Michaela petition now at 4,323 signatories. No comment from school or Brent Council yet. Petition call for Michaela School to provide a Prayer Room for students amid allegations of 'disturbing' treatment of Muslim students

A petition has been launched calling for Michaela School in Wembley, where Home Secertary Suella Braverman was one of the founders and the first Chair of Governors, to provide a Prayer Room for students. By noon Thursday the petition had 4,323 signatories.

The petition makes a number of allegations about the treatment of Muslim pupils in the school and claims that this is disturbing 'Islamophobic' behaviour: 

A school that prides itself on being “multi cultural” and “multi faith” is treating their Muslim students in this way?? What’s worse is that this school is majority Muslim students and there is no prayer room designated for them. Students have requested for a prayer room which has  been refused by the school and so they have to pray on the floor outside.

The petition asks students who have experienced such treatment and concerned parents to get in touch because the petitioner wants to escalate the issue to the 'school board' (Board of Governors) and the local council.

Michaela is a free school so not under the direct oversight of Brent Council, but the local authority does have responsibility for the safeguarding and wellbeing of all children in the borough.

You can read the Petition in full HERE

 Both Michaela Community School and Brent Council were asked for a comment yesterday but neither had responded by the time this was published today.

UPDATE: No comment from either by noon today despite social media commentary.

Michaela seeks permission for a gigantic new school sign

The current school sign

The proposed new sign

A comparison of the two signs from Bridge Road

Michaela Free School in Wembley Park which already has a large school sign that hits you eye in the eye as you cross Bridge Road from Wembley Park station has applied to Brent Council to erect a new. much larger replacement sign on the same posts as the current sign.

As the architect's drawing shows the sign against the full height of the Michaela building it is not easy to gauge the impact of the change at human eye level so I have reproduced them  below for comparison. It is almost as if the application seeks to minimise the true scale.

Present sign

Proposed sign

As far as I can see the planning application does not give the dimensions of the present sign.  The replacement sign is 3.6 metres x 2 metres ( approx 12 ft by 6-1/2ft) - much larger than any school sign I know and in my view more suitable for a commercial premises.  

Readers can comment on the application18/2675 before August 21st. The application seeks permission until July 2032. 

Comment HERE

'Sergeant Major' with 'good voice' required to direct detentions at Michaela School - true or a spoof?

Is it a wind-up?  So hard to tell with the Michaela Free School, but this is what appears in Times Education Supplement jobs this week.  It is not currently advertised on the Michaela website and it is unusual to request a CV rather than an application form to be completed with full qualification and employment history as well as safeguarding declaration.

Hoax or real Michaela will get some publicity out of it and headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh (above)  enjoys that as can be seen from the school website.

It says something about the school and its methods that it is hard to tell whether the ad is genuine.

The Chair of Governors of Michaela is Suella Fernandes, Conservative MP for Fareham.

Job details

Job details

Employer	Michaela Community School
Location	Brent
Salary	£22k to £35k – with up to 14 weeks holiday per year
Contract type	Full Time
Contract term	Permanent

Job dates

Posted	26 Jan 2017 New this week
Closing date	23 Feb 2017

Days are 7:30am to 5:30pm, with Friday ending at 3:30pm
Do you like order and discipline?
Do you believe in children being obedient every time?
Do you believe that allowing children to make excuses is unkind?

If you do, then the role of Detention Director at Michaela Community School, could be for you.
This role isn't suited to a would-be counsellor or to someone who wants to be every child's best friend. This role is for someone who believes children need clear, firm discipline. This role is for someone who believes tough love is what children need to become better people and grow into responsible young adults.

We want someone who will analyse data, organise detentions, line-manage staff, be a sergeant major in the detention room, ring parents, be extremely efficient with time and paperwork, have heart-to-heart conversations with pupils and be inspirational.

You do not need any experience, but must be willing to learn on the job. You will need reasonable spoken English, but your written English does not have to be excellent. You must also be
hard-working, willing to get stuck in and own the job like it is the most important thing in the world to you.

We will train you if you are the right person for the job. So don't imagine you cannot do it. If you have presence, passion and a good voice, then we want to meet you!

The salary we are offering is far higher than a job like this would normally pay. This is because we want someone who is truly excellent. Even if we start you at the bottom of the range, the pay will rise quickly if you are good.

You are welcome to visit the school anytime, so please call us on 020 8795 3183 to arrange a visit.
To apply, please send a full CV with a covering letter to info@mcsbrent.co.uk.

Buildings crisis for Brent free schools opening in September

The Michaela Academy site today

Although the funding for the Michaela Community  Free School has been approved by Michael Gove and the first cohort of Year 7 pupils are due to start in September there is no sign of any work going on in the building which is looking increasingly forlorn. The very limited play area beneath the bulding, right next to the railway line is rubble strewn, there are broken windows and there are reports that the building is ridden with asbestos.

Things are even worse for the other two secondary free schools due to open in September with Year 7 pupils. Neither Gladstone nor Gateway have yet to find a site. Gladstone's offcial address is the Crown Hotel in Cricklewood and Gateway has offices at 5-6 Empire Way. Gateway was rumoured to have its eye on a building in London Road but the school's website states that it hope to inform parents of the school's site in 'the New Year' and has not been updated. Gladstone announced to the local press today that it was not now proposing to build on the local Gladstone Open Space after community protests and it is still looking for a site within a mile radius.

Whatever one thinks about free schools, and my views are well known, this puts parents and pupils in a difficult position when they receive information about their school applications on Monday. What will happen to them if the buildings are not ready in September? Transfer to secondary school is fraught enough without this additional uncertainty. Will Brent Council suddenly be confronted with a substantial group of pupils not in school?

Figuring out Brent secondary school applications

Following my story revealing the number of Brent 1st preference choices for Michael Community Free School  Year 7 admissions for September 2014 was 46, several people have asked about comparable figures for other secondary schools. I have submitted a Freedom of Information request for 1st preference figures for other Brent secondary schools.

Meanwhile the following statistics from last year's admissions (September 2013 applications for Year 7) will give a picture of the relative popularity of Brent secondary schools. These are all applications - not just first preferences.  Please be aware that admissions criteria vary between the schools but that many places are filled by siblings of children already in the school. Some schools also give preference to their primary feeder schools.

In 2013 67.26% of  Brent Year 6 children got their first choice of  secondary school.

School	Year 7 places available	Number of on-time applications
Alperton	220	471
Ark	180	2479
Capital	196	425
Claremont	252	934
Convent of Jesus & Mary	180	270
Copland	240	283
JFS	300	1225
Kingsbury	315	1148
Preston Manor	252	1148
Newman Catholic College	150	133
Queens Park	208	1256
St Gregory’s	176	601
Crest Boys’	150	137
Crest Girls’	180	219
Wembley High	210	2254

Good riddance to Michaela's monster advertisement tomorrow

The Michaela Free School proposers are to take down the illegal giant advertisement they put up on Arena House, Wembley Park, tomorrow according to the Kilburn Times LINK

The issue of whether planning permission had been granted  for the huge hoarding was first raised over the weekend on a Tweet to Brent Council by Wembley Matters, following information from a resident that planning permission had been refused for a similar sized banner back in 2008. Brent Council quickly took the matter up on Monday morning

Although Michaela tried to wriggle out of it, claiming that the advertisement was only going to be there for a few days and they had intended to take it down tomorrow, they seem to have been caught with their trousers down. They even had the audacity to offer the advertising space to anyone else who wanted to use it as they 'want to be part of the Brent Community'!

Perhaps the Anti-Academies Alliance or Brent Fightback should ask to use the space.

Michaela's giant hoarding erected without planning permission

Following complaints from residents Brent Council confirmed this morning that the giant sign on Arena House had been erected without planning permission. Borough Planning Enforcement Officers are now investigating.

Suella Fernandes, vice chair of Michaela's governing body and daughter of a former Brent Conservative councillor, is a barrister specialising in planning law.

In 2008 a planning application for a similar sized hoarding to advertise Wembley events (ref 08/1287) was refused on the grounds that it would:

have an adverse impact on visual amenity (and would be) a souse of distraction for users of the highway and create an unacceptable risk to highway safety

I would add other safety concerns if the hoarding became dislodged in high winds and ended up on the road or the nearby Chiltern, Metropolitan and Jubilee railway lines. Has the security of the fixing to the building been checked and a risk assessment completed?

Birbalsingh, Gove's heroine, to open free school in Wembley Park

Michael Gove and Katharine Birbalsingh

 The controversial teacher who attacked the 'chaos' of comprehensive education at the Conservative Party Conference and illustrated her talk with photographs of her pupils, claims to have found premises for a secondary free school in Wembley Park.

Katharine Birbalsingh, who got a standing ovation from the Tories,  lost her job as a consequence of her attack and tried to set up a free school in Tooting but was forced to abandon the plans.

A great fan of traditional education and discipline she is prone to throw away remarks, obscure quotations and huge generalisations. She and Michael Gove are mutual admirers and the Daily Mail worships her.

 In a Guardian interview LINK she discussed her views on education:

But Birbalsingh is adamant: "Teaching is the most wonderful job on the planet." She was devastated, she says, when, after her speech, she was suspended from her job and eventually had to resign. "I was unemployable in the state system. You're just not allowed to speak out. I talked to a couple of heads and the atmosphere was: you've done the unthinkable. I went to see a headhunter and he told me to go under the radar for a couple of years and said failed heads get jobs eventually. And I thought: I'm not a failed head, this is ridiculous."

Birbalsingh insists she has nothing against teachers, nor against comprehensives. "It's the system," she says. Her Penguin, To Miss With Love, is withering about Ofsted, which, in Birbalsingh/Snuffy's (she blogged as Snuffy) view, measures the wrong things in the wrong way. She says standards are in headlong decline so that, to get a C in GCSE English, "you don't have to read a Shakespeare play", whereas in fee-charging schools, "they read one Shakespeare play a year". She believes mixed-ability teaching, used in "about half" the schools, is "political fantasy", and says children should be held back a year if they're failing. She thinks black children misbehave because they know that any teacher who disciplines them is accused of racism. "Black kids," writes Miss Snuffy, "all have that winning ace up their sleeve – the race card ... The kid can literally smell the fear. So the teacher starts to back off."

I am unclear where Birbalsingh's Wembley Park free school premises  are, and whether her school (Michaela Community School) had their eyes on Brent Town Hall, but she seems a very unlikely free school partner for Brent Council given the terms for partnerships the council set out last year.LINK

On the MSC website LINK  the proposers state:

The proposers of the Michaela Community School are delighted to announce that they have secured a building in the Wembley Park area of Brent and are now progressing through the pre-opening phase.

We have always been committed to setting up a community school which serves London’s inner-city which sets high expectations and raises standards and aspirations and our choice of location and building is perfect in this respect.

We will be out and about in Brent discussing the school with parents, carers and potential pupils and will post more information here when we have it.

Birbalsingh,  who is named as the 'Proposed' headteacher (I wonder who proposed her?) writes:

Welcome to the website which sets out our proposals for a free school based in the Wembley Park area of Brent.

Michaela Community School (MCS) will be a mixed community secondary school for pupils aged 11-18 of all backgrounds, offering an excellent, traditional education.

The school is approved into ‘pre-opening’ for September 2013 and we have secured a wonderful building in the Wembley Park area of Brent. If you would like to be kept up-to-date with our progress and wish to consider MCS for your child(ren), please fill register your details through this site.

We believe that a first-class education based upon traditional values should be within the reach of every child, no matter their background. MCS will bring the values and advantages of a private school education to young people by providing a highly academic curriculum and strong discipline.

The school is named after Michaela, an inspirational teacher whose traditional values ensured her pupils achieved great success. Michaela died in 2011 but her commitment to tradition, discipline and providing pupils with confidence and ambition will live on through the MCS.

The curriculum will prioritise academic subjects with an emphasis on knowledge-acquisition. Click here to find out more about our curriculum. We will encourage aspiration and motivation and ensure our pupils are confident in the basics. Mastering English and Maths to a high standard will form the basis of learning at the school for every pupil. High-achieving pupils will be stretched and those who are struggling will be given extra tuition in English and Maths as part of an extended day. The academic rigour at the school will offer pupils the opportunity to progress to the very best universities in the country, including the Russell Group universities and Oxford and Cambridge. All of our pupils will leave MCS with high levels of numeracy, reading, writing and spoken English.

If this proposal comes to anything the concentration of schools in the Wembley Park area will increase even more. What will be the impact on neighbouring schools as well as on the image of education in Brent if this  school opens and  Birbalsingh becomes part of our local landscape?