More from the Guardian on DfE bullying and the tremendous campaign by parents against forced academies by Warwick Mansell and Geraldine Hackett LINK
With Gove due to reappear before the education select committee this week to answer questions about what he knew about bullying allegations within the Department for Education, news reaches us of an official complaint that has been made about "intimidation" by one of that department's academy "brokers".
The complaint came in a letter sent by Tim Crumpton, a Labour councillor in Dudley, West Midlands, to the office of Gove's schools commissioner, Elizabeth Sidwell, last November. Crumpton, the council's cabinet member for children's services, asked the office to investigate "bullying" by the broker.
As reported in this column, these DfE brokers are seeking to push many schools towards academy status. Crumpton said he had accompanied the senior official on three visits to schools in Dudley. "On each occasion, [her] behaviour has been intimidating and bullying towards governors, headteachers and local authority staff," he wrote.
The broker had provided no agenda or subsequent notes of the meetings at schools under pressure to become academies, while, said Crumpton's letter, on each occasion she had said: "The minister will make you become an academy, and will intervene both in the school and in the local authority if they do not support this action."
Crumpton told his local paper, the Stourbridge News, he had received an unhelpful response to the letter from the DfE.
The DfE said: "We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims."
Meanwhile, campaign groups associated with at least four schools that are under sustained DfE pressure to convert to sponsored academy status have joined together to set up an organisation called Parents Against Forced Academies. The group has a proposal on the 38degrees campaigning website which, with approaching 2,000 supporters, was top of a list of "hot" issues on the site as of last week.
Parents at Roke primary school in Kenley, Surrey, have now said they intend to launch a legal challenge against the DfE's move to enforce academy sponsorship under the Harris chain.
With Gove due to reappear before the education select committee this week to answer questions about what he knew about bullying allegations within the Department for Education, news reaches us of an official complaint that has been made about "intimidation" by one of that department's academy "brokers".
The complaint came in a letter sent by Tim Crumpton, a Labour councillor in Dudley, West Midlands, to the office of Gove's schools commissioner, Elizabeth Sidwell, last November. Crumpton, the council's cabinet member for children's services, asked the office to investigate "bullying" by the broker.
As reported in this column, these DfE brokers are seeking to push many schools towards academy status. Crumpton said he had accompanied the senior official on three visits to schools in Dudley. "On each occasion, [her] behaviour has been intimidating and bullying towards governors, headteachers and local authority staff," he wrote.
The broker had provided no agenda or subsequent notes of the meetings at schools under pressure to become academies, while, said Crumpton's letter, on each occasion she had said: "The minister will make you become an academy, and will intervene both in the school and in the local authority if they do not support this action."
Crumpton told his local paper, the Stourbridge News, he had received an unhelpful response to the letter from the DfE.
The DfE said: "We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims."
Meanwhile, campaign groups associated with at least four schools that are under sustained DfE pressure to convert to sponsored academy status have joined together to set up an organisation called Parents Against Forced Academies. The group has a proposal on the 38degrees campaigning website which, with approaching 2,000 supporters, was top of a list of "hot" issues on the site as of last week.
Parents at Roke primary school in Kenley, Surrey, have now said they intend to launch a legal challenge against the DfE's move to enforce academy sponsorship under the Harris chain.
