Public urged to come along on October 2nd to support teachers & parents in a further round of the fight to save Roe Green Strathcona School from closure

From Brent National Education Union

Roe Green Strathcona School will be closed for the fourth time due to strike action on Wednesday 2nd October; NEU members are attempting to save their school from closure. Despite giving the go-ahead to several new free schools in the borough, Brent Council wish to close this successful local authority run school.

Jenny Cooper, District Secretary for Brent National Education Union, said:

We commend our brave members and their parent supporters for their fierce, collective campaign to try to defend this successful local authority school; our action will be suspended as soon as the council reassures us the school will be saved.

Eight councillors have opposed the decision to close the school as they believe further scrutiny is needed to look at possible alternative futures for the school.

Teachers, parents and community supporters will protest outside Brent civic centre from 4.30pm Wednesday and following this will attend and speak at the council meeting in a bid to save the school. This is certain to be a contentious meeting with strong feelings expressed.

The special meeting of the Community and Well-being Scrutiny Committee will be held in the Conference Hall at Brent Civic Centre and will begin at 6pm.  The call-in was made by an unusually broad group of Labour councillors: Cllrs Abdi, Afzad, Chan, Gill, Hector, Kennelly, Marquis and Pavey. (Alphabetical order).

The councillors' reasons for calling the Cabinet's closure decision in for further scrutiny are set out in the document below. Click bottom right for full size version.


Full documentation HERE

Requests to speak should be made to bryony.gibbs@brent.gov.uk and will be considered by the Chair of the Committee, Cllr Ketan Sheth. All requests to speak should be received at least 24 hours before the meeting.

Brent Council nows faces further strikes as well as Call-in Scrutiny over Roe Green Strathcona closure decision

Encouraged by the support of Brent councillors who, as reported first here, have called-in the Cabinet's decision to close Strathcona School for further scrutiny, determined NEU members voted unanimously today to resume their strikes.

In the background both groups have been heartened by the support of Barry Gardiner MP who write to Brent Council back in July opposing the proposed closure LINK. This is a key section of his letter:

If council officers had actively been trying to prepare a case for the closure of the school, these are precisely the measures they might have taken. First ensure nobody knows about the place and even when they live next door, refer them to another school. In fact the head teacher has said that she has several reports of prospective parents who asked for their child to come to the school actually being told by council officers that the roll at Strathcona is full and they can take no more children. I would ask that the cabinet investigate these allegations which, if true, represent a serious breach of trust on the part of public officials.

Of course much of this might be more understandable were the school underperforming. In fact despite all the problems it has experienced, Roe Green Strathcona School is an excellent School, with their first cohort of Year 6 students achieving progress in the top 3% of Schools in England this academic year. This is particularly remarkable when one considers the extent of mid year admissions. In the public meeting held at Roe Green Strathcona on 6^th June 2019, which was attended by local councillors, many parents testified to the quality of teaching and the quality of pastoral care that the school provides.

Just 3 years ago Council officers made an urgent recommendation that Roe Green Strathcona School become permanent by September 2016. They are now trying to persuade councillors that the school is not viable. What was then a saving is now said to be a financial drain on the council. What was then required to cope with the primary admissions crisis is now said to be part of an unnecessary and unsustainable surplus. What was then said to provide parental choice into the future is now having its very existence airbrushed from the Council admissions website.

Teachers and staff at the Roe Green School are rightly proud of the progress that has been made since the creation of the Strathcona school five years ago. In a borough where children had been out of formal education for many months, the School has added significant value to the educational development of every child that has entered its classrooms. They have served the council well. If the cabinet were to rubber stamp the proposal to launch a formal consultation for the closure of the Strathcona School site. I believe they would be betraying that service and acting arbitrarily.

Brent Council did launch a formal consultation. In over 300 responses only one supported closure but the Cabinet have gone ahead with closure plans.  Brent North's Labour Party MP is rightly holding his Labour colleagues in the Brent Cabinet to account.

For the NEU this is a much wider issue than just Brent. It is the first attempt at urban school closures since the 70s and 80s when falling school rolls led to school closures and amalgamations and indirectly to some of the super-sized schools that we see today. Brent Labour Council is setting a precedent that if successful, other councils may follow. This is why it is important to win this particular battle.

Strathcona staff to strike again as Butt refuses to budge ahead of formal CONsultation

From Brent NEU

NEU members at Roe Green Strathcona will take a second day of strike action next Wednesday 10th July in defence of their school. Brent Council did not listen to the 490 (99.4%) responders who said No in Brent’s first informal ‘consultation’ on the proposal to close Strathcona. They have now issued statutory notices. The NEU members have submitted detailed proposals for additional educational uses for the site - such as much needed places for autistic children- but are not confident they will be listened to. 

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council was asked what sort of response would be needed to make the council change its mind - he said “It's not about numbers or percentages” - indicating that however many constituents say no to closure, be it 500 or 5000, with even 100% objecting, it won’t make any difference. He also refused to guarantee that staff would not lose their jobs.  The same staff who bent over backwards in 2014 to help him find places for primary aged children. Brent has now opened its second ‘consultation’ which closes on 24^th July. 

Lesley Gouldbourne, Brent NEU Secretary, said “What sort of consultation is it when the numbers saying no don't count for anything? This consultation is a CONsultation.”