SIR ARTHUR ELVIN, INSPIRATION FOR COPLAND’S NEW NAME, GIVES ARK FOUNDERS SOMETHING TO ASPIRE TO

Guestblog from Neonymph

Last week staff at Copland received a message from the proposed new Head saying that she, with a group of students and staff,  ‘together’ had chosen the new school’s name. (This did seem a little premature to some as Mr Gove has apparently not yet signed the Funding Agreement for the school).  Still, it was refreshing to see that, in choosing a new name,  Ark had put its bad old sham ‘consultation’ days behind it and had involved all the stakeholders in the decision-making process. And the extent of that culture-change should not be underestimated. Only a few weeks have passed since Ark’s control-freak nature was revealed in its decision to entrust the running of the new school only to a current employee of Ark working alongside another current employee of Ark who is a product of Ark’s own  Future Leaders processing  system. 

                                                                                                       So letting the staff and students choose the new school name without any guidance from Ark signals a sea-change comparable to McDonalds suddenly allowing its employees to ignore all they were taught at Burger Academy and to start flipping their patties any old way they fancy. (And if  any cynics out there are still sceptical about how democratically the chosen name was arrived at, the words ‘students and staff’ are employed 4 times in the message, along with ‘unanimous’, ‘we’ and ‘together’ in order to set their minds at rest).                                                                                                                                                                        There’s hope for the future too in the aspirational nature of the name Ark have selected. For Sir Arthur Elvin was a man who came from nothing, came to Wembley as an outsider, built up the old Twin Towers stadium, gave jobs to the unemployed, allowed the community to use the athletics, swimming and ice-skating facilities of the Wembley complex, got his hands dirty with his workers picking up litter after an afternoon event in the stadium in readiness for an evening fixture, treated his employees in exemplary fashion and, according to local historians, had their almost universal  respect and affection.  Anyone looking for an aspirational figure would agree that there’s lots here for Ark’s managers, and particularly the hedge fund fat cats, millionaire Tory party donors  and Boris Johnson bankrollers who own it,  to aspire to. (As well as the kids of course).  

                                                 And the names that didn’t make the cut?:  well, The Bob Crow Ark was never really a starter and the long list of names suggested  by Wembley Matters readers here  LINK

probably  wouldn’t have survived the democratic scrutiny of ‘students and staff’ either.       

           Next meeting ‘we’ decide on Ark’s new ‘Ark Elvin Academy’ logo   ‘incorporating some inspirational features of Sir Elvin’s (sic) life’. Any suggestions from Wembley Matters readers would be very welcome . I’m sure that in their new inclusive, democratic and consultative mood, Ark would be delighted to take them on board.

 Meanwhile Hank Roberts of the ATL has written to Annabel Bates (Headteacher designate) about the way the decision was made:

Dear Ms Bates,

You have informed me, as a member of Copland staff, that you have decided on the name of the proposed ARK academy on our Copland Community school site, to be the 'ARK Elvin Academy'.

May I ask on what basis the committee of four staff and six students, that was set up to consider the new school's name, was selected? For example, did you ask for volunteers, was there any particular qualification, were they picked out of a hat?     

Were the committee given one proposed name, a selection of names or did they put forward their own names for consideration?

I also ask, was the Headteacher Dr Richard Marshall and the senior leadership team consulted and if not, why not? Were the Interim Executive Board (IEB) who are the governing body*, consulted? I know that the staff were not consulted, or asked for suggestions or given any options to take part in what you call “an important step forward .. for our school”. But why not? And is your proposed school logo to be decided by the same select committee?

Is this the manner in which you intend to make important decisions affecting the whole school in the future?  There has been no staff 'buy in' to this decision. Even when the name of a pet dog is being chosen, normally the whole family are involved.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely
Hank Roberts  
Joint Copland NUT Rep and ATL Brent Branch Secretary

 * The IEB remains responsible for school decisions until the funding agreement has been signed

Copland teachers stage unprecedented 5th strike against forced academisation

Copland Community School teaching unions remain solid in their determination to stop the ARK academy chain taking over their school in Wembley. They will be taking an unprecedented fifth day of strike action tomorrow (14^th January). The IEB continue to refuse to take part in any negotiations let alone even reply to communications from the Unions.

Hank Roberts, Immediate Past national President of ATL said:

The IEB have yet to respond to an offer of further talks nor even yet able to respond to staff and parents demand to be given a proposed timetable for the proposed conversion! The massive strength of feeling is because staff know that this is really about privatisation and Gove intends to allow those running academies like ARK to make profit out of state education. Their intention is to impose a third world education system in England.

Our intention is to continue and increase the level of resistance to stop them.

 Tom Stone, Acting NASUWT Brent Secretary said:

Copland staff are showing amazing tenacity in continuing to be prepared to stand up for their school by taking yet another day of strike action. The NASUWT fully supports members taking action at any school where management try to impose academisation.

Jean Roberts, Joint Brent Teachers Association Secretary said:

By standing firm staff have won on a collective grievance over job titles and also, through the threat of further strike action, the threat of compulsory redundancies for teachers has been withdrawn. At the well attended joint unions meeting last week staff were up beat and fully behind the campaign to defeat ARK. Just today there were revelations in The Guardian after freedom of information requests showed taxpayer-funded academy chains have paid millions of pounds into the private businesses of directors, trustees and their relatives.

Leaflets will be handed out today outside Copland for pupils to take home to parents explaining why the action is taking place. This leaflet from the school’s anti academy working party has been translated into the most common languages used by pupils. 

This has not been done for any letters sent out by the IEB.

There will be a mass picket outside the school from 7.30 am tomorrow until 9.00 and then there will be a letter writing session to the local councillors and MPs. There will also be discussion on what further action will take place to further the campaign.

Sir Alan Davies gets 18 month suspended sentence for false accounting

Former headteacher Sir Alan Davies of Copland Community School, Wembley received 12 month sentence suspended for two years today on 6 charges of false accounting.

Full story on Kilburn Times website HERE

The ATL and NUT in Brent have issued the following statement:

Today in Southwark Crown Court Sir Alan Davies, who yesterday pleaded guilty, although at
the very last minute, to six counts of false accounting, was sentenced to one year's
imprisonment suspended for two years. In passing sentence the Judge said that he showed
‘dishonesty with criminal intent’ and that his conduct was ‘disgraceful’. She made it clear that,
had he not pleaded guilty, his conduct would have resulted in an immediate custodial sentence.

The judge was also minded to make a compensation order against Davies regarding the costs
of Brent's investigation. However, she was informed that Brent Council is considering
pursuing their costs through the civil court.

Before the trial commenced a deal was struck, involving Keir Starmer, Head of the Crown
Prosecution Service.

Hank Roberts said, “It appears that a school can set up a company, and legally pay the
headteacher hundreds of thousands of pounds out of the pupils education budget for project
management. At the moment technically legal it may be, but shouldn't a headteacher of a
secondary school paid over £100, 000 a year expend their energies on the children's education?

And shouldn't this legal loophole be closed? Sir Alan has been found guilty and sentenced and
now has a criminal record. That at least is some justice.”

Lesley Gouldbourne said, “What action is going to be taken to get back the money lost from
the kid's education? What action is going to be taken to remove his knighthood? ” 

Deafening silence on Copland victimisation allegations

Guest post by Mistleflower

According to the  Brent and Kilburn Times website last Friday,  teachers union president Hank Roberts has accused the new management at Copland School of victimisation of union members who  have opposed  the forced academisation  of Copland School and the privatisation of English education in general.   As the man who brought to an end (with no help from Brent or the DfE)  the  financial corruption at Copland which resulted in the upcoming trial on fraud charges of  Alan Davies and five others, Mr Roberts knows a thing or two about blowing the whistle on  unlawful activity by school managements and the victimisation of union members which results. He and his union colleagues acted, at great risk to their present jobs and their career futures, to stop the haemorrhaging  of  Brent taxpayers’ money into the pockets of their chiselling bosses. His observations, therefore, carry some weight in Brent and beyond. Despite this, the only response from the new Copland management to appear in the BKT article are these words  from Mr Nick John, one of the two new men hired by Brent and responsible for the alleged victimisation:

Teachers and students at Copland Community School are preparing for the new school year, we are looking forward to working with parents and families to improve standards and secure good lessons for all children.

While this is nice to know and possibly entirely accurate it has nothing whatever to do with the serious allegation made by Mr Roberts, which is  that  Copland’s Humanities faculty has been singled out for ‘special measures’ as a result of its containing  4 union officers and a Teacher Governor  each of whom have a high profile in opposing forced academisation, workplace bullying and the recent blatant misuse of capability procedures connected with this . It’s possible, of course, that the words quoted were uttered by Mr John on some completely different occasion about an entirely unrelated matter and that Mr John had, in fact, gone off on his holidays before Mr Roberts made his allegations. Whatever the circumstances though, you would expect that the new management of a school with a well-known history of unlawful management activity (allegedly) would wish to ensure that its conduct now and in future would be  squeaky-clean in such matters and perceived to be so by the public. Further, the default position of kneejerk defence of the school management by the governing body and by Brent council is already beginning to remind some observers of the bad old days of Alan Davies and I.P.Patel.

The management’s red herring concerning the English department (that it needs to improve and must therefore be relocated to the remotest and most isolated part of the school)  has already been laughed out of court, not least by the English department itself. But there must surely be one member of Copland’s new leadership, or of the newly imposed IEB governing body, or of Mr Pavey’s Children and Families department, who is not yet on holiday and is capable of making at least  a partly convincing rebuttal of Mr Roberts’s  specific allegations.

 On his arrival at Copland, new Head Richard Marshall apparently promised the staff he would not be a ‘Hero Head’ but that he would be ‘transparent’,  and transparency is a quality that Mr John, the IEB and Mr Pavey would all presumably  like to lay claim to. 

However, in the absence of any demonstration of such transparency,  staff, students and parents will have  to come to their own conclusions as to why the Humanities Faculty at Copland is being selected for special treatment by the new management. Below are 5 points any or all of  which currently have wide credence among the staff.  

1.       Humanities is being targeted as a punishment and a warning to others of the consequences  of  legitimately exercising legal democratic rights to dissent.

2.       Humanities is being targeted as a warning to other staff of the consequences of trade union activity under the new regime.

3.       Humanities subjects such as Economics, Law, Psychology, Sociology and Politics are being scrapped in a bid to limit the range of subjects at Copland to the sort of narrow Secondary Modern School curriculum dreamed of by Michael Gove in his Back-to-the-Fifties fantasies.

4.       Copland is being set up ultimately to be a  ‘Grade B’  (or ‘Secondary Modern’)  Academy, catering for those who, in Gove’s plans for a return to selection by national tests ranking children at age 11, come in the lower deciles (10% bands) of ability.  A narrow curriculum will be good enough for these kinds of students.

5.       Achieving the above at Copland (and also the ‘voluntary’ erosion of conditions of service already suggested by the new head) requires that dissent is neutralised and this requires the creation of a climate of fear among  staff.  The interviews Mr John  conducted with Heads of Faculty shortly after arriving ( in which he demanded they name 2 members of their faculty who they would like to see go, and then threatened that they would be the ones  going if they refused) set the tone.  Concocted capability procedures against a large number of staff came next. Refusal to communicate with staff through existing and long-established procedures was there from the start and continues.

There is evidence within the school itself and also in the wider political educational context, both in Brent and nationally, for all of these views.  In the absence of any contrary evidence, or of any specific denial, by the school management or by Brent, either of Mr Roberts’s allegations or of the 5 points set out above, staff can be excused for coming to their own conclusions.

Copland strikers dump Michael Gove in the 'dustbin of history'

Gove in the 'dustbin of history'

Michael Gove was consigned to the 'dustbin of history at the culmination of a march of 80 or so striking Copland teachers and their supporters today.  The ceremony took place during the first major demonstration at Brent's £100m new Civic Centre.

Copland teachers are striking for the second time against the imposition by Brent Council of an Interim Executive Board, which replaces the democratically elected governing body, and DfE plans supported by the Labour Brent Council, to force the school to become a sponsored academy. It is the last non-academy, non-faith community secondary school in Brent.

Speaking to the crowd I gave a message of support from the Green Party Trade Union group and said that the Green Party was opposed to forced academies and the privatisation of education as well as the narrowing of the curriculum proposed by Michael Gove.

Outside the Civic Centre

Copland teachers to strike against forced academisation tomorrow

Teaching staff at Copland Community School in Wembley will be on strike for the second time on Wednesday 3rd July.

The school will be closed to pupils due to the action. There will be a picket line from 8am in the morning. Then staff will be marching at 9am, with parent, pupil and local community support, to the new Brent Civic Centre in Engineers Way to call upon the Labour led Council to stop assisting Michael Gove's forced academy programme.

There will be an effigy of Michael Gove which will be ceremoniously dumped in a dustbin (the dustbin of history) and lots of Gove masks to make the point.

Jon Cox, Brent NASUWT Acting President  said, “ A programme of academisation is not about raising standards. It is simply the imposition of a warped political ideology on state schools. Unequivocal
evidence that academies raise the quality of education simply does not exist. What Copland needs is investment in both staff professional development and attractive buildings which give pupils firstly, the decent working environment they deserve and secondly, the message that every child matters”

Hank Roberts, Brent ATL Secretary and National President said, “Michael Gove's dismantling of state education and attempted abolition of parental choice in his forced academies programme is treacherous. For this he should be put in the dustbin of history where he and his policies belong”.

Jean Roberts, Joint Brent NUT Secretary said, “Forcing Copland to become an academy is not the solution and won't bring in the needed funds. How can any pupil learn adequately in such an appalling building. There needs to be a new school building plan agreed and begun as soon as possible in the autumn term.'

Brent Council face united challenge on imposition of IEB at Copland School

The governing body of Copland High School has joined with unions in challenging Brent Council's intention to  impose an  Interim Executive Board at the school following Ofsted's judgement that the school is failing.

Interim Executive Boards (IEBs) are appointed by the local authority and replace the usual governing body that includes elected parent and staff representatives, community and local authority governors. They are often appointed when the governing body is deemed to have failed but also when the authorities, local and central government,  encounter opposition to plans to forced a school to convert to academy status.

In letters to Dr Krutika Pau, Director of  Children and Families at Brent Council, they argue that an IEB is not necessary and may well be detrimental to the school's interests. The school has already experienced an IEB which was appointed following the loss of senior staff in the wake of the financial mismanagement scandal..

Dima Khazem, Chair of Governors,  writes:

Imposing a new IEB now will probably face opposition from staff at a time when the current GB has worked well in tandem with the JCC to put into effect a voluntary redundancy programme which will see staffing reduced drastically and will achieve significant budget deficit reduction alongside removal of ineffective staff. We are worried that this will delay the momentum of positive change and cause an upheaval which will harm the school, its pupils and the LA at a time of great change for all.

Moreover, research by Browne Jackobson has shown a generally low success rate for the 80 or so interim executive boards that have so far been introduced in maintained schools. LINK

We feel that interim executive boards are unsuccessful because of their interim and undemocratic nature and we therefore are not convinced that this is the best intervention that the LA can make in this instance, especially that it does not mirror what the OFSTED report has recommended.

Khazem concludes:

What this GB has tried to do, with increasing success recently, is to overcome barriers of distrust and build bridges of understanding and a culture of accountability across the school. Yet again, there is a limit to what this GB can do in the time frame it had and the textured, complex and widespread problems it faced. Based on the above, we are in disagreement with the LA that installing an IEB right now is the best course of action. It would be a real shame that when this GB started to understand and exercise its role and remit effectively, it is threatened with removal and gets blamed for a decade of neglect and negligence within and outside the school.

Writing to Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt, and the new lead member for children and families, Hank Roberts National President of the ATL and Brent branch secretary poses a number of questions:

Before you might act in haste to support this (Krutika Pau's proposal for an IEB)  I would ask you to respond to these questions.

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 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?

What Future for Brent Schools? Video of recent debate

Many thanks to Pete Murry of Brent Green Party for filming the second half of the What Future for Brent Schools debate. The video picks up after the presentations by the panel and the initial questions and statements from the audience.

The panel is from left to right (physically, not politically!) Cllr Mary Arnold, Brent Council leader member  for children and families;  Martin Francis Brent Green Party spokesperson on children and families; (Gill Wood, local parent, governor and chair); Jon O'Connor, Cooperative College; Melissa Benn author and governor and Hank Roberts, National President, ATL.

Whistles, leaks and the public interest

In its 'Council at War' front page story on September 6th the Brent and Kilburn Times, LINK apart from  reporting the proceedings of the Brent Labour Group regarding the relationship between Muhammed Butt, the current Brent Council leader, and Gareth Daniel, then the Chief Executive, also published extracts from a series of e-mails.

The content of the e-mails vividly illustrated how the relationship was at breaking point. Daniel accused Butt of writing in a 'vitriolic and accusatory tone' and Butt described Daniel's e-mail as 'aggressive' and doubted whether they could continue to work together.

The Council's whistle blowing policy  is mainly aimed at uncovering fraud and offers protection to the whistleblower.. The most prominent local case has been Hank Roberts' reporting of alleged fraud over bonuses at Copland High School in a case which is ongoing. He has received official recognition for his whistleblowing.

In the case of community  schools the whistleblower can go to the chair of governors or the local authority. As far as academies go it is not quite so clear, particularly if the alleged fraud involves the chair of governors. In that case it goes straight to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State, who has an increasing number of such schools under his direct management.

What happens in the case of the council when the whistle blower is confronted with evidence of a major bust-up between the two most senior people on the council?  It is not fraud or even unlawful but surely it is in the public interest that residents should know about a matter that directly impacts on the efficient running of their public services. Surely council employees have a right to know that their employers are at war with each other?

So someone leaked the e-mails to the press; perhaps a council employee with access to the e-mail accounts of both men, or a councillor with similar access. Either way I imagine they would have to have been quite senior.  It seems unlikely that Butt or Daniel themselves may have done the leaking - but these are the strangest of times. The central question for me is: does this leak constitute a form of whistle blowing? Some might argue it was all just tittle tattle.

If the leaker was an employee, their union representatives may well be able to mount quite a strong case that the leak was in the public interest and so he or she should be protected. 

Policies are derived from the Public Interest Disclosures Act 1998 and this section seems relevant:

Disclosure of exceptionally serious failure.(1)A qualifying disclosure is made in accordance with this section if—
(a)the worker makes the disclosure in good faith,
(b)he reasonably believes that the information disclosed, and any allegation contained in it, are substantially true,
(c)he does not make the disclosure for purposes of personal gain,
(d)the relevant failure is of an exceptionally serious nature, and
(e)in all the circumstances of the case, it is reasonable for him to make the disclosure.
(2)In determining for the purposes of subsection (1)(e) whether it is reasonable for the worker to make the disclosure, regard shall be had, in particular, to the identity of the person to whom the disclosure is made.

The last section looks a little dodgy and comes back to the question of whether there was anyone else, other than the press, to whom a disclosure could have been made. There is also the question of whether the employee is in breach of a duty of confidentiality that forms part of their contract.

From the trade union representative point of view this could be a fascinating case. When I was a Natsopa print union representative at Reuters back in the 1960s I found myself handling some bizarre cases. One involved defending a worker who was found lighting paper in the basement of the Reuters building, apparently to set fire to it, Another was a studious young man fresh from college who took a week's unauthorised leave without contacting the management. On his return they decided to sack him.  It turned out that he had used the time to come up with some ideas for automating the workplace  and reducing the workforce. I found myself negotiating to stop the sacking of a union member who wanted to do us out of our jobs!

On reflection this case may be more straightforward and I wish Unison or any other union involved the best of luck.

(By the way I 'won' both cases with appropriate help for the workers involved)

Time for a Brent campaign for accountable and equal education?

'At the heart of every child...is a unique genius and personality. What we should be doing is to allow the spark of that genius to catch fire, to burn brightly and shine'

Michael Morpugo          

'Though this (Exam and Test) cult pretends that it can discern differences between people and makes judgements on their worth, this has little relation to real people's real worth in the real world, where all kinds of other capabilities are needed which the cult can't and doesn't test. eg ability to contribute to and learn from others in the process of performing a task; being flexible when confronted by the unexpected; knowing what to do and how to do it if required to research, investigate or enquire - particularly if the enquiry is going to involve more than one person; being able to motivate oneself (or a group of people) without an outside authority demanding that you do so' 

Michael Rosen        

Getting carried away at the Brent Education Debate

I cannot offer a comprehensive summary of the speeches made at the Brent Education debate this week by Cllr Mary Arnold (lead member for children and families), Jon O'Connor (Cooperative College), Melissa Benn (local parent and author) and Hank Roberts (President ATL). This was because I was due to speak further down the list and constantly updating what I was going to say as other speakers raised the issues that I had planned to cover.  Always a problem with a list of speakers. I hope to publish something more from an attendee later.

What I can do, however,  is outline some of the key themes that emerged.

Melissa Benn spoke about the introduction of the market into education and the way the state sector was being opened up to profit makers. She spoke about the continuities of approach of both Conservatives and Labour but also expressed hopes about Labour's current policy review. I broadened the analysis to suggest that the destruction of the post-war settlement which created the welfare state was an attack on the alternative, communitarian values of the public sector because of the threat they posed to the market values of competition and profit making.  The bottom up innovations by teachers in the 1970s and 80s and their broad and progressive definitions of the nature and purposes of education had been attacked through the abolition of the ILEA, removal of teachers' wage bargaining, the national curriculum,  testing, league tables and centralised systems such as the Numeracy and Literacy strategies. There has also been changes in teaching training which served the new agenda. Teachers, as well as pupils, were being disciplined into the market.

The threat of fragmentation of the school system through  academies and free schools was also a recurring theme.  The lack of democratic accountability, limited parental representation and the  limited powers of the LA to intervene could not bring about just fragmentation and limit the ability to plan school places, but could also create segregation and limit access for children with disabilities or special needs. I pointed out that although we didn't talk about it there was already segregation in Brent schools. I mentioned two cases of places in Brent where a community school and a faith school were next to each other. When children left at the end of the day, one school's pupils would be mainly white and Afro-Caribbean and the other mainly Somalian and Middle Eastern. (Clearly here religion and ethnicity overlap).

Cllr Mary Arnold said that in order to provide school places, and because all new schools had to be either free schools or academies, the council were trying to find an acceptable free school partner. This was better than having a less acceptable one turn up in the borough. The council had devised criteria LINK that the partner would have to meet.  I expressed doubt that a partner would come forward that would meet these criteria as justification for creating free schools and academies was not to be bound by such demands. I expressed concern about council's policy of increasing the size of primary schools to meet the school places shortage. Primary schools of more than 1,000 4-11 year old pupils would be the result and I questioned whether this was a suitable size of institution for young children. I said that the Green Party favourd small schools where the staff knew all the children and their families and where special needs and vulnerable children could be catered for. I was especially concerned about safeguarding in large schools.

Jon O'Connor, who has been involved in talks in Brent about setting up Cooperative Schools and Cooperative Trusts, stressed that such schools still followed LA admissions guidelines, were financed through the LA, did not take funds away from other schools and had a positive democratic ethos. He did not go into detail about Cooperative Academies which are a different kettle of fish. Melissa Benn, who is a parent at Queens Park Community School which has become an academy despite parental opposition, joined O'Connor in pleading that schools making very difficult decisions in the present climate, particularly in terms of the financial benefits of academy status, should not be harshly judged by others.  Hank Roberts said that he against academies and would carry on fighting even if only one survived, said that there was a hierarchy of preferences starting with the community school, through cooperative trusts and federations, cooperative academies to free schools and sponsored academies. O'Connor said that becoming a cooperative trust could protect schools from being 'enforced' academies but Roberts retorted that Gove would quickly close that loophole if it proved effective. He praised the staff and parents of Downshill  Primary in Haringey who had fought Gove's decision to enforce academy conversion. Cllr Mary Arnold said that the formation of a federation between Furness Primary and Oakington Manor Primary had prevented the possibility of the former being forced to become an academy.

The two Michaels quoted above introduce the next theme which is that of the impact of all these  'reforms' on childhood, the role of education, the nature of teaching and learning and much else beside. It is significant that they are both children's writers in regular contact with children and schools. The narrowing of the curriculum, exam and test driven teaching, the target culture (an audience member said that in one primary school children responded to their name being called in the register with their targets rather than 'Yes Miss') and packed timetables all impact on children. With the pressure of testing, even now extended to phonic testing of infants, the abolition of the EMA, introduction of  tuition fees and prop[sects of unemployment our children are under pressure as never before. I described how when I was a headteacher, a parent accused the school of putting so much pressure on her daughter regarding SATs that she was being robbed of her childhood. I urged that children,  rather than the needs of industry and international PISA comparisons, be put at the centre of education. We needed to reclaim the right to childhood as well as reclaim our schools. 

The last theme, proposed by Pete Firmin of Brent TUC, was that of resistance to what was going in education just as there is resistance to the destruction of the health service. A parent voiced, to loud applause her determination to resist the increasingly political role of Ofsted by promoting a parent strike when Ofsted visited, with children being kept off school. Cllr Mary Arnold spoke about demands that were being formulated through  London Councils that would mean a united strategy across London and cooperation between boroughs.  I suggested that with the demise of the local Campaign for the Advancement of State Education (CASE) and the Brent Federation of School Governors that from the meeting we should build a broad-based campaign involving parents, teachers, governors and students  on the basis of the  basic principles emerging from the meeting.

Jon O'Connor had been been busy with pen and pad as I was speaking and suggested a campaign called Building the Right Education Now Together (BRENT).

A little clumsy perhaps?

More than 70 people attended the debate which was very ably chaired by Gill Wood a local parent and governor. The audience included students, parents, teachers, governors and the headteachers of Copland, Kingsbury and Preston Manor High Schools. Unfortunately, although I don't know them all by sight, I could see no primary headteachers at the meeting.

Further union action planned on Alperton academy conversion

60 NUT members at Alperton Community school in Wembley were on strike on Thursday 31st May against their school becoming a Co-operative academy. Pickets at the Upper and Lower school sites reported that things were very quiet both in numbers of staff from other unions going in and the number of pupils. Obviously many pupils had decided to take the day off unless they had exams. Leaflets had been distributed to pupils for their parents the day before to explain why the teachers were on strike.

Martin Allen, one of the NUT Reps, said: “There is opposition among staff to academies and with how decisions have been made. There’s no evidence academies benefit students. We feel the consultation process at Alperton has been imposed rather than discussed.”

Hank Roberts, joint secretary of the Brent Teachers Association, said: “It was a successful strike with hardly any pupils or teachers turning up. We are seeking a resolution with the head teacher. Our members voted for discontinuous industrial action in a ballot which means we do not need another ballot to take further action.”

Jean Roberts, joint secretary of the Brent Teachers Association, added, "We left staff planning their next moves over breakfast in a local cafe. It was clear that this strike was only part of their campaign to stop the school becoming an academy and further action would follow in the near future".

NUT members will be meeting after half term to plan their next moves.

Kingsbury High School Academy Bid - democracy must prevail say unions

Following the decision of Kingsbury High School governors to go ahead with an application for academy status, Hank Roberts NUT/ATL Secretary and Shane Johnschwager NASUWT Secretary,  have issued a statement to Kingsbury High staff vowing to work together so that democratic values prevail.

The Kingsbury decision follows that of Claremont High which was also criticised for failure to consult properly and ignoring the views of staff, parents and pupils as well as the more recent controversy at Holland Park where a consultation and decision took place in less than a week. If Kingsbury High became an academy it would join Ark and Claremont in the north of Brent, Crest Boys' and Girls' in the east and City Academy in the south

The unions' statement says:

·        At the Governors meeting Thursday night (14^th July) the Head concealed from Governors the fact that he had received formal notification from the Teacher Unions of a ballot for industrial action if the vote to apply went ahead.

·     In advance of the meeting he refused requests by the Local Secretaries for a meeting to seek a mutually agreeable way ahead to avoid a ballot for industrial action. Even on the day he failed to respond to repeated phonecalls.

·     The Head broke his promise to parents that he would tell them in advance of the Governors meeting whether or not he would advocate a pause in the process and a parental ballot.

·     He misled parents by saying they would be told the result of the staff ballot. They have not been told. They clearly should have been told before the vote to apply.

·     The Head advocated going ahead with no business plan having been provided, with no risk assessments having been done or provided, with no parental ballot having taken place and no proper pupil consultation.

·     The Head of the Finance Committee said that they had 'chosen to have a deficit'. This despite the Head telling parents that the deficit was due to Governors failure to 'grasp the nettle' regarding the school's financial situation.

·     The Head said that becoming an Academy, that is doing what Gove wants the school to do, would put Kingsbury in a better position to fight Gove if necessary. This despite the fact that the Secretary of State will ultimately have sole control of the school and its finances.

·     The Head misled Governors by saying that the staff's only real objections were the loss of the requirement for national pay and conditions and it being part of the privatising of state education agenda. He did not state that the prime concern of staff is the long-term harm this would do to the education of Kingsbury pupils.

·     Unions were accused of scaremongering about the potential loss of pay and conditions.

·     Statements were made about long-term financial gains to the school ('for the life of this Government') on the basis of no supporting evidence.

·      The main and longest speakers at the meeting were the Headteacher (in favour), a so-called 'neutral' advisor (clearly in favour), 'Associate members' of the Governing Body, (members of the Senior Leadership Team - in favour). All of these people are paid by the school. It is not in the spirit of good governance to have non-volunteers with such influence on such important decisions. Those who asked in advance of the meeting to speak against were told 'no'.

We believe a good Headteacher:

·     Would not ignore the views of the overwhelming majority of their staff.

·     Would have properly and democratically established parent's views (as he did teachers) before pressing ahead.

·     Would not have concealed from Governors that the school had received formal notification for a ballot for strike action if the Governors went ahead at this time.

The situation is now becoming ludicrous. How can any school be considered normal, consultative and democratic where a small group of individuals propose such significant changes, without the support of any of their stakeholders?

The literally thousands of staff, parents and pupils who ARE the school

All pretences of consultation and democracy have now been exposed as the sham they clearly always were. For the Headteacher to expect any member of staff to accept his 'guarantees' on pay and conditions when he has acted so dishonourably on this matter would be absurd.

In light of Mr Waxman's behaviour we suspect that he may also:

·        Like Claremont, seek to bring forward the date for conversion despite promises to the contrary.
·        Seek to rush and manipulate the parental ballot (if one occurs at all).

• Not have any proper and democratic consultative process with pupils

Despite this, we believe, Kingsbury WILL NOT become an Academy. It will  be too difficult to resist staff opposition, industrial action and united parental and pupil opposition.

To press ahead with all their stakeholders clearly and overwhelmingly against would turn Kingsbury into a cause celebre for all those who hold democratic values.  It would be unprecedented – not just in Brent but nationally. To risk this would be a step too far for a Head or Governor who values their reputation in the school and community.

The democratically untenable position of the Head and Governors cannot be sustained. Together we will ensure democratic values prevail.

An e-mail sent by a Kingsbury High School parent to other parents supported the teachers:

As parents we need to strongly support the staff in this, they are the ones who so ably provide our children’s education. The final step towards conversion would happen around October so we need to step up our campaign between now and then to stop this.

The governors have decided to take action that they know a majority of stakeholders are against. Please use the time now to talk to other parents before the public meeting (planned for Autumn term). We can stop the school from going down this reckless path, but to do so parents, staff, pupils and others all need to work together.

Ha

Save OUR College - Kilburn unites against closure

The community and the generations unite to save Kilburn Centre

A bustling Kilburn High Road, thick with Saturday traffic and shoppers, witnessed early resistance to the cuts when lecturers, students and their children, trades unionists, Brent Trades Council and local supporters marched to demonstrate against the closure of Kilburn Centre. The College of North West London is closing the £5.5m centre only three years after it opened in order to save money.  At the same time it has an unused building in Wembley Park worth £4m that it is refusing to sell off because it is waiting for the property market to recover.

Sarah Cox of Brent Trades Council, addressing the open air meeting in Kilburn Square rightly said that the CNWL should be educators, not property speculators. She emphasised the importance of the Centre as a local resource and the necessity for a building within easy walking distance for parents with young children.She remarked that the political parties had been vocal at the public meeting in support of the Centre during the General Election campaign but only the Green Party were present today.

Alf Filer of the UCU and Harrow College delivered a message of support and spoke about how the impact of cuts and recession had hit his own family. Hank Roberts of the NUT spoke about education cuts in general and called for direct action citing the occupation of Wembley Playing Fields in opposition to the building of the Wembley Academy. 

 

Not speaking, but evident from the posters - and very welcome, was the support of the Kilburn Times for the battle to save the Centre.

Standing in for Pete Murry, ex-CNWL  lecturer and Secretary of the Green Party Trade Union Group, who had a meeting elsewhere, I pledged the support of Brent Green Party for the campaign.  I said that Further Education was particularly important to me because as an '11+ failure' who had left school at 16, attending FE evening classes in my 20s had enabled me to get the qualifications to enter teacher training.

Further Education is a lifeline, a second chance, and has the capacity to change lives. That is why we must defend it. At the same time at the other end of the age spectrum Children's Centres, which are geared to improving life chances in the early years, are facing an uncertain future. Funding is only guaranteed for one year and with 20 Centres on stream, Brent may be faced with mothballing new buildings.

These buildings in our borough have been paid for by our taxes. They are OUR buildings and as such rather than letting them be mothballed and useless, we should take them over for community use. I could have added that with the policy on so-called 'free schools' we should be wary that they might be the target for private companies or charities to set up their own schools, funded by us, but outside any democratic accountability.

If we are to fight climate change and create a low carbon economy, we need to invest in education and training. It will be a scandal if the people of Brent, with its high unemployment rate, should miss out on such opportunities.

Sign the Campaign Petition HERE   Contact the campaign to offer help at cnwlkilburn@googlemail.com

Brent's Director of Education to Retire

John Christie, Director of Brent Children and Families, has announced his imminent retirement a few days before he is due to address Brent Governors at their annual conference which is being held on Friday at the Wembley Plaza.  The theme of his address? 'The Future in Brent'.

Christie, who will retire from September 6th after 8 years in Brent, says that this is a good time for a new appointment with a new council, a new government, and new challenges. These will include redundancies and conditions of employment changes, which have already been set in motion by Christie in his department.  There will be intensive pressure on schools, including primaries, to seek academy status with the incentive of up to 10% increase in funding from monies that are presently withheld by the Council to provide central education support services. There will be a consequent loss of funding to non-academy schools and deterioration in support services. This will force schools to buy in support from the private sector.  In  addition cuts in  central government funding for particular programmes which went directly to schools will mean that schools will have to either end those programmes or pay for them from their depleted funds.

Christie started his career in Brent with a great deal of goodwill.  His quiet and friendly approach was in stark contrast to his abrasive and divisive predecessor. During the hiatus after the hung  election in 2006, when the political parties failed to negotiate a new administration and officers ran the council, he continued to push the previous Labour administration's academy policy. When the Liberal Democrats belatedly formed a coalition with the Conservatives, they were persuaded to ditch their opposition to the Wembley Academy that had formed part of their election manifesto, on the basis that there was no alternative. The Conservatives were opposed to an academy on the Wembley Playing Fields site, however their failure to secure a written 'double majority' agreement (a policy only goes forward if a majority of councillors in each of the coalition parties agree it) meant that the Lib Dems out-voted the Tories on academy policy, and anyway had the support of the Labour councillors on this particular policy.

The decision to go ahead with the academy created a huge wave of opposition uniting local residents, trade unionists, Brent headteachers, Barry Gardiner MP and Bob Blackman, then leader of the Conservative group on the council and now a Tory MP.

Opposition was on varied grounds:
Objection in principle to the privatisation of state funded schooling, concern over the shady nature of the first sponsor, opposition to the loss of green space, concern over the impact on the local residential area, the possibility of conflicts between academy pupils and those from the nearby Preston Manor High School.  A constant theme, which continues, was the argument that a new secondary school was needed in South Brent, rather than the North.  As the planning process began the limited nature of the consultation also became an issue. Christie found himself faced with opposition at consultation meetings and the occupation of the playing fields by a Tent City (above).

Christie attempted to take on Hank Roberts, NUT and ATL activist, and one of the leaders of the Anti-Academy campaign threatening to end the agreement whereby the Authority paid for his cover whilst he was engaged in union duties. Eventually through a series of legal cases and with the Parks department taking over security at the playing field, campaigners were removed from the site and the council rushed through planning permission for a temporary primary school.

Planning permission for the permanent, all-though academy, now sponsored by ARK who are funded by a hedge fund speculator, followed. As building work began John Christie was faced with Hank Roberts on another front. Roberts whistle blew on financial mismanagement and alleged nepotism at his own school, Copland in Wembley, which led to suspensions, resignations and sackings. The situation raised serious issues about the role of the Brent Children and Families Department and the effectiveness of their monitoring of school financial management.

John Christie began as Director of Education in Brent but following the re-organisation of Children's Serrvices, which joined education and children's social work in one department, he became Director of Children and Families, taking on responsibility for children's social work, child protection, safeguarding and other similar areas. This was a huge extension of responsibility and the pressure on someone from the 'education side' must have been enormous. The Baby P case and the lessons to be learned from it loomed large in all local authorities and Christie was instrumental in introducing changes aimed at increasing the effectiveness of processes and multi-agency work in the borough.

Despite these difficulties Christie retains a considerable amount of goodwill and can point to many improvements in Children and Family services under his watch including the fact that Brent educational standards, as measured by examination results, are better than those of many similar authorities and a more stable and responsive approach to children's social needs.

Although policy is in theory made by councillors, the Director of Children and Families (or possibly Director of Education if Brent follows the Coalition example of separating the roles again) is extremely powerful and his or her educational philosophy and perspective on current educational issues vitally important. Will the  Labour Council appoint someone with the ability to stand up for children and schools, with an independent mind and the strength to resist government pressure; or will they appoint someone who will manage 'efficiency savings' and implement poorly thought out 'innovations' and in the process oversee the deterioration of Brent's education system?