Anti Academies staff and parents demand 'Give Us A Vote' at DfE Protest

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Wearing purple, the campaigning colour of suffragettes, parents, their children and staff from St Andrew and St Francis, protested outside the Department for Education (DfE) headquarters in Westminster this morning (14^th May). 

Braving the rain they chanted “give us a vote”. This referred to the Interim Executive Board’s (IEB) refusal to grant parents an independent secret ballot to prove, once and for all, their claim that the overwhelming majority of parents are against a forced academy. 

Irene Scorer, parents’ organiser, said, “They say they support parental choice. Why won’t they give us a fair vote in a secret ballot to establish what the parents’ choice is?” Irene handed in the petition signed by 230 parents asking for a vote to a representative from Nicky Morgan’s department at the DfE on behalf of the parents.  

Outside the Department for Education

Lesley Gouldbourne, Brent NUT Secretary, said, “Today was the seventh day of strike action taken by staff against an enforced academy. We have said all along we could have called strike action off if parents had been allowed an independent ballot”. She quoted from the Parliamentary Education Committee’s report on Academies and Free Schools, “We have sought but not found convincing evidence of the impact of academy status on attainment in primary schools.”

Hank Roberts, ATL Secretary, said, “Teachers and support staff have been standing up not just for themselves but for parents’ rights. We are pleased that the newly elected MP for Brent South Dawn Butler and Councillor Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council are calling for Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education to review the academy order in the light of claimed Ofsted irregularities, misrepresentations of parents true views to the DfE and the school already about to come out of special measures”.  The most recent Ofsted monitoring report after a two day inspection at the end of April 2015 says, “The school is making reasonable progress towards the removal of special measures”.

Parents and politicians support fight against forced academisation of St Andrew and St Francis CofE Primary

 Compiled from a press release from Brent ATL and NUT

Mr Gorsia, a parent, addressing the meeting

Staff at St Andrew and St Francis CofE Primary in Belton Rd, Willesden, Brent took their fifth day of strike action  on Thursday in protest at their school being forced to become an academy. The theme on the picket line was ‘Democracy denied: IEB refuses parents’ ballot’. After the picket line staff and parents went along the Willesden High Rd asking shopkeepers to display no academy notices which they were very happy to do. These notices are also being displayed in parents’ front windows and some are putting them in their cars to make sure the message is spread – no academy.

At the meeting yesterday evening in St Andrew’s Church attended by staff and parents Bridget Chapman, a speaker from the Anti Academies Alliance, said she had seen all the notices in the shops as she came from the tube station. It made a real impact. She fully supported the parents’ ballot. She said, “What are they so afraid of? She praised staff and parents for their stand against the privatisation of our education. “This is just giving away land and buildings to businesses,” she expalined.

Dawn Butler, Labour candidate for Brent Central, told parents that if Labour won the general election then she would do her utmost to get the decision to force the school into an academy reversal. She said that whatever happens on Thursday she would give full support to the campaign to have a parents’ ballot. “I say this because I believe in it. You are pushing at an open door”, she said.

Irene Scorer, parent, then handed over a petition against the academy to Dawn signed by 200 parents accounting for 290 children out of the 400 at the school. This is clearly a large majority and outstrips the 32 who said they supported the academy in the sham consultation. Many of these parents have since learning about academies changed their minds and signed the petition.

Three parents gave their views.  

Hamid El Hadi said:

I support everyone who is against this academy. This is affecting our children and the teachers are stressed. All we want is a ballot. We’re not asking for the earth.

 Bharat Gorsia said: 

We are being lied to by the school. We are told nothing will change. If it isn’t broken why fix it.

Syed Karrar told the audience that his daughter has had five teachers since Easter and that all this move to an academy had unsettled everyone. 

Hank Roberts, Brent ATL secretary also spoke and praised the commitment of staff and parents and said there was still all to win. Others who spoke from the audience agreed and there was an overall enthusiasm to continue the fight until justice prevails. Parents were informed that there would be two further days of strike action on Tuesday 12^th May and Thursday 14^th May. The unions had called off one of the strike days this week in an act of goodwill to try and reach agreement with the IEB on a ballot and TUPE negotiations. They heard on Wednesday that nothing had been agreed on any of the issues. Parents agreed that two days had to go ahead as the pressure needed to be kept up.

The unions, staff and parents have been trying to meet with key people from Brent and the LDBS to discuss things. The Bishop of Willesden declined a meeting but did say that the HMI inspection last Thursday and Friday, “they [the school] received a very favourable outcome indeed”. So, as the parents and staff say, why change the school into an academy if it has made significant improvements and likely to come out of special measures?

Messages of support from around the country were relayed to the meeting including this statement from Martin Francis, Brent Green party spokesperson on children and families.

Please convey the support of Brent Green Party for the staff and parents in their fight against forced academisation. We see academies and free schools as a form of privatisation that removes democratic accountability and prepares the way for profit making from education. Green Party policy is to integrate academies and free schools into the local authority school system.

Muhammed Butt did not attend and did not send any statement about his position with regards a ballot as he had been asked to, much to everyone’s disapproval.

Wednesday's strike at St Andrew & St Francis called off to promote negotiations but Thursday's strike still on, followed by public meeting

Teaching unions had planned two days of strikes this week against forced academisation  at Andrew and St Francis Primary School in Willesden on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

Today they announced that they would call off Wednesday's strike in 'an act to show good faith' in order to enable them to promote negotiations with the Interim Executive Board (the body that replaced the governors). The Unions said 'We are really hoping that this extra time will enable proper talks to take place to end this dispute.'

Thursday's strike is scheduled to go ahead and will be followed in the evening by a Public Meeting to discuss the issue. 7pm St Andrews Church, 145 High Road,  London NW10 28J

Parents chain themselves to school entrance in protest against forced academisation

Parents chained themselves across school entrance

Report from Brent NUT and ATL

Parents and their children used 20 metres of chains and padlocks to chain themselves across the front entrance of their primary school. They were there to support the teachers and support staff who were taking strike action against the school being forced to become an academy. St Andrew and St Francis Cof E Primary in Belton Rd, Willesden, Brent had taken their first day of action last week and this week they are on strike for two days.

The parents are demanding an independently overseen ballot with full information of the arguments for and against an academy. The so called consultation was a mere letter supporting an academy and a form that asked parents if they did or not. On a small turn out the majority agreed. But the IEB ignored a meeting of parents held at the school who made it clear they were unanimously against an academy. This was not even mentioned in the consultation report sent to the DfE.  Both parents and the education unions have been talking to and handing out information to parents about why the school should not be an academy. The parents’ petition has reached over 360 signing to say they are totally against a forced academy and demanding a fair ballot.

The staff, parents and children sang songs, blew whistles, banged drums and shouted No academy! There was a fantastic feeling of solidarity among the crowd and a determination to continue the campaign.

Irene Scorer, a parent, said, “Today was fantastic. We really showed that we support our teachers and support staff. We’ll keep going until they give us a ballot. We’ll be looking at how we can escalate the campaign. We won’t be bullied into becoming an academy.”

Lesley Gouldbourne, Brent NUT secretary, who represents the majority of the teaching staff at the school, said, “It was great to see so many parents with their children supporting the staff today. The IEB still refuse to recognise the parents’ democratic right to be heard – and we will keep shouting until they do!”

Hank Roberts, ATL Secretary, who also represents staff at the school said, “Today shows that support for the staff taking action against the school being forced to become an academy is growing. 

We also have more staff joining the strike this week. Some children were in school today taught by strike breakers from senior management. But with the growing support from staff and parents to continue and increase such action, the IEB needs to start listening and agree a ballot.”

After Easter more strikes are planned if the IEB do not agree to a ballot for parents which the Unions have even offered to pay for. What have they got to fear from this?

The Brent and Kilburn Times gives the following quote from Brent Council:

A Brent Council spokesman said: “It is central government policy that schools in special measures become academies. Since this is inevitable, it is better that the future of the school is resolved speedily.

“We are aware that trade unions are against St Andrews and St Francis School becoming an academy, however it is important to note that the majority of parents who took part in a consultation earlier this year on the school becoming an academy, said that they were in favour of the proposal.”

The statement ignores the parents' views and is misleading in suggesting that forced academisation is automatic and inevitable. Other schools, with support from their local authorities, have successfully fought of forced academisation proposals.  Unfortunately Labour in Brent acquiesce in such policies even as a General Election approaches where that policy can be challenged.

Parents call for support as teachers strike again at St Andrew and St Francis Primary against forced academisation

Teachers will be strking again on Tuesday March 24th and Wednesday Match 25th at St Andrew and St Francis Cof E Primary School in Willesden.  This time parents ahve issued their own letter supporting the action against forced academisation.

The teachers' letter to parents says:

How much does the IEB presently running St Andrew and St Francis school care about parents and what they think? The answer is not at all.

We offered to call off further strike action if they were prepared to have a proper democratic ballot of parents to find out if they wanted the school to be forced to become an academy OR NOT. But the IEB refused. We again said the unions would pay for the ballot. The IEB still refused.

Parents have told us that the reason most parents did not take part in the original IEB so called consultation is because they did not get enough information to make a decision one way or the other. They were given no arguments why a forced academy was a bad idea. It was not made clear that the Government was forcing St Andrew and St Francis to become an academy.

Parents are now more aware as they have been given the arguments against and so have heard both sides of the argument. Well over 300 parents so far have signed the petition against an academy. If you haven’t yet signed please do.

Further reasons to say NO to an academy are:

.        1)  “Parents are sidelined from all important decisions from saying whether the school 
should convert to the running of the academy”. (All Party Select Committee Jan 2015) 


.        2)  “Nearly half academy trusts have paid millions of pounds in public money towards 
the private businesses of directors, trustees and relatives”. (Nat: Audit Office 2014) 


.        3)  Despite the government promoting academies only 20% of schools have converted. 
That’s why the government is forcing schools to become academies. 

 


The next strike will be for two days on Tuesday 24th March and Wednesday 25th March. We deeply regret the disruption to your child’s education but strike action is not undertaken lightly and, as we said in our last leaflet, is very much the last resort.

Teachers have the future of your child’s education at heart. The IEB clearly does not, as otherwise they would have agreed to a staff and parents’ ballot.

We still demand an independently overseen secret ballot of parents so that you are given a proper say in the future of your child’s education. We also demand that they include an elected staff and parent representative on the IEB. So far they have said NO.

Please join us on Tuesday 24^th outside the school in Belton Rd between 8.15 and 8.45

Bring your own placards, whistles, drums etc.

LET’S MAKE A NOISE AND SAY NO TO AN ACADEMY!

This is the letter from the parents to other parents at the school:

Anti forced academisation strike well supported

Parents and support  staff joined teachers on a strike picket line on Wednesday at St Andrew and St Francis C of E Primary School in Willesden.

Teachers from the NUT and ATL were striking against  the Interim Executive Board's plan to academise the school following a criticval Ofsted report. Staff and parents argue that this is unnecessary as improvements are already in progress.

Copland: Did Premature Ejaculation Rule Out Final Ofsted Visit?

Guest blog by ‘Pamela Stephenson-Connolly’

For those who like closure in their stories these are frustrating times. With only 2 weeks of the school year left it has been announced that, due to illness, Copland’s final Ofsted inspection visit will not now take place. This will mean that the HMI’s  written report of the visit may have to be put back on the shelf for a while. This is quite unnecessary, however, as the 3 reports published after earlier visits this year indicated that the actual inspections had little influence on the final reports,  the content and assertions of which were overwhelmingly determined by the DfE/Ofsted’s pre-written narrative of which the reports simply formed a  part. LINK to http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/copland-is-getting-goves-reverse-trojan_11.html 

The nature of the narrative arc was set in the first Ofsted report this year (‘the interim headteacher and associate headteacher and very strong governance of the IEB are driving change well’) and it soon became clear that the reports’ principle purpose was to portray  the ‘saving’ of a school by Gove, his ‘useful idiots’ Pavey, Marshall, John, Price and the rest of the IEB, through  forced academisation, ‘tough’ but necessary action, (60 staff and half the curriculum axed), and finally the salvation that would be The Ark Rescue (and thence onward ultimately to privatisation). The report on the final inspection, now postponed, would have provided the climactic instalment.

There are some, however, who are sceptical about the official reasons given for the cancellation of the inspection and support their case by reference to the tone of fevered over-excitement in the last report in March  ( ‘We can see hope now.’ This new-found optimism is palpable!’ etc). These sceptics contend that this March report in fact read more like the climax (‘richer quality of learning…yes!…rigour…yes!…challenge…yes!…more this, more that…...yes yes!…  more rigour still….   yes yes!….best practice…yes yes yes!………..cutting edge……more more more! …….yes yes yes! …ooooohhh ……’ etc)   and that the inspectors reached this climax too early. In a kind of Ofsted premature ejaculation they came too soon to what they should have delayed until later, ie the final triumphant inspection report written to justify the whole year’s evisceration of the school, its curriculum, its staff and its soul. The inability to defer gratification left Ofsted with nothing left in the tank for the final report, hence the cancellation.

The rumour surrounding this theory now joins a litany of other half-believed stories which have circulated in recent months at the school. Here’s a sample.

Rumour 1.    Subject: No Ofsted Inspection (Alternative explanation 1)

According to this one, after the Trojan Horse fiasco, nobody believes Ofsted anymore and Copland’s new owners, Ark,  didn’t want their new property tainted by association. Ark wide-boy and Tory party contributor Lord Fink had a word with Cameron who told Gove, ‘No inspection or I’ll unleash Theresa May on you and you stay on the naughty step for another month’.   ‘Sorted, Dave’, was apparently Gove’s reply.

Rumour 2.     Subject: New School House Names

Apparently, the Ark functionary who decided to impose the name Harold M.Elvin Academy on the new school is determined to continue this theme in other areas. Accordingly, the new school house names are to be similarly influenced by stars of 1970s Philly Soul and will be called

Delphonics, Stylistics, O’Jays, Spinners, Trammps, Sweet Sensations

Plans to change the boys’ school uniform to wide-lapelled velvet jackets, flares and platform shoes with contrast laces and to adopt ‘Betcha By Golly Wow’ as the school motto were considered a step too far, however.  

 (The proposal for ‘Backstabbers’ to be the Leadership Team Motivational Song for the new Ark era was nevertheless accepted unanimously).

Rumour 3.   Subject: No Ofsted Inspection (Alternative Explanation 2) 

 

This rumour claimed that the final Ofsted inspection would, in fact, still take place and it would be on Thursday 10^th July when almost all the staff would be on strike and the school would be closed to students. An inspection of an empty school would achieve 2 objectives. Firstly, the incidence of pupil misbehaviour would be substantially less. (The March Ofsted report’s claims that ‘behaviour is much improved and the school is a more respectful place…’  were laughed at by staff who know the reality. ‘The worst it’s ever been’ was what I was told by one experienced teacher in a position to know and with no axe to grind. Hardly surprising when support staff, student supervisors and an entire mentoring department have been scrapped this year and the remaining hard-pressed staff regularly receive messages asking them to help out ‘as we are rather understaffed today’. No kidding!).

The second reason to visit on a strike day would be so that the HMI could see at first hand one great growth area at Copland which is a direct result of the IEB/Marshall regime. Up until last September Copland’s annual loss of teaching days through strike action averaged less than 1 day per year. This year, since the imposition of IEB/Marshall, that figure has improved by about 800% year on year. Having shot their bolt over teaching and learning standards in the March report, Ofsted could have at last begun to retumesce on this one great sign of progress. ( ‘We can see solidarity now. The new-found disillusionment and militancy is palpable!’). It would have made enjoyable reading.

Copland will close next Wednesday and that’s not a rumour. None of the staff forced out over the last year have received any kind of recognition from IEB/Marshall: no leaving ceremonies, no presentations, no collections, no leaving speeches, no spoken thanks, no written communications of gratitude for their contribution. Nothing. Instead, those taking ‘voluntary’ redundancy have received a letter which begins with the sensitive formulation: ‘I write to confirm your dismissal from the services of the school on the grounds of redundancy’.

In a way this is a fitting end to a decline which began with Ofsted failing Alan Davies’s Copland on Safeguarding. (Failing to safeguard the students, that is, not the public funds in the school budget. Ofsted had been quite happy with Davies/Evans/Patel’s financial management of the school, as had Brent Council. It was the staff who blew the whistle on the £2.7 million scam and the staff who suffered the consequences: a series of clueless appointments at senior management level (with new managers primed by Brent to regard the staff as ‘the problem’), and a refusal by Brent either to pursue the missing money or to balance this refusal by acknowledging its responsibility for the resulting budget deficit).

So it goes. For the moment, the city boys, the privatisers, the self-seeking ‘non-political’ careerists and the bullshitters are in the ascendancy. Schools as exam-grade factories will dominate for a while. But they’re only a manifestation of a particular point on the greater narrative arc of our society. If Copland’s teachers have achieved anything in the school’s varied and mostly honourable history it will have been to have helped produce kids who will grow into adults who will appreciate the limitations of this essentially sterile ‘vision’ and  come together to do something positive to change it. 

I wonder where that would feature in an Ofsted inspector’s checklist of teacher achievements.

COPLAND IS GETTING GOVE’S ‘REVERSE -TROJAN -HORSE’ TREATMENT

Guest blog by Will Shaw

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the bizarre events surrounding the Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ schools should have finally made clear that Ofsted exists to give the government the inspection reports it requires to support whatever its  schools strategy happens to be at any particular time. If the inspectors don’t come up with the right report they can be sent back into schools until they do. This is not usually necessary as the inspectors know what is expected of them and they dutifully supply it. Their lack of integrity or principled independence of thought can be measured by their deafening silence in objecting to this role over the years  and the extreme rarity of any individual resignations.

Ofsted inspections are a key weapon in the government’s overriding aim of ultimately turning  all (state) schools into centrally-run academies and  taking them out of local democratic accountability.  Once Ofsted supplies the government with the ‘appropriate’ inspection report on a school, the next stage is special measures, the imposition from outside of a non-accountable IEB  and forced academisation. This is the stage Copland has been at since last September. 

Obviously, this stage in the process has to appear  to be both necessary and beneficial and it’s Ofsted again which is used to show how much schools like Copland  improve as a result of the government’s wise policies. At Copland, if the inspectors are to be believed, the beneficial results of government policy were almost instantaneous. Their report after last November’s visit spoke of  the school having ‘turned a corner’ and ‘students making better progress’. It continued ‘ teaching …..attendance and punctuality are improving’, ‘students are keen to learn’, ‘ there has been a sea-change in the pace of improvement’, ‘the interim headteacher and associate headteacher and very strong governance of the IEB are driving this change well’ and so on; and all this after only 6 weeks! The nature of the narrative had been set. 

March 2014’s Copland report took the hagiography to the next level:  ‘… the  headteacher of St Paul’s Way is an astute Chair of the Interim Executive Board….. IEB members are asking the right questions about the school’s performance.. balanced in the rigour of challenge and in the quality of their support. Senior leaders are ‘stepping up to the plate’ more …. having greater impact on the work of the school ……... responding well to the high level of challenge being laid down by school leaders and the IEB... ……more accurate understanding of students’ needs  ……..higher expectations for students……  behaviour is much improved and the school is a more respectful place…… zero tolerance to poor behaviour … ….. an attitude of respect between and among students and staff……more confident and articulate learners. …….a richer quality of teaching…..teaching is better… lessons are more structured’. Clearly carried away with the spirit of the thing, the reporting inspector at one point came over all Mills and Boon and, revealing  a bureaucrat’s tin ear for the speech patterns of 21^st century London youth,   wrote this:

 ‘One student, capturing the views of many, said, ‘We can see hope now.’ This new-found optimism is palpable’.  

 (I like to imagine the inspector considering whether to  attribute the final 6 words to this ‘student’ as well, but wisely deciding that this might be pushing it a bit). 

It’s difficult not to laugh (if only at the writers’ belief that they could get away with this tosh) but many teachers and pupils have worked very hard at Copland this year and it’s a pity that any truth which these Ofsted reports might contain is tarnished by the relentless gung-ho bollocks  of the rest of it. But then, establishing  the truth is not at all what these inspections are about. How could they be when 2 inspectors come in for a day and a half and watch 10 or 15 minutes of a few lessons?  No, as in Birmingham their function is to provide bogus supporting evidence for actions already decided on. In the case of Copland, we are being provided with the  narrative of the ‘saving’ of a school by Gove, forced academisation, ‘tough’ but necessary action, (60 staff and half the curriculum axed), and finally the salvation that is The Ark Rescue.  

It’s a satisfying narrative  so far and it will be interesting to see how far the Ofsted inspectors think they can push it when the report on their imminent final visit comes out in a few weeks time.  As the purpose of the report is pre-determined and as the inspectors know what is expected of them (and  also know that their continuing employment depends on their coming up with the goods), the report  might as well have been written last September. If it was, I hope they don’t change anything if they , by chance, should come across this blog. And if they’re looking for further fictional inspiration, what better place than in the sort of book that, if he’d ever read it, Michael Gove would surely have banned, if only for the fact that it isn’t even really a decent, proper, stout English novel but rather some thin, poncey, foreign-sounding thing called a ‘novella’: Animal Farm.

“It has become usual in Wembley to give Mr Gove, Michael Pavey, the IEB, the Interim Headteacher and the Associate Headteacher  the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune at the school. You will often hear one pupil remark to another, “Under the guidance of our Senior Leadership Team  I have progressed  five levels in six months” or two teachers, enjoying a drink at the staffroom water-cooler, will exclaim, “thanks to the leadership of Headteacher  Marshall and  Associate Headteacher John, how excellent this water tastes!”...” (With apologies to  George Orwell).

The next Copland Ofsted visit is ‘imminent’  and the inspector’s report will be published in a few week’s time. But please remember, and thanks to Martin, you read it here first.

Copland challenge under Equalities Act

The Anti-Academies working party at Copland Community School have sent the following letter to Muhammed Butt and Michael Pavey, councillors and representatives of the parties and independents contesting the local elections:

I am sending this letter on behalf of Copland’s Anti Academy Working Party. We believe that there has been a lack of proper consultation over the future of Copland Community School. We believe that the people who have been appointed by you to run our school do not have the interest of the children of Copland at heart. The running down of the school library is evidence of this but there are many more examples that we could give.

You chose people to run our school who do not represent our school community. We believe that what you have allowed them to do is in contravention of the Equal Opportunities Act of 2011 which states that “a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”. We believe that you and the Interim Executive Board (IEB) of Copland School have failed to do this.

We refer in particular to the Somalian Community at Copland School. No effort was made by the IEB to consult with this group. Our anti academy group translated our literature into Somalian and other languages but the IEB did not. When this was pointed out to them they belatedly put a notice on the school website saying that parents could use Google translate to read their literature. When they did this Google translate did not have the ability to translate into Somalian. We did translate our literature into Somalian and we have had support from Somalian parents and from a representative of the Somalian Community in Brent. 

The Equal Opportunities Act 2011 states that a public authority must “encourage persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low”.  Neither you nor the IEB at Copland School did this. 

We have another proposal for Copland School. Lycamobile have expressed an interest in sponsoring our school. Their proposal is generous. The representatives of Lycamobile with whom we have met are more representative of the people of Brent that those who make up the IEB. We want all parents to be informed that there is another option for Copland School. We believe that our option will be more beneficial for the children of Copland School than ARK Academy. If you promise to have a fair vote and our proposal is not chosen we shall accept ARK Academy. If you do not then we shall consider legal action.

 

Mr Shyam Gorsia

Tough Times at Copland Today

Guest blog by So Macho

We live in tough times, as the cushioned and the comfortable  frequently remind us, and there can be few more nauseating contemporary  sights than effete middle-class Englishmen like Osborne, Cameron and Gove, with the might of the state at their disposal, boasting of the toughness of the decisions they have to make in order to intimidate, bully or impoverish the vulnerable.  It was tough times too at Copland today as another swathe of teachers collected their P45s, the consequence of the tough decisions the IEB has had to make in order to make Copland into a tempting morsel for Ark Inc. No time for sentiment either as no recognition was made by the tough management of the fact that staff with up to 12 years of  service were getting their dismissal letters. No official farewells, no gathering of the staff for an organised and dignified recognition of colleagues’ contribution and no time for staff to hold even an unofficial goodbye as, contrary to tradition and custom and practice in other schools, they were told toughly that ‘Friday will be a normal day’. 

Not for those being made redundant it wasn't. Tough eh?

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 IEB opts for 'No Trust' status

 Guest blog from 'Deleted'

Another 25 teachers at Copland have been notified that they are on a new redundancy hit-list for sacking at the end of the summer term. This follows the dozens of staff who have already been sacked since last July when Brent Council sent in an Interim Executive Board (IEB) to run the school (down).

Why is the Copland IEB now being called the Copland  Lie EB? 

In the autumn they said there would be no forced redundancies. Just weeks later they are  ‘consulting’ (telling) 25 staff that in the (new) next stage of ‘staff reorganisation’ (sacking),  14 of their ‘posts will be deleted’ (14 people will be sacked).  You can apply for ‘voluntary’ redundancy  (ie sack yourself and get a bit of compensation) or wait for the school to sack you. Whichever way, it’s forced, it’s compulsory and it’s the sack. 

What do the Lie E.B give as their reasons for the sackings?

They say they’ve got more teachers than they need. Well, they would have really, wouldn’t they? It’s a measure of the Lie E.B’s success in practically closing down the 6^th form  and producing an Austerity Curriculum for the rest of the school. Since last July they’ve scrapped  all the 6^th form vocational subjects, loads of successful  A level and GCSE subjects, got rid of support teachers and  mentoring staff and the latest statement from them scraps Business Studies, effectively scraps Yr 7,8 and 9 Information Technology  and gets rid of Art.  They turned away good potential 6^th Form students last August when they told them at the last minute they’d have to go elsewhere as they’d scrapped their subjects. They’ve narrowed the school’s curriculum offer to make it so unattractive that only 40 parents put Copland down as first choice for Sept 2014 (even less than Michaela ‘Free’ School, and they don’t even have a viable building).

Then add to that the continuing flow of inept and embarrassing decisions (scrapping Sports Days, charity events,  prize-giving evenings, progressive student associations, etc etc) which have produced columns of print in the local and national press, campaigns on social media, and disbelief among current and former  students and staff. So, dismantle the curriculum, halve the intake and, hey presto, you’ve got too many teachers! 

This is called ‘vision’.

It’s basically the same technique as the Tories have used against the NHS. Regard the institution and its staff as the enemy. Run it down, highlight all its defects. Cut staff, provide worse services to the point where no one will want to bother to fight to save it. Then flog it off to a chain.

But isn’t Copland becoming an Academy in September? Won’t they need teachers?

Of course, and no one believes that an academy chain intends to run a school with no subjects and no decent curriculum offer. After they’ve thrown away all this experience and knowledge  in this year’s sackings they’ll start advertising for new teachers, with all the expense and waste (and risk) that entails. But the new staff will be young and cheap and obedient, advised not to talk to other staff out of their rank and not to join the union. They’ll be on short-term, hire-and-fire contracts and staff turnover will be high. In a few years’ time they’ll all be agency staff and many will probably be on zero-hours contracts. Most will give up teaching in less than 5 years. This is not a prediction; it’s already happening. This is Gove’s  ‘future’ (with the acquiescence of the Copland management, it’s imported  IEB, Brent’s Michael Pavey and Mohammed Butt). And it’s what Copland staff are resisting.

Ok. But the ‘no compulsory redundancies’ promise was only a small untruth and maybe was meant only to refer to the last sacking round, no reason to call the IEB the Lie EB is it?

Yes, because the last sacking round was supposed to be the final sacking round (apart from a Leadership cull which now seems to have been  postponed until next year).  The proposed review of TLRs has not appeared and these new sackings have come out of the blue.

But there’s something else. The sacking letters Copland staff now regularly receive have always  referred  to financial reasons for the sackings and regularly trot out the excuse of  ‘the accumulated budget deficit which is currently in excess of £1.5 million’.         

                                                                                                                                              

2 points about this:

The ‘budget deficit’ dates from the time when the recently-convicted –in-the- courts (and earlier-knighted-by- the-Queen) ex-Head Davies ran the show. Brent Council only acted to stop his activities after being embarrassed into intervening  by union action,  have never made any attempt to retrieve the alleged £2.7 million taken from the school and did not even seek costs at his trial. (Why not?  The judge didn’t know either. Choose your own conspiracy theory).

More importantly, this is what Ark Schools, in a written answer,  told Copland staff would happen  to  this deficit when the school becomes an academy in September 2014:

It is normal practice for the deficit to be set to zero by the local authority when a school becomes an academy.

Copland staff should not have to rely on outsiders like Ark Schools  for information affecting their futures  which their own governing body should supply them with.  It would appear that, at the date the current sackings take effect (end of academic year 2013/2014), the deficit will be ‘set to zero by the local authority’.  So in August, yet more  Copland staff will lose their livelihoods in order to  reduce a budget deficit which will not any longer exist. The IEB’s reference to the ‘accumulated budget deficit’ as a justification for  dismantling the school and sacking the majority of its staff  is therefore disingenuous, an obfuscation. 

Or, in plainer English, a lie.

         I  EB?          Or Lie  EB?      Or does it just amount to the same truth-twisting  thing?