Copland teachers denied chance to see pupils through to their exams

We have got used to teachers' professional views being ignored or thought of as no consequence, as in the case of the recent Radio4 panel discussion about history teaching with Michael Gove and academic historians, but with no actual history teachers present.

One would expect their views to be taken account of when a school is going through substantial changes and students will be affected.

However a meeting of the Interim Executive Board of Copland Community High School yesterday seemed to model their behaviour on that of Michael Gove.

The teacher unions had asked that leaving dates for staff made redundant be deferred until September so that they could continue to support their students who are taking examinations. The IEB decided that as all classes could be covered so all redundancies will take place at Easter.

Clearly from an educational point of view it is preferable, and perhaps essential, that teachers who know the students and their strengths and weaknesses and have taught them the subject, should see them all the way through to their examinations.

It appears that the IEB accepted the word of the headteacher on the issues discussed rather than subjecting them to the kind of rigorous challenge that Ofsted now expects regarding the quality of teaching and learning.

4th Copland teachers' strike against Ark Academy takeover

'Santas' support the last Copland strike

Copland Community School will be closed again tomorrow (Tuesday 17th December) as staff take their fourth day of strike action to oppose the attempt to force them to become an ARK academy. Staff who met today at lunchtime voted absolutely overwhelmingly for the strike to go ahead as the management had obviously not taken the attempts by the Union to come to a negotiated settlement, which could have avoided the strike. (See guest post below). This shows the staff's resolve not to be manipulated and to stand up against the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove's drive to privatisation, not even allowing any proper consultation.

Barking and Dagenham councillors have voted unanimously to ballot the parents of any school that is consulting on whether or not to become an academy – through choice or by direction. This is a direct challenge to attempts by Gove to force schools to become academies. It's a shame that Brent Council have not followed their example. They should now do so.

There will be a picket outside the school from 7.30 am tomorrow.

Green Euro candidate hits out at industrialisation of schools

A leading Green Party politician has condemned Government league tables that show nearly half the areas with primary schools not meeting new nationally set targets are in Yorkshire.

Cllr Andrew Cooper, who is lead Green candidate for Yorkshire & the Humber in the European elections next year, said he was at least as concerned about the process of league tables as he was about the findings. Greens would abolish league tables as they are currently devised and used.

Many areas badly affected by Government austerity
“These targets are nationally set and take no account of local issues," said Cllr Cooper . "It is telling that many of the schools identified are in areas of social deprivation which have been especially badly affected by the Government’s austerity drive.

League tables a crude mechanism
"Using league tables, which by default rank schools above or below others, is a crude mechanism for determining real educational needs and outcomes. It is not helpful and simply stigmatises schools where teachers, parents and pupils are often working incredibly hard in spite of frequently lacking resources or having to keep adjusting to changing diktats from central Government.”

Cllr Cooper went on to say, ”This comes in the same week we have heard that the Coalition’s flagship policy on free schools is running two times over budget and failing to meet need in areas with oversubscribed places. It is dreadful for the Government to now compound this assault on education by using a one dimensional process to assess our primary schools.”

Cllr Cooper added, “Greens want a very different approach to education. We support a model where needs are determined more locally but on a community basis rather than in the way free schools are allowed to operate, and in particular we want the education process to be one that is geared to individual children’s needs rather than Michael Gove’s latest idea.”

He said that Greens support primary children starting academic schooling at 6 rather than 5, which would be in line with successful education systems such as those in several European countries. Prior to that, building on the Surestart programme, a system of free nursery education should be available with an emphasis on learning through play. Greens would also adopt the Scandinavian model of “all through schools” where pupils would remain in the same school throughout their education but the schools themselves would become more local in their nature and smaller than some of the super-sized establishments found across the UK today.

“We want schools that are linked to the local community, not Whitehall, and that are central to the local area and focus on the varying needs of children,” said Cllr Cooper. “The Government has a two-faced approach of encouraging elitist free schools which drift off in their own direction but then imposes a one-size-fits-all assessment which simply tarnishes the reputation of less well resouced schools and even their local area."

Cllr Cooper concluded, ”Like any parent, I want my children to have an education that meets their needs, not some national target. Schools should not be exam factories; pupils are children, not widgets.”

Is Michaela Academy Free School viable?

A Freedom Of Information request has revealed that Michaela Academy, a secondary free school due to open in a disused College of North West London building, in September 2014, has received only 50 1st preference applications for the 120 places available.

In addition to 46 first preferences from Brent there were a further 4 from Harrow. Applications naming the school but not as first choice came from Croydon, Ealing, Harrow and Hillingdon.

The school, the creation of Katharine Birbalsingh, who lost her previous job when she spoke about children in her then school at a Tory Party Conference, had tried to set up in two other London boroughs but was firmly told it was not wanted.

The building the school is due to occupy, Arena House, opposite Wembley Park station, is rumoured to need its asbestos removed. There is no evidence of any work being carried out and some windows have been left open which allows pigeons access. It is rather a sad sight.

With the recent revelations that free school costs are twice as high as predicted, some free school opening with very few pupils,  free schools employing unqualified teachers and free school heads walking out after 6 months in the job, it is legitimate to ask, with only 46 first preference applicants, whether Michaela is viable.

An objective Department for Education would subject any further expenditure to stern scrutiny. However as after her Tory Conference appearance Birbalsingh is Michael Gove's darling and a favourite of the Tory Right, that seems unlikely. Brent Council certainly establish whether the money could be better spent and make their views known to the DfE.

The 120 places are likely to fill up eventually not only with children for whom the school is not their first choice, but who have failed to get into other schools, but also with new comers who moved into Brent after the application process closed.

It isn't a great start.

Hopeless Clegg fails to address Sulivan Primary School scandal

Hammersmith and Fulham Council plan to close successful Sulivan Primary School to hand the site over to Fulham Boys' Free School. Surely something the Lib Dems wouldn't approve of?

Sorry,to disenchant you but the video speaks for itself: Clegg continue;s to be Cameron's poodle. And does Michael Gove look even remotely interested?

Copland on strike again tomorrow against Ark take over

Staff at Copland Community School in Wembley will tomorrow  hold their third day of strike action against an attempt by Michael Gove and an imposed Interim Executive Board (IEB) to force the school to become an academy. Despite Cllr Michael Pavey, Lead member for Education in Brent, saying 'it is not a done deal' so far there had been no other option but ARK.

Staff will hold a rally outside The Torch pub at 10am  in Bridge Rd, Wembley against ARK forcibly taking over their school.

Hank Roberts, ATL Secretary and Immediate Past President said:

Stanley Fink, a leading ARK trustee, is the National Treasurer of the Conservative party and a friend of Michael Gove. He supports Gove's and the Conservatives policy, as revealed in the Independent, of handing over state schools to be run for profit. They're not in it for charitable giving. If they want to give Copland money we'd welcome it. Long term they're for taking money out of the system to add to the many millions they already have.

Tom Stone, NASUWT Acting Secretary said:

If Brent would only go and get the money the ex headteacher spirited away, the whole scenario of becoming an academy would disappear and Copland school would be a flourishing and effective school.

Lesley Gouldbourne, Joint NUT Secretary said,:

A recent leadership review of Copland carried out in October 2013 showed many improvements in teaching and learning and more robust financial management. Give the school time to continue this good work.

Copland own goal over football coach redundancy

Local press coverage some time ago

 'Fourth Official' writes a Guest Blog

Just 3 months after their ‘postponement’ (ie cancellation) of the school’s  long- planned annual Sports Day in July, the new management at Copland  are planning another spectacular sport-related own goal by proposing to sack  the school’s long-standing and widely-respected football coach Paul Lawrence, who has done so much for the school, for the development of boys’ and girls’ football  in north London generally, and even for the England national team in the shape of new 18 year old  star and ex-Copland student, Raheem Sterling, (coached from age 10 by Paul and  who recently joined Roy Hodgson’s squad in England’s successful qualifiers for next year’s  World Cup in Brazil).         

 This latest public relations disaster by Copland and Brent is likely to go national when Monday’s edition of the Independent carries the story of coach Lawrence’s inclusion in a list of 32 Copland mentors, caretakers, support staff and librarians who are the subjects of a redundancy ‘proposal’,  an axing of key support staff aimed at cutting the school’s debt in order to make Copland easier to flog off to some dodgy academy chain looking for a prime-site bargain. (The school’s debt dates from the recently-convicted Sir Alan Davies’s  ‘false accounting’ days.)

 The London Borough of Brent, whose ‘light touch’ approach to auditing and ostrich-like attitude to the nepotism and dodgy dealing in the school at the time contributed to the budgetary black hole, have always refused to cancel the debt or even to attempt to retrieve for the school the missing money, estimated at the time at up to £2million).         

 While the Copland management were drawing up their hit-list of who was to receive the early Christmas present of 32 red cards, Greg Dyke, now head of the Football Association, was announcing the setting up of a special Football Commission to try to find out what is wrong with football in this country; why we underachieve internationally; why top English clubs have to import foreign players,  and so on. 

With immaculate timing worthy of Theo Walcott at his best, Copland was simultaneously planning its own uniquely helpful answer to some of these questions; which is that, while at one end of the system the sports minister and the FA are spouting aspirational bromides about grass-roots, academies and excellence, at the other end, in the real world,  Brent’s  benighted bean-counting administrators, anxious to satisfy the demands of Gove’s ‘forced academy’ policy, fail to see the irony in casually sacking  a successful football coach who has made a huge contribution to community cohesion, let alone to the enjoyment of the ‘beautiful  game’ itself,  at a school situated  a few hundred yards from our national sport’s national home.        
  
 Meanwhile, Heather Rabbatts, now an FA director, on Saturday criticised Greg Dyke’s all-white Football Commission for its lack  of ethnic diversity. She said: ‘we are not only failing to reflect our national game but we are also letting down so many black and ethnic minority people - players, ex-players, coaches and volunteers, who have so much to offer and are so often discouraged and disheartened by the attitudes they encounter.’  Paul Lawrence could be forgiven for yelling ‘Tell me about it!’ when he read those words.      

Greg Dyke’s  reply to Ms Rabbatts  was this:  ‘The aim of the Commission  is to ensure that talented English kids, whatever their ethnicity or creed, are able to fulfil their potential to play at the highest level in English football, something which currently we are not sure is happening. We still want to see people with relevant experience from the BAME community on the Commission.’  

Well, the people of Brent might know one of those people you say you’re looking for, Greg. Time to call  Paul, maybe?  Perhaps the Commission would  appreciate his contributions more than a Wembley school’s management seem capable of doing. Perhaps Copland’s  loss could be English football’s gain.          

  But, of course, what Paul Lawrence would really like to do at the moment is to simply carry on doing what he’s done so successfully up to now: coaching Copland’s ordinary kids and its prospective England stars to fulfil their potential, so that they may  ‘have that true sense of self-worth which will enable them  to stand up for themselves and for a purpose greater than themselves, and, in doing so,  be of value to society.’          
                                                                                                     

 Just like it says in the ‘Welcome’ message on Copland Community School’s website, in fact.

Previous coverage of Raheem's connection with Copland and Wembley  LINK

Angry teachers march on Gove's HQ and demand that he go

ROARING support for striking teachers

Cheer up teachers! Watch this

Time for concerted preemptive advice on primary forced academies

An initiative I fully support from the Education Reform website: LINK

It is time to create a concerted stand against the bulldozing DfE conversion of Primary schools to Academies.

Each school so far has had to fight its own cause with only minor support from other schools or unions.

The situation calls for forewarning advice to be sent to each school before they have a chance of a weak Ofsted inspection outcome, with DfE brokers swiftly moving in to undemocratically convert the school to an Academy.

This measure is needed - overdue in fact - for the very simple reason that democracy is being subverted or simply ignored, with the DfE selecting 'preferred' sponsors opaquely, and blatantly failing to listen to parental needs or concerns. The occasional parental consultation that they tolerate is operated mechanically, and the results effectively ignored.

I might be deemed 'an enemy of promise' by trying to stop these forced conversions, but the DfE are indeed bulldozing the educational landscape, with the title deeds of the doomed schools and their land give away for free to private businesses who often have no original background in education. There is rumour that they will be given the right to make a profit on the back of this free offering in the future.

But the real enemy is the DfE as they are the 'enemies of reason' - they literally care not one jot about the public opinion, nor the hard facts that Academies do not guarantee success. The DfE know what they want - to serve private enterprise. Why else pass the title deeds to charity-status sponsors that never need to own them in the first place?

Many Primary schools are quivering at the impending arrival of Ofsted inspectors - a stressful enough event in normal circumstance. With the threat of massive upheaval against their wishes via the long forced conversion process, the spirit of a school can be killed.

Are there any volunteers who are happy to accumulate the advice that should be sent to the primary schools? I am happy to help coordinate this effort.

The Need for a National Campaign for Education

Writing on Wembley Matters I have repeatedly criticised Michael Gove's neoliberal reforms in education, the privatisation agenda represented by academies and free schools, and the way the emphasis on test results and league tables narrows the very concept of education and deprives children of their childhood.

The Anti-Academies Alliance has recognised the may strands of this battle and I fully support their support for a National Campaign for Education.

In this report Alasdair Smith, National Secretary  of the Anti Academies Alliance, outlines the issues and notes in passing the Green Party's opposition to the neoliberal vision.

Rumour has it that policy wonks in the DfE are hard at work on how to manage “market failures”.

Indeed the number of failing academies is soaring.  But then ‘failure’ is hardwired into a system of rationed exam success, the ever-changing goalpost of OFSTED and unbridled greed of ‘social entrepreneurs’ who now claim they have a special responsibility to transform education. Peter Hyman – pass the sick bucket please.

The wheels of big business intervention are in full motion.  I have looked, to no avail, to find figures on the increase in rate of investment by education businesses over the last 10 years. My guess it is huge. Rupert Murdoch’s re-branded edu-business – Amplify (www.amplify.com ) is clearly backed by huge investment.  Not surprisingly alongside big money, comes a whiff of corruption - nepotism, dishonesty and manipulation swirls around the system – with exam cheating, pilfering public money and appointing family members now part of Gove’s dystopian nightmare.

Revelations that several academies have adopted Section 28 style policy outlawing 'promotion of homosexuality’ come as no surprise. Deregulation and privatisation - what Gove calls 'autonomy' - can be a licence for bigotry. The outcry raised by the British Humanist Association report has forced the government into a review but we will need hard proof that no school has Section 28 style clauses in future.

The scandal of free schools is even worrying the likes of Graham Stuart – the Tory chair of Education Select Committee. The huge costs, obvious lack of value for money and, most disgracefully, the fact that free schools are opening in areas where there is no need for places is causing huge concern.

There is a ticking time bomb over the shortage of school places. Some parts of London now have several 5 form entry primary schools and are considering split shift education provision unless funding is dramatically increased.

Of course Gove will point to the odd ‘success’ in his new world order. But does he ask about the failures? And what will he do about them?

Is resistance to academy conversion futile?

The academy conversion process is now so clinical, so undemocratic and so dishonest that local campaigns rise and fall within weeks. Schools are handed to sponsors on a plate by DfE brokers. As John Harris argued in the Guardian last week there is murky relationship between OFSTED and academisation ( http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/16/ofsted-lashing-out-against-primary-schools )

This means there is little chance to build sustained campaign as happened at Downhills. Yet parents are still willing to fight. Neither Gove nor academy conversion is popular. Gove is hated by the profession. There is a profound sense that our communities are being bullied into conversion.

People understand that this policy is the same as policy as the privatising of the NHS. But unfortunately the patterns of resistance are similar to NHS too, although the sporadic protests tend to be even smaller.

One reason for the absence of serious resistance is that Stephen Twigg’s criticism of Gove’s policies has been too muted. Other Labour politicians have offered more - for example Andy Burnham's trenchant defence of comprehensive education. In some areas Labour MPs have worked hard to stem the tide and build alliances with parents and the profession.  But the few national policy announcement’s seems to be little more than ‘Gove lite’.

Elsewhere the Westminster village is in thrall to Gove. We should not believe for one minute that the Lib Dems are holding back Gove. David Laws has been central to propping up elements of Gove’s agenda such as Schools Direct and privatisation of teacher training.

Apart from the Green Party, a few principled MPs and a handful of commentators, the political class remain wholly committed to this neoliberal vision, or what Finnish educationalist Pasi Salhberg calls GERM – Global Education Reform Movement.

It means we need to think long and hard about our approach to education reform. There have been some bold initiatives. CASE, SEA and others have created Picking up the Pieces. This has identified some key features of what a good education system would look like.  The NUT and Compass have joined together to run an enquiry into future of education. Both initiatives appear to be focused on persuading Labour to change its policy going into the next election.

The viability of that strategy is a matter of some debate. In contrast the AAA has continued to try to mobilise parents and staff in campaign at school level, but with limited success. But it has also argued that we need something more. We need a new vision for education that stimulates a nationwide debate and action on achieving it.

The terrain has changed. We are not fighting a single battle against academies, but a ‘war’ in several different areas of education: curriculum, school places, primary, pre-school, teacher training and so on. The scale and breadth of attacks is unprecedented.

If the terrain changes, the vehicle has to change

From the outset we argued that the academies programme was a ‘Trojan horse’ to help break up state education as part of a much grander design to deregulate and privatise the whole system. That prediction is now becoming a reality. But just opposing academies and free schools does not always offer the best opportunities to fight back against Gove. Increasingly much of the secondary sector is now conditioned to academy status. And although academisation is new to the primary sector, it remains rare that single schools fighting alone stop conversion.

Our arguments about the real nature of the academies programme have stood the test of time, but our ability to halt it remains limited. So for the last couple of years the AAA has argued for a National Campaign for Education (NCE) to unite campaigns to create a greater sense of common purpose and above all to articulate ideas around what sort of education system we want not just what we are against.

There are many other areas of education policy on which Gove is more vulnerable. New campaigns are emerging all the time. The multiplicity of different campaigns working on different projects and timescales continue. Avoiding this sort of duplication of effort is a good argument for an NCE. But here is also another more compelling argument. The historic agreement between the NUT and NASUWT for joint programme of action that began on 27th June and will continue on 1^st and 17^th October offers new hope of resistance across the profession.

Whatever the success of the joint action there remains a job to be done for an NCE. It needs to keep alive ideas of what it means to have a comprehensive, progressive and democratic education system. It needs to engage in popularising a wholly different vision of education based on key ideas of the Finnish system - equality & ‘less is more’. But crucially this shared theoretical vision needs some genuine prospect of realisation for it to have any meaning. So the NCE needs to have a campaigning edge. It needs to take the debate on the future of education into schools and communities up and down the country.

As was reported at the AGM in March, progress towards an NCE has been slow. Support for it was agreed at NUT and UNISON conferences and a few practical steps have been taken.

The AAA is committed to working towards an NCE, but there remains plenty of work for us to do. Our primary function of supporting local campaign continues.
 

Primary school champion Robin Alexander slams Gove's 'Discourse of Derision'

From the TES blog: LINK

Teachers have more power than they realise to resist government reforms to primary education, Professor Robin Alexander, author of a wide-ranging review into primary education, has said.

The respected academic, who led the Cambridge Primary Review – a three-year analysis of all aspects of primary education published in 2009 - attacked the current "discourse of derision" in which the government denounced those who disagree with its ideas was the real "enemy of progress".

He was referring to a recent argument over the review of the national curriculum in which 100 academics curriculum proposals as an "endless lists of spellings, facts and rules" and were in turn denounced as "enemies of promise" in a newspaper article written by education secretary Michael Gove.

Professor Alexander said at an event in London last night: "It's surely proper to ask whether heaping abuse on members of the electorate because they hold different views is what government in a democracy is about.
"It is especially bafflingly during a period of public consultation when different views are what the government has expressly invited."

Alexander is no fan of the current coalition government’s national curriculum review, saying it uses international data with ‘eye-watering selectivity’.

Alexander's Cambridge Primary Review contained 75 recommendations but just one - start formal lessons at six - made the headlines, and the report was consequently largely dismissed by the then Labour government and had commissioned its own overhaul of the primary curriculum.

But he pointed out that many of the 2009 report’s recommendations did not need government action, they could be and were being, implemented by headteachers and teachers themselves.

Alexander was speaking at the launch of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust, a not-for-profit company with core funding from educational publisher Pearson. The trust, based at York University, will carry out research and training building on the review's evidence and principles. There will also be a separate body to develop branded professional services and materials for schools.

The launch event included a panel debate, Any Primary Questions?, which was chaired by broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby. Graham Stuart, chair of the Commons education select committee, was one of the panellists. He said afterwards that he felt more political attention had been focused on secondary than primary issues.

“It is important that primary community speaks up, rather than despairing of politics," Stuart said. "One of the priorities of The Cambridge Primary Trust is a policy dialogue and the Trust could become a strong advocate for the world of primary.”

Brighouse says some of Gove's powers should be taken away from him

Following the failure of my motion at Green Party Conference calling for a review if our education policy in the light of Michael Gove's reforms it is interesting to read today's report by Professor Sir Tim Brighouse for the New Visions for Education Group. The report 'Improved National Decision Making About Policy and Practice for Schools' sets 5 key  test questions for improved decision making in education.

The full report can be found HERE

This key  question is particularly pertinent to what I argued at Conference:


Assuming the context of the desirability of the principle of democratic accountability and subsidiarity, will the proposed change increase or decrease the power of the centre and the Secretary of State?’

We have referred to the fact that the Secretary of State now has many more powers than was once the case.
As we have outlined earlier however there is the need for democratic accountability and originally it was envisaged that much of that could and should be exercised locally. We agree with that starting point not least because we think that local knowledge can be powerful in securing equity for individual pupils and their parents.

Some of the powers which the Secretary of State has acquired should be taken away from him. It is astonishing that a system has been created whereby schools (in the form of Academies and Free Schools) have in effect been nationalised and are subject to private contract law to the Secretary of state who controls them in what they do. It is surprising too that parental complaints should be handled not by local government nor by an ombudsman but by the Secretary of State.

There are some powers of course which are best held centrally- for example securing an adequate supply of suitably qualified teachers and making sure that scarce capital resource is distributed fairly and to minimum acceptable standards. They are functions of planning which is necessary to secure equity. It makes no sense for the Secretary of State to abandon the duty in this respect, as has recently been done, as it will lead to shortages of teachers and schools with inadequate space and facilities. But there are other powers which are best exercised locally. A guiding principle of subsidiarity should start from the assumption that powers are best exercised and held democratically accountable locally.

Where next for Green Party policy on education?

My motion instructing the Green Party Policy Committee to initiate a policy development process in the light of Coalition policies, which would result in a  a redrafted Education Policy being presented to a future  Conference, failed to win a majority today. Part of the process I suggested was  to invite contributions from relevant teacher unions, educators and parent campaign groups to help shape the review.

One of the arguments against was that there had been a full and very thorough review in 2007 and that this should not be thrown away. Instead it was argued that a series of amendments should be tabled at a future Conference. It was also argued that the review would take time and may not be ready for the election period.

I believe something far more fundamental is required as you'll see from my speech notes, particularly as the ful schope of the Tory strategy was not evident at the time. . I wanted a far broader and participatory process but if we are to have a relevant policy in place for local elections in 2014 and the General Election in 2015 we must start thinking about amendments for Spring Conference now. The policy is 15 pages long so it is a substantial task. The current policy can be read HERE

These are the notes of my speech (not all of which may have been delivered as set out because of  the time constraints in a very rushed debate at the en of the morning session).

I want to start by acknowledging the work that went into the current policy and the many good and innovative ideas it contains. Don't blame me for the need for revision - blame Michael Gove!

The problem is, as Melissa Benn said at the panel on Friday, we are in a period of profound and unprecedented educational change in terms of both speed and ruthlessness. The post - war  settlement is being bulldozed into oblivion.

This is not just about individual policies but the neoliberal framework - subordination of education to economic aims and accompanying privatisation and profit making and the commodification of childhood.

Michael Gove is stealing our schools, our teachers' professionalism and our children's childhood.

Teachers 'deliver' lessons to deliver higher test results to deliver higher league table position and thus deliver us from Ofsted! (Prayer)

I am involved with many campaigns with parents, governors and teachers and am often  asked, where do you stand, what would you do? I have found the present policy wanting in giving a response.

The foundation of our policy needs to be strengthened - rejecting the Coalition's ideology and linking our approach to alternative views on the economy as well as the aims of education and the defence of childhood.

Although our policies are Green Government 'aspirational' they have to start with present realities and counter them. Don't protest -demand!

Areas for revision:

Local authorities fast disappearing regarding role in education   - academies & free schools and diminishing school improvement services.  We need to think about the 'middle tier' and role of Secretary of State. What democratic structures do we propose beyond the school level. What powers should the Secretary of State have?

We need to sharpen our critique of free schools and academies to stress issues around accountability, reinforcing social divisions and marketisation. Do we propose reintegration into a locally accountable community school system as we do with private schools? Should all schools have the same 'freedoms' as academies and free schools.

Sure Start - reducing and nature of early years education changing. We need more than 'continuing successful schemes such as Sure Start' what is our vision for the early years?

Ofsted - we say 'inspections will be revised' but we need to take account of its increasingly politicised role, the fact that it is privatised (Serco, Tribal) and overlaps with academy chains. What sort of school improvement service do we envisage - role and powers? How does this relate to institutions such as the HMI?

In our policy we say that the Inspectorate and LAs will be involved in the monitoring of governing body accountability structures - revision needed in the light of academies and free schools and decline in role of LA.

Pupil population expansion - because the Government has said any new school should be an academy or free school, LAs are being forced to expand primary schools with some in urban areas having more than 1,000 4-11 year olds and losing play space and additional rooms such as libraries and halls in the process. Again the role of LA in planning and provision has been undermined so we need to reaffirm their right to build new community schools to cope with the rising population.

Teacher education - university level teacher education is rapidly disappearing and being replaced by various 'on the job' training schemes with a neglect (and disparagement) of research, cognitive psychology, philosophy of education etc.   

I hope I have demonstrated sufficient grounds for revision, but more than this I am convinced that with the right policy, actively campaigned for in communities, teacher organisations, parent groups that we have a chance of building massive support and contributing to success in the forthcoming elections as well as having people flocking to support our campaigns. (I mentioned the successful NUT 'It's Time to Stand Up for Education' rallies aimed at parents, governors, teachers and pupils that were held in Brighton, Nottingham and London yesterday)

Declaration of Interests: I am a retired member of the NUT and a retired primary headteacher. I am currently chair of governors of two Brent primary schools and help convene the Brent Governors' Forum.  I am a trustee of the Brent Play Association and run Brent School Without Walls, a voluntary organisation that provides free nature and outdoor activities in Fryent Country Park for primary classes and out of school clubs. 

The Sulivan school scandal should shame Michael Gove and galvanise the Green Party

The outdoor space currently enjoyed by Sulivan children

Tomorrow evening there will be a panel discussion at the Green Party Conference in Brighton chaired by Natalie Bennett, the Green Party leader on Free Schools and Academies. The panel includes Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT and education campaigner and author of School Wars, Melissa Benn.

On Saturday I will be moving a motion calling for the revision of Green Party Education Policy in the light of the enormous changes brought about by the Coalition government.

Down in Fulham in South West London a battle is raging which epitomises these issues. Sulivan Primary is a local authority school rated Good with outstanding features by Ofsted. It is a small school with a form entry of 45 children. It is strongly supported by its parents who rate its care for pupils, accessibility for SEN and disabled children, and the amazing learning opportunities provided by its large play areas and outdoor science laboratory.

 Just the kind of child-centred community school that we in the Green Party would like to be the norm.

Save Our Sullivan campaigners at Hammersmith Town Hall

But Sulivan is threatened with closure by the flagship Tory borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, not because of any inadequacies on the part of the school but because the borough wants to find space for a proposed free school, Fulham Boys Free School.

In a further twist it wants to close Sulivan and transfer pupils to New Kings School, a one form entry school which is committed to become a privately sponsored academy.

At present there is spare capacity at Sulivan (overall 89% full but at capacity in younger classes) the closure/merger would actually reduce the overall number of school places at a time when an increase in demand is projected. The merged school would have a 2 form entry (60 children) against the current joint entry of 75.

Closure of Sulivan will enable the borough to divest itself of a local authority school and will satisfy Gove with another academy and free school to add to the empire which is accountable only to him.

Not surprisingly teachers and parents have risen up against this proposal and organised themselves into a effective lobbying force.  At a recent meeting about the closure, attended by parents, teachers, residents and governors there was standing room only with the attendance estimated at between 250 and 300.

An account of the meeting can be found HERE . Among the contributions was one by the mother of a child with impaired mobility who said that the single storey Sulivan was accessible for her child. She feared segregation at the Victorian New Kings, even if a lift were fitted.

A child bravely got up in front of the panel and large audience and, praising her headteacher and teacher several times, said that she loved he school and that she and other children would do everything they could to save it. She got huge applause from the audience but only a 'we'll bear what you say in mind' from the chair.

A teacher pressed the question, 'Please explain – with evidence and examples -  how you know that this amalgamation will provide a better education for the children.' and never got a satisfactory answer. Because of course this is not a decision that will be made on educational grounds but one made to further Gove's agenda of dismantling democratically controlled and accountable schools and opening the system up for privatisation and eventual profit making.

The dismissal of parents' views (unless they are parents who want to set up free school), ignoring of children's interests, and undemocratic procedures and sham consultations are all consistent with what teachers, parents and governors are experiencing with converter academies and forced academies.

The Green Party must stand alongside local campaigners on these issues.

Follow Save Our Sulivan on Twitter @SaveOurSulivan

Reclaiming inclusive education for all

Unite the Youth group

Michael Gove's Report Card

I was pleased to be asked to speak to the DPAC/Alliance for Inclusive Education group who delivered a demand for inclusive education to the DfE this lunchtime. This was part of the week of action which culminated this evening in a lobby of the House of Commons.

The demand for inclusive eduction was placed firmly within a social justice framework with the benefits of integration for both the disabled and non-disabled emphasised. Speakers were angry that the Coalition has put things into reverse with increased segregation, often now in private special schools, and academies and free schools making it harder for children with disabilities to receive equal access. Even mainstream local authority schools, fearing for their test and exam results and place in the league tables, are often less willing to admit such pupils.

I strongly supported this campaign which I feel is right both morally and in terms of educational benefit to all pupils. I told the crowd that we had gone from Every Child Matters to Every Test Result Matters to Only What Michael Gove Thinks Matters.

We need to return to saying Everyone Matters and ensure that the resources are provided to make sure that happens.

Local authorities must be permitted to build new schools to provide extra places

Today's publicity about the shortage of primary school places once again underlines the sheer stupidity of the Government's policy. Michael Gove's obsession with his ideological free school and academies policy means that local authorities are not allowed to build new schools. Instead they have to rely on free school providers or academy sponsors moving into their area or expansion of schools which are often already on crowded sites.

Labour should have been  campaigning vigorously for LAs to be given the finance and right to build new schools where there is a shortage of primary places. Unfortunately Stephen Twigg's lack of drive and his ambivalent attitude towards free schools has meant that the case has not been powerfully made.

Local authorities have the local knowledge to plan new schools where they are most needed and the expertise and resources to ensure that such schools are fit for purpose, have access to school support services and are professionally staffed so that they hit the ground running.  Free schools, even if they happen to be provided in areas of shortage (and many are not), do not have these guarantees.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide education and parents have a legal duty to ensure that their children attend school. Gove's policy, despite all his protestations, is actually thwarting both and in the process damaging children.

COPLAND’S IMPROVED A LEVEL RESULTS: A LESSON FOR GOVE AND OFSTED?

Guest post by Mistleflower

By my reckoning, the successful Copland  6^th form students who  achieved creditable and  ‘significantly improved’  results at A level this year  enjoyed their 7 years of secondary  education presided over by managements made up of :  first,  a bunch of (alleged) crooks led by a man knighted for ‘service to education’; second, a local Head brought on for a few weeks when the alleged malfeasors had suddenly to be substituted; third,  another  local Head on temporary loan for a season; and, finally,  a longer-lasting Leadership team ultimately deemed ‘Inadequate’ by Ofsted and put on a free transfer after failing to restore the school to its former glory after a difficult 3 seasons in the lower leagues. (The current management duo were drafted in too late to have had any influence on the A level results in question).  Despite all this disruption and disturbance, these Copland 6th formers seem to have flourished in their time at the school.

 Could it be that  Michael Gove, ever on the lookout for a new wheeze and a cheap headline,  will see Copland’s  improved A level results  after the school’s  unusual management journey as a potentially winning formula which he will announce at the Tory party conference  is soon to be rolled out in (state) schools across the country?  Could it be that LA  Directors of Education are  at this very moment being urged by DfE clones  to headhunt gangs of  fraudsters to help begin the ‘turning round’ of ‘failing schools’?  Have all Ofsted inspectors been ordered to produce the names of 10 ‘Inadequate’ Leaders  by noon on September 1 or face being declared ‘Inadequate’ themselves to their eternal shame and that of their children, Yea Even Unto the Tenth Generation?  Are teams of these newly-rehabilitated ‘Super-Inadequate ’ Leaders to be parachuted in to ‘failing’ schools across the nation, to begin the process  of driving up their A level results in time for the next election but one? Could it be that South Brent will soon be held up as an example of  educational ‘good practice’ in the same way that Gove has previously cited as relevant exemplars the educational systems of  Singapore, Finland, Guam,  Kyrgistan,  Vanuatu,  North Korea and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the days of Arthur Grimble (ask your grandad) ?

Or…………. might it just be, in fact, that these successful  Copland A level students worked pretty damn well over a period of 7 years in a school  that had been robbed blind by corruption, that was physically falling to bits, that was badmouthed by their friends and by some parts of the press (though nobly supported by others),  that was betrayed by its local authority, that was woefully mishandled by incoming ‘Leaders’ who seemed to have been briefed that the same staff who, on their own, had lanced the boil, were not really themselves  the victims of historic criminality  but were, in fact, the problem?

And could it be that these staff carried on teaching these students pretty well  over these same 7 years, trying not to be too distracted by having to spend time doing stuff the governors, the local authority or the fraud squad should have been doing   (detection, financial auditing, evidence gathering , taking witness statements,   accusation, publicising, and then union  action endangering their own livelihoods and career futures)  in order to bring to an end the haemorrhaging of millions of pounds of Brent taxpayers’ money?

 Could it be that these teachers continued teaching these students  by  using the same guiding  principles which had brought them into teaching in the first place: a respect for learning,  an affection for their students and a belief in the potential that learning has to change their students’ lives?   Could it be that they gave only weary lip-service to the  ‘Strategies for Delivering a  Good to Outstanding Lesson’  spouted at them on  INSET days by various  Leaders,  most of  whom were themselves demonstrably  incapable of producing anything approaching  the thing which they seemed to imagine  their status in the management hierarchy  gave them the authority to pontificate on?

Might we not ultimately conclude, therefore,  that the most important thing in any school has nothing to do with ‘Leadership’ and everything to do with the organic relationship between teachers and students. That the mantra taught in Leadership School ,  ‘I Am Passionate About Making a Difference ‘,  was never more than  a tired formulation , convenient for contestants on The Apprentice and  those who lack the imagination to invent their own platitudes, but one which barely conceals the barely-hidden fear of all Leaders  that maybe ‘Leadership’, in the sense that it is encountered in many of our schools, ie separate from and ‘above’ the organic teaching relationship which  is the essence of effective education , is no more than a self-serving dead end;  that most ‘Leadership’  ultimately doesn’t make  much difference at all to anything?  And might we not hope that  at least a few of the more talented individuals who have gone down the Leadership road might now see the error of their ways and  find their way back into respectable employment: as teachers?

Well done to those Copland students. You did a great job in exceptionally difficult circumstances.

Well done also to those Copland  teachers.       And, if you’ve still got a job, keep up the good work.

'Failing' Copland gets much improved A level results

The Kilburn Times LINK reports improved A Level results at Copland Community School. Copland was labelled 'Inadequate'  by Ofsted last term, its headteacher and governing body sacked, an Interim Executive Board imposed by Brent Council, forced academisation process started by the Department for Education, and the new management took competency procedures against many teachers.