Greens condemn Government's contempt for democracy and accountability in education

Samantha Pancheri, Green Party Schools spokesperson has challenged the thinking behind the Government's Education and Adoption Bill whioch was published today.

She said:

It should not come as a surprise that the Conservatives have stepped up their backdoor privatisation of schools by announcing a new Bill that would see schools deemed as ‘failing’ forced into converting to academies.

Once again, the wishes of school staff, pupils, and parents are being robustly ignored by Nicky Morgan, in spite of multiple high profile campaigns against forced academisation, and a profound lack of evidence that conversion to academy status actually improves educational outcomes.

Alarmingly, the bill also includes a measure to scrap the requirement for academy sponsors to consult with school communities, demonstrating nothing short of contempt for democracy and local accountability, while the government dismisses anti-academy campaigns as hindrances.

There is simply no place for business interests in our schools. Education must be protected from being encroached upon by profit motives, and to have schools sponsored by the likes of BAE Systems is a disgrace.

If the Conservatives truly wish to improve educational outcomes for children and young people, they must move away from the rigid and impractical categorisation of schools by Ofsted, and instead look holistically at the environment and opportunities provided in schools. Teachers and unions have highlighted the impact of high workload and stress on their ability to meet pupils’ needs, and also that excessive testing of pupils is damaging their learning experience.

There are many positive improvements that could be made to the school system by reducing teachers’ workload, scaling back overregulation, scrapping unnecessary standardised testing and, above all, investing in schools to enable them to provide the staff and resources that pupils need and deserve in order to realise their potential.

This proposed bill will achieve nothing in that respect, and is nothing more than another step in introducing marketisation, and removing local democratic accountability from our schools.

Mega primary proposals for Byron Court sparks education debate

Proposals to expand Byron Court Primary School from 3 forms of entry to 5  (the current 90 children per year group  going up to 150  per year group, making a total of 1,050 children from 4-11 years old) with an additional nursery, have caused concern amongst parents.

341 parents have signed a petition against the proposal and 760 residents have submitted their own petition.  Signatures have been collected on a stall outside the school gates.  The TV documentary about Gascoigne Primary School,  'Britian's Biggest Primary School' , on Channel Five seems to have increased fears rather than allayed them.

Parents feel that an emphasis on crowd control, rotas for lunchtime and play times, children not being known personally by the headteacher, high pupil mobility associated with children from a long way outside the catchment taking up places and then eventually moving to a closer local school, are all issues that could impact on the quality of education offered by the school, and more importantly for some, children's happiness.

"I would rather my child was happy, felt he was safe and that he belonged, and known to all the staff than the school had all these glossy new facilities," was how one parent put it to me.

The parents have challenged Brent Council on whether there is actually an increased demand in the area of the school, and point to the fact that a satellite class at Ashley Gardens is not full. They also say that the new 4 form of entry (120 pupils per year group) primary school at Wembley High will provide any new places needed in the locality.

Parents acknowledge the need for a new school building but suggest that they are being bribed by the Council who say that a new building cannot be provided unless the school expands.

The Executive Headteacher of the school is said to be keen on the expansion and new build because it could include facilities for specialist subjects such as sport and drama, with its own theatre and a hall that could seat 1,200. A radio station is also mentioned as have rooftop playgrounds.

It would enhance a school which was deemed 'Outstanding' by Ofsted some time ago and which is part of the Teaching School Alliance.

Residents in turn suggest that a 'jumbo sized' school in a quiet area with narrow roads will simply be out of place. They see problems with access for builders and particular the cranes required for the installation of the modular buildings that are proposed. There is also a longer term issue over increased parent car parking  due to the higher pupil numbers. It is already a major problem which no intervention has succeeded in tackling.

The proposal has two  prongs: the decision for expansion in principle following consultation goes to Cabinet on March 16th and if approved the planning application will go to the Planning Committee in April.

Insight into the business of Gladstone Free School: Are they doing it right?

Guest blog by Anonymous
 

It all started innocently enough. Jim Gatten and Maria Evans, a mum and dad from Barnet, decided to set up a new parent-led secondary school which they hoped the community would embrace. They applied to become a free school, a school independent of the local authority and accountable only to and funded directly by the Department for Education (DfE). They advertised for other parents and members of the community to join them in gathering enough signatures to show the DfE that it would be full for the first 2 years after opening, a box ticking exercise the DfE puts hopeful free school founders through. Off they went with their clipboards to various primary school gates gathering signatures. They got the required minimum of 250 signatures necessary for their free school application but there was never a groundswell of local support. Many parents who signed simply thought that a new school sounds like a good idea, after all, these are parents setting up a school and just need a simple no-obligation signature. No explanation was given as to the implications a free school has on the local communities and it was 2013, before the flurry of headlines of failing and undersubscribed free schools had hit the press.

Brent Odds-On for Private Eye Awards 2015

Local bookies braced for surge in betting          

                                                

Guest blog by I.L.Wager

Brent Staff Achievement Awards are not the only annual awards likely to prove a continuing embarrassment to Brent Council’s Butt, Gilbert and Davani over the coming months. The Brent Leadership’s attempt to figure in Private Eye magazine’s regular Rotten Borough Awards ( given to local councils who have demonstrated particular talents in the areas of corruption, greed, stupidity or cronyism) failed last year as they left their trump card ( the Rotten Boroughs article on the racist bullying verdict, jobs-for-the-girls, inflated salaries, romance in high places etc) too late in the year to overtake boroughs like Tower Hamlets and Rotherham who had made the most impressive early running. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, Brent have put down an early marker for the 2015 Cash for Cronyism category by getting the following article onto the Rotten Boroughs page of this week’s edition of Private Eye:

‘A heartfelt welcome back to Lorraine Langham, newly-appointed £140k ‘chief operating officer’ at the London borough of Brent. Ms Langham made frequent appearances in Rotten Boroughs in the Noughties, thanks to the umbilical link she appeared to have with her chum Christine Gilbert, wife of disgraced former Labour minister Tony ‘Second Home’ McNulty.

In the early Noughties, when Gilbert was chief executive of Tower Hamlets council, Langham was its communications supremo. Then in 2006, Gilbert became the boss of Ofsted and Langham was appointed director of corporate services. Now Lorraine has joined senior management at Brent following a ‘restructuring’ overseen by (amazing coincidence) the council’s ‘interim’ chief executive…….Christine Gilbert.   Small world!’ 

An unflashy, solid start from Team Brent but timing is all, and with the Failed-Rosemarie-Clarke- Appeal-Waste-of-Money story soon to come, and who knows what else up the sleeves of Butt/Gilbert/Davani/Langham, the smart money is beginning to take Mo’s girls’ chances for silverware in 2015  Very Seriously Indeed.

                                                                      Go Team Brent!

Pavey Review won't lance Brent's boil but points to future improvements

 

The Pavey Review which was published last week has this key sentence:

0. It is important to note that the review was not a review of our HR department. It is about the role each person has to play in making Brent Council the best possible place to work. There are clear recommendations in relation to employment policies and practice, and these require the action of the entire organisation and crucially managers at all levels.
   

This limitation is why Brent Green Party and others called for an independent investigation into Brent Council, not only in the racial discrimination, victimisation and constructive dismissal that an Employment Tribunal found against first respondent Brent Council and second respondent Cara Davani, but into the previous working connections of senior staff. The latest example of the latter is the appointment of Lorraine Langham as Brent's Chief Operating Officer who like Christine Gilbert and Cara Davani previously worked for both Ofsted and Tower Hamlets Council. LINK

In any other organisation disciplinary action would have been taken against a manager found guilty of such conduct. Muhammed Butt, when challenged by members of staff on the issue at Brent Connects said the council had to follow 'due process' and make an Appeal.

Some Councillors suggested to me that disciplinary action could only take place when the Appeal process had been exhausted. A Judge found that the Council had no grounds for an Appeal but still no action was taken. Two legitimate opportunities to lance the boil missed.

Some have claimed that disciplinary action in itself would amount to victimisation or even a 'witch hunt',  or would be to succomb to political pressure. This is  a red herring. The Council owes a duty of care towards its employees and this includes ensuring that they are treated fairly in their day to day employment regardless of race, gender etc. Brent Council should have confidence that their own disciplinary procedures are robust enough to withstand such pressures.

Now the Council is in the position of having someone in charge of HR who has been found guilty of the above offences but is nevertheless in charge of recruitment and redundancies policies. Long term mprovements in processes and procedures does not address immediate issue.

Michael Pavey has done a thorough job within his limited remit, consulting widely with staff and apparently winning their confidence. One glaring ommission is consulting with the staff who have left the Council and examining any gagging clauses that were imposed. They, after all, are possible victims of poor employment and practice.

However, given the comments I have received on this blog regarding working conditions at Brent Council (many unpublished so as not to reveal identity or due to gagging clauses) as well as emails and telephone calls, soemtimes distraught,  the following comment seems emollient:

This review finds that Brent is generally a happy and inclusive place to work. But there is plenty we can do better.

Although Cllr Pavey recognises that Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) statistics in Brent are better than some other London local authorities, he says they are far from satisfactory.  What is missing from his report is the connection between those statistics and the operation of the HR department (Proportion of BAME employees in Brent is 62%, Female employees 65%):

Both show higher proportions in the lower grade and I assume that BAME and Female would be higher still at tScale 3 to P2, and lower at the Hay grade.

Im terms of HR practice the reasons for leaving are also important and for both BAME and Females dismissals are higher (second column)

These are perhaps some of the most important recommendations:

-->

Finding: Generally, feedback from staff themselves suggests that practice is good; however, improvements can and should be made to employee management practice to achieve a more collaborative and inclusive culture. 


Engagement with staff suggests inconsistent application of policies and procedures, including as regards flexible working. There has clearly been great progress in implementing good management practice, but the Council should also seek to ensure that internal communication explain expected practice, underpinned by a clear explication of staff and manager competencies and behaviours.

·      At present, there are few reported incidents of bullying and harassment. The Council has an emphasis on informal resolution: according to the LGA this represents good practice. Consideration should be given to ensuring consistency, support and follow up within the informal resolution framework. 


·      The Council lacks a systematic Council-wide approach to learning from HR and legal processes when complaints are raised; whilst this is not uncommon, we have an opportunity to make improvements. In addition, this may give rise to inconsistent management responses. Thus, though HR takes the lead, individual managers are responsible for learning from ETs and grievances, and reviews take place with HR and within departments. Improvements should be made in terms of cross-organisational learning, peer review and Council-wide improvements. 


·      The Code of Conduct does not at present adequately articulate the behaviours and practice expected of managers and staff. Such behaviours should be clearly articulated, communicated and reflected in: 


·      recruitment and selection processes


·      ongoing team and line management

·      
appraisal processes

·      learning development processes and interventions.

Addressing this presents an opportunity to emphasise the significant priority the Council attaches to valuing diversity.

·      Evaluation of practice and understanding of staff experience should be regular and Council-wide. 


·      Internal communications should be strengthened to become a two-way flow of information. It is critical for senior management to be able to communicate values and good practice to the wider workforce. But it is equally important that communications enables the wider workforce to articulate their experiences to senior management. In two staff focus groups, more than half had not seen a copy of their service or team plan and participants suggested that improvements could be made to internal communications, including the ability for greater staff engagement and management visibility, for example through senior managers attending team meetings. This is increasingly important given the scale and pace of change. Managers themselves need to be supported to communicate effectively, but must also play the key role in staff engagement. Given the current and future constraints on funding, it is important that central advice and strategy is complemented by good practice within departments. 


The Full Report can be found  HERE

Brent Council CEO Christine Gilbert Announces ‘Whistle Blowing Hotline’

Christine Gilbert

 

 

                       Confidential hotline for concerned staff’ planned.

Guest Blog by 'Gilbert Harding'

Christine Gilbert, perpetual ‘interim’ CEO of Brent Council which, together with HR lead and interpersonal staff relations role-model Cara Davani, was recently found guilty of racial discrimination, victimisation and workplace bullying,  has announced her plans  to set up ‘a confidential whistle-blower hotline so that any staff who had serious concerns’ could communicate their worries to their bosses.

This would be a great relief to those many Brent Council employees who have, openly on this blog, privately to Martin Francis, and most recently and publicly to Private Eye, expressed their ‘serious concerns’ about bullying, victimisation, threats of dismissal, cronyism, gagging clauses  and corruption at Brent Council’s Civic Centre.  Such a move would be welcomed as an appropriate intervention by a leader wanting to find out what was really going on in her organisation with a view to turning a troubled situation round in an open and transparent way.  

Slightly disappointingly, however, Ms Gilbert made the whistle-blower announcement quoted above not recently but a whole 6 years ago on December 10^th 2008 to a Commons Select Committee and in relation to her then job as Head of Ofsted (the previous employer also of Cara Davani, Clive Heaphy and Ark Academies employee Dame Sally Morgan).    

(Details HERE )

Nevertheless, Brent Council staff will be feeling confident that Ms Gilbert’s passionate desire to let some light into the murkier corners of institutional malpractice will not have faded since her earlier statement and that her principles remain intact.

 Indeed, one hooded and masked Civic Centre employee was relaxed enough yesterday to tell me, in an unsigned encrypted  message smuggled out  past a cordon of G4S security personnel and hidden in a camouflage-pattern green and  brown envelope :  ‘I think I can speak for all my anonymous colleagues when I say that I believe Ms Gilbert’s earlier interest in openness and transparency and her very real and publicly declared desire to tap into the honest, uncensored and unintimidated experience of the people she leads, still burn as  brightly now in 2014 as they did in 2008.’

A statement from Ms Gilbert on plans for a new updated whistle-blower hotline is now expected. But perhaps not for another 6 years.

Alternatively, less patient Civic Centre whistle-blowers may find it more productive to communicate their serious concerns more urgently to Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs' contact here:

                                            tim.minogue@private-eye.co.uk.

(Ms Gilbert was unavailable for comment).

Natalie Bennett: Abolish politicised Ofsted & replace with collaborative body

 

Cartoon: Rose Asquith, Education Guardian

Natalie Bennett's letter to the Guardian today

Your vox pop of senior education figures (The verdict on Ofsted? ‘requires improvement’, Education, 28 October) was damning. It is clear that all trust has been lost; Ofsted is regarded as a highly politicised, untrustworthy, damaging organisation. That’s one reason why the Green party is calling for its abolition and replacement with continuous collaborative assessment and a national council of educational excellence working closely with local authorities.

Of course we need more change than that. The state of Ofsted is a reflection of the state of a system that is vastly overfocused on exams, has lost local democratic accountability, and has left teachers overworked, disempowered and increasingly demoralised.

Natalie Bennett
Leader, Green party

Another reason why a politicised Ofsted is not fit for purpose: the Green's alternative

The Guardian has revealed that so-called 'super head' Rachel de Souza of the Inspiration Trust, who has Michael Gove as a groupy, received advance notice of Ofsted inspections LINK

This is just one more example of the politicisation of Ofsted and its harnessing to serve the aims of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) for the privatisation of education.

The Green Party recognised this as its Spring Conference this year and approved a policy to replace Ofsted with a body based on school improvement through collaboration.

Here are extracts from the policy:
 

--> ED056 The Green Party will instate a system of local accountability using continuous, collaborative assessment of schools. We would replace OFSTED with an independent National Council of Educational Excellence which would have regional officers tasked to work closely with Local Authorities. The National Council would be closely affiliated with the National Federation for Educational Research (NFER).

ED057 Where pupils’ attainment and progress is reported as part of a school’s holistic report to parents and the wider community it will include assessments, including value-added, moderated by the National Council of Education Excellence and the Local Authority’s School Improvement Service as well as the school’s own self evaluation.

ED076 Secondary and college students will have a right to attend meetings of the Governing Body and members of the elected School Council will have voting rights. Governing Bodies in primary schools will have the duty to regularly consult with the elected pupil School Council.

ED077 In accordance with Green Party philosophy the running of the school will be devolved as much as possible to the school within the above guidelines.

ED078 The Local Authority and National Council of Educational Excellence will be involved in monitoring the structures to ensure there is consistency of standards and level of involvement and to help to share best practice.

Brent's Corporate Management Team - looking after each other

Brent Green Party and Brent Trades Union Council in their calls for an independent investigation into Brent Council have included an investigation into previous business and employment relationships of senior officers.

Christine Gilbert is an ex-Chief Executive of Tower Hamlets Counci and ex-chief of Ofsted. She became Interim Chief Executive of Brent Council following the row between Muhammed Butt (who had ousted former leader Ann John) and the then Chief Executive Gareth Daniel.

Daniel evetually left with a payment of £200,702.

In the course of the row three members of Brent's Corporate Management Team had written in Daniel's defence.

Clive Heaphy,  Chief Finance Officer of Brent Council, formerly Interim Director of Finance at Ofsted  employed Cara Davani on a £700 a day contract as Interim Head of HR. She was previously Director of Human Resources at Tower Hamlets Council and had worked as a consultant for Ofsted

Cara Davani was originally contracted with Brent Council by Heaphy, and her fees paid through Cara Davani Ltd., although the Brent Audit investigation found no written contract existed. Davani's initial engagement was from March 2012 to 31st October 2012.

Cara Davani drew up Christine Gilbert's contract which included payment into her private companty Christine Gilbert Associates in September 2012. She earned £100,000 in six months and later took up an additional job in Haringey. LINK

Clive Heaphy who had been suspended in August 2012 as Chief Finance Officer of Brent Council on grounds, later withdrawn, of gross misconduct, left the Council shortly after Daniel's departure and the day before Christine Gilbert's appointment as Acting Chief Executive. She took up the post officially on November 5th 2012.

Heaphy left with a payment of £140,508.

Fiona Ledden, Head of Legal and Procurement, wrote the report that recommended to the Council that Christine Gilbert continue as Interim Chief Executive until after the 2014 local elections.

Fiona Ledden prevented me from speaking to Brent Council on the issue of the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive. Correspondence about whether she was correct in that decision continues.

Christine Gilbert will continue as Interim Chief Executive during the Autum and Spring according to Muhammed Butt so that she can work on the new Borough Plan.

A  recruitment process for a permananent Chief Executive will begin in 2015.

No Minutes for Wednesday's Planning Committee Meeting

The Agenda for the Planning Committee due to be held on Wednesday August 20th states that the Minutes of the previous meeting are not available and will be presented at the next meeting.

The previous meeting on July 16th heard the controversial Kensal Rise Library application and some weighty legal advice was given by officers.

It is very unusual for Minutes not to be available more than one month after a meeting.  Perhaps this underlines the case for the recording of all Brent council meetings.

Missing or delayed Minutes for a school governing body would be an issue of grave concern to Ofsted inspectors or auditors.

Another Brent primary school's Ofsted rating plummets

St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School in Canterbury Road, Kilburn has seen its Ofsted rating drop from Grade 2 'Good' to Grade 4 'Inadequate' and has been put in 'Special Measures'.

The report of the inspection carried out in March LINK gives Achievement of pupils, Quality of teaching and Bhevaiour and safety of pupils a Grade 3 'Requiring improvement' but Leadership and Management is singled out for a Grade 4 'Indequate'.

Under Ofsted guidelines a 4 for Leadership and Management (which includes senior leadership and governorship)  means that the overall judgement on the school must also be 4.

Most worrying from the point of view of Brent Council is that Ofsted report:

The local authority has not provided good enough guidance or support to help the school to improve

The support provided by the local authority was an issue for the Brent Education Commission  that reported last month and should be seen in the context of cuts in local authority funding leading to a reduction in School Improvement Services. Brent Council is due to offer only core support in future with the Brent Schools Partnership taking over many of its functions.

There is a risk attached to this and I would hope that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee will have a thorough look at the plans for the School Improvement Service, school-to-school support and the role of School Improvement Partners  to ensure that there is early warning through thorough monitoring and effective action when a school begins to show signs of decline.

Diminishing democracy in Brent - an update

At the time of the local elections the Brent Green Party called for an independent investigation into the following issues in Brent Council:

1. Corporate Management Team officers being paid through their private companies rather than normal pay roll
2. The contractual arrangements for CMT officers and interim appointments
3. Previous employment and business connections between senior offices appointed by Brent Council on an interim basis
4. The working culture of the Human Resources department 
5. Brent Council's Whistle Blowing Policy to ensure that it adequately protects whistle-blowers from harassment and retribution

To which a reader added:
6. Instances of council policies, procedures, standing orders, scheme of delegation etc being circumvented.

Secondly, there is the important issue of the appointment of Chief Executive.  Christine Gilbert's acting role was extended by the Brent Executive  until after the local elections on the recommendation of Fiona Ledden, Head of Legal and Procurement. The report stated:

The recruitment process for a new permanent  Chief Executive should be delayed because the current recruitment process for  three other CEs in London boroughs would limit the quality of candidates, to allow the restructuring of council senior management to go ahead smoothly, and  to ensure continuity and reputation management over the move to the Civic Centre and the 2014 local elections.

No independent investigation has been launched by the new Labour administration and no open recruitment process has started for a permanent Chief Executive.

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.