There was some confusion because the school website had an undated posting that said that although the staff of the hitherto separate Girls' and Boys' Academies will be united, girls and boys would contionue to be taught in separate classes.

The school will be updating that posting to reflect the decision to move to mixed classes.

The decision is controversial as some parents chose  the school originally because they were separate single sex schools.

There is a petition on Change.Org against the decision LINK. It states:

In June 2015, parents were informed of a proposal to fully implement and deliver mixed-gender education. The school leadership has not provided any conclusive evidence that a mixed school would better perform and provide equality for all.

Parents are highly concerned and are openly seeking to resist this draconian measure in the school’s delivery of learning and teaching.

 As the petitioner and as a Crest Academy parent I urge you to sign this petition in support of the above facts and information. As parents we have the right to exercise choice for our children, however, in this instance we have not consented to any changes nor been fairly consulted.

The London Borough of Brent’s schools are already impoverished and heavily oversubscribed.

 In final summation, oppose the plans of The Crest Academies (managed by E-ACT) for the following compelling reasons:

1. Sign, say ‘no’ and stand against the imposition of our school becoming a mixed-gender school
2. Sign, support us and show your dissatisfaction with such a short time to consult, in contrast to two months of consultation in 2013/4
3. Sign, share and speak the truth that we do not have a comparable girls’ or boys’ school in Brent for our children
4. Sign, stand together and support all the poorly served and let down children who have no choice or a voice
*Crest Newsletter - Edition 5 (published in year 2013-2014)

Phil Hearne, Executive Principal CONSULTATION RESULTS

“The formal consultation ran from 25 November 2013 to 24 January 2014, and an overwhelming 80% of those responding said they support the continuation of single-sex education. One of the issues that has concerned people though is whether girls and boys will mix. They will not: both classes and social time will continue to be single gender at all times.

The changes we are making are all about making the Crest Academies the very best single-sex school in the area. We want Crest to be the school of choice for any parent who values girls and boys being taught separately. This is something that both I and the Board of Governors are extremely passionate about Crest to be the school of choice for any parent who values girls and boys being taught separately"

At the time fo writing the petiton had only 219 supporters.

Phil Hearne has been replaced as Principal by Mohsen Ojja who told this week's Kilburn Times:

Our outcomes are significantly low. We have to do something about it. The two factors driving this change - a duty to ensure every single pupils can access the best education possible by managing the performance of teachers appropriately, and recruiting better teachers and leaders - and our duty to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.

Single sex schooling is often controversial. In this case added to the arguments that mixed schooling during adolesence means loss of academic concentration, that girls suppress their ability in order not to 'show up' boys, that girls are used to 'soften' the behaviour of boys, that girls are more likely to opt for non-stereotypical subjects in girls only schools are religious arguments in favour of separation.

Some of the arguments in favour of girls' only schooling can be found HERE  Significantly, far fewer people argue in favour of boys only schooling, and it is often said that single sex schooling is 'Good for girls, but bad for boys' LINK

In Crest's case what is likely to be most significant is whether the school is able to make progress after its Ofsted failure.  The latest monitoring report dated June 2015 notes progress and says of the new Principal:

As Principal, you and the vice principal who was at the academy at the time of the Inspection have worked swiftly to begin to address the areas for improvement. Your own determination to improve the quality of teaching and raise students’ aspirations and achievement is very clear. Now that there is a full exec utive leadership team and other senior leaders have been appointed the academy is ready to build on the foundations laid in the post inspection action plan.

On the co-education issue Ofsted say:

The academy is currently undertaking a consultation with parents and carers, students and staff regarding a review of the provision for boys and girls. This has a clear focus, quite rightly, on ensuring equality of opportunity in the curriculum for all. There are already assemblies and some aspects of personal, health and social education that involve boys and girls learning together.

An  issue that will concern teaching and not-teaching staff is whether the changes will mean a reduction in staffing in a school that has already experienced  considerable job losses. LINK

There are two remaining single sex secondary schools in Brent which are both Roman Catholic as well as the fee paying (£6,700 per year)  Islamia Girls School. LINK

Gladstone Secondary Free School, a co-educational school in the same broad area as Crest, has failed to open as various sites have fallen through but still expects to open in September 2016.

Its website LINK still lacks certainty:

The Department for Education (DfE) has been searching for land or buildings to enable our school, a parent-led school, to provide places for Brent parents who might otherwise need to search for school places out of borough.

We have a temporary site suitable for at least three years, ready for development into a great building. We have lost out on four great locations for our permanent school site in Brent, as property developers have snapped up suitable accommodation for residential use. This has created an even greater squeeze on school places, and reduced further the availability of site options for our school. This has led to deferrals meaning over 200 families have lost out on their prefered choice for a place at Gladstone School over the last two years.

The DfE is looking for suitable sites right now, for our Autumn recruitment programme. Help us to help them find school sites.

Crest Boys' Academy fails Ofsted Inspection and goes into 'Special Measures'

Crest Boys' Academy in Neasden, Brent,  has been put into 'special measures' after being judged 'Inadequate' on all 4 aspects of their June Ofsted inspection: Achievement of Pupils, Quality of Teaching, Behaviour and Safety of Pupils and Leadership and Management.

After a poor Ofsted, Copland Community School is being forced to become an academy. Crest Boys' is already a sponsored academy led by the E-Act chain and has failed despite this status. It has to remain an academy under current law but there may be a possibility of a transfer to another academy chain. Clearly this is a challenge those who make claims for the superiority of academies..

Because Crest is run by an academy chain Brent Council has no direct right to intervene. E-Act is barely mentioned in the Ofsted report but the DfE must surely look at its capacity to support improvement at the school.

The schools decision to seek academy status occurred under the Labour government and was done in order to secure new buildings which are nearing completion.

The situation is further complicated by an approved proposal to open a secondary free school, named Gladstone after the nearby park, in the area. It will offer 120 Year 7 places from September 2014.

On Leadership and Management the report said:

 Leadership and management are inadequate because the academy is not improving quickly enough. Since the previous inspection, actions taken by leaders and governors to check the progress of different student groups, tackle weaknesses in teaching and behaviour, and to develop the skills of subject leaders have not had enough impact...

Although the Executive Principal and recently appointed senior leaders have a clear agenda for change, improvement since the previous inspection has been too slow. Some leaders lack the skills needed to drive forward rapid improvement and improve teaching. Recently appointed senior leaders have had to take over the leadership and teaching of some subjects, which has placed heavy demands on their time.

 Frequent changes to staffing this year have made it difficult for new systems designed to improve teaching and behaviour to become fully established and to make a difference to students’ learning. This has prevented leaders and managers from promoting equality of opportunity adequately enough.

Until recently the academy’s monitoring of teaching was too generous and teachers’ performance was not checked thoroughly by leaders and governors. Teachers and leaders are now set challenging targets, linked to students’ progress, which they have to meet before they move up the pay scales.

It makes the following comment on the Governing Body

A restructured governing body has been in place since January 2013. The previous governing body did not check how targets were set to challenge and reward teachers, and was not aware whether additional money for students eligible for extra support was spent appropriately. Current governors understand that improvement has been too slow in the past and agree that aspects of the academy’s work are inadequate. They are not satisfied with the academy’s results and are already challenging decisions to make sure that they are focused on raising achievement and made in the best interests of students. Governors fulfil their statutory responsibilities for safeguarding.

 Ofsted will be making regular visits to the school to ensure that improvements are made.

The Crest Girls' Academy, also run by E-Act was  found Inadequate overall  based on an Inadequate judgement for Achieve of Pupils.  Leadership and Management were judged  and Quality of Teaching  Requiring Improvement.  Behaviour and Safety of the girls was judged Good. 

 Achievement was judged inadequate because of insufficient progress of AS students in the 6th Form which is shared with the Boys' Academy and too few gain qualifications at the end of their programmes of study.

E-ACT scandal should make Brent Council pause for thought on academies issue

As the Ark academies chain announces its takeover of Kensal Rise Primary School, renaming it Ark Franklin Primary Academy and appointing a new headteacher fresh from Dubai, LINK there is news of another academy chain, E-ACT,  which runs the Crest Girls' and Boys' academies in Neasden.

I would hope that the report below will give headteachers, governing bodies and councillors pause for thought before rushing into academy conversions or supporting forced academies. Conversions are often undertaken for financial reasons with governing bodies and headteachers saying they would let pupils down if they did not go for the extra academy funding - instead much of it may end up lining the pockets of the sponsors through high salaries for the chain bosses or 'extravagant expenses'.

This report is from the BBC:

A leading academy chain has been criticised for widespread financial irregularities in an official report. The Education Funding Agency report highlights a culture of "extravagant" expenses, "prestige" venues and first class travel at the E-ACT group. The report obtained by the Times Educational Supplement and seen by BBC News adds that E-ACT spent public money on unapproved consultancy fees. The group currently runs 31 state-funded free-schools and academies around England that have opted out of local authority control.

E-ACT was set up in July 2009 as an independent educational charity and company with the principal purpose of "establishing, maintaining, managing and developing schools colleges and academies". Its director general, Sir Bruce Liddington, resigned last month. The report found that E-ACT's systems of internal financial control were "weak" and lacking "rigour" - and noted that the governance of the group was "unusual". In particular it notes that "the controls around expenses for trustees are weak".

"Expenses claims and use of corporate credit cards indicate a culture involving prestige venues, large drinks bills, business lunches and first class travel, all funded from public monies," says the report. The report says the director general's expenses may not have been "subject to proper scrutiny". "Expenses claims and card payments by senior managers in E-ACT have occasionally stretched the concepts of propriety and value for money. Controls have been lax and some payments have tended to extravagance... however we found no evidence of fraud."

The report also highlights a wider "culture of acceptance of non-compliance with E-ACT's own policies for awarding contracts." The investigation found that hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money was spent by E-ACT on purchases that were not in line with its own spending policies. Many purchases were made by Sir Bruce himself. "Our review of the director general's cost centre indicates that £361,000 has been spent on consultancy fees from 2008-9 with £237,000 of this not having an order," note the authors.

The report also raises concerns that trustees on the E-ACT board were paid for consultancy work, stressing that "payment to trustees is unusual in the charitable sector, where the basic position is that trustees should not benefit personally from their position so that they can exercise independent scrutiny over the charity's operations." ”Around half of the 13 current board members have or have in the past had contracts for service or services provided." The investigation came after the group's auditors KPMG raised concerns that its financial administration was "playing catch-up" with its rapid expansion.

In particular the report notes that some of the group's financial practices were inappropriate for an organisation with a turnover of many millions of pounds and that the boundary between E-ACT and its money-making subsidiary E-ACT Enterprises Limited (EEL) was blurred, with some EEL expenses being paid out of public money.

E-ACT stresses that it has taken swift action to address the report's concerns. Chairwoman Ann Limb, who joined the group a year ago, said: "We have overhauled both the governance and the culture of E-ACT to ensure that this can never happen again. As well as the departure of the director general, the finance director and two trustees have also left the organisation. E-ACT is about educational excellence and the changes we have made will ensure we have operational excellence to support that.

"We are implementing a robust action plan which addresses all concerns raised and are working closely with the Education Funding Agency to ensure these changes are embedded throughout the organisation."

A Department for Education spokeswoman said "Any misuse of public money meant for schools is completely unacceptable. Academies cannot hide from their responsibilities. All their accounts must be externally audited and they are held to account by the Education Funding Agency so any issues of impropriety are immediately investigated.

"That is exactly why the EFA has written to E-ACT requiring them to take swift action to improve financial management, control and governance. We are monitoring the situation closely and will take any further action necessary."

Crest Academy Boss wants to run 250 more schools

Sir Bruce Liddington, head of E-Act has told the Times Educational Supplement that he wants to run 250 more schools. He says he expect to have around 50 free schools, 50 'traditional' academies that replace under-performing schools, 100 'converter academies' (the Claremont type) and 50 primary schools over the next 5 years.

E-Act runs the two Crest academies where 21 teachers are being made redundant. E-Act used to be known as Edutrust but changed their name after the then head, Lord Bhattia, resigned after accusations of financial mismanagement. Sir Bruce Liddington is paid £265,000 annually and E-Act made a £2.4 million profit in 2009.

Primary schools around the Crest Academies better look out because Liddington said, "We are also interested in chains of primaries. As funding becomes tighter you will find that small primary schools will need to get together if they are going to survive. We are also starting to talk about chains of primaries in inner-urban areas around our existing traditional academies."

Alasdair Smith, Anti-Academies Alliance national secretary said:

Today’s revelations in the TES confirm the point consistently made by the AAA; academy conversions and free schools are about privatisation. 
 
It is about the corporate takeover of education. Politicians may claim it is about ‘raising standards’, ‘closing the attainment gap’ or giving school leaders ‘more freedom’, but the harsh reality is that big business wants our schools. 
 
EACT is not alone. Before the election, VT Education claimed it wanted 1000 schools. CfBT are looking at models to control whole areas such as Lincolnshire and ARK and the Harris Federation are busily expanding. All these chains claim to be ‘charitable’. But they are big businesses with fat cat bosses

Scandalously it appears that the DfE is now diverting significant resources to this end. The Coalition is aiding and abetting the privatisation of our state education system. There is also a clamour in ‘edu-business’ circles to allow ‘for profit’ providers to enter free schools market. The direction of travel is for wholesale privatisation of state education. 

 
Every academy conversion and every new free school will hasten this process. We urge governors and head teachers to resist the inducements to convert. We urge parents and staff to organise and protest. 
 There has never been a better reason to join the TUC’s protest on the 26^th March.

More from Anti Academies Alliance

Academy staff vote to strike against proposed redundancies

Staff at Crest Girls Academy in Brent were shocked to hear that 21 staff redundancies were being proposed. At an emergency joint unions meeting last Thursday, 79 staff (with 3 against) voted for strike action in the event that the current "business plan", which basically means the redundancy of 21 staff members, goes ahead.

Crest Girls is run by the academy group E-ACT and last year Crest Boys took successful strike action to prevent any compulsory redundancies at their academy.

A group from Crest Girls joined by other anti academy campaigners and ATL, NASUWT and NUT union officers from Redbridge who face E-ACT academies there, had a demonstration outside E-ACT's HQ in London. E-ACT were left in no doubt the strength of feeling felt at Crest Girls and particularly in the circumstances where their Director General (!) Sir Bruce Liddington earns over £265,000 plus bonuses per year.