Brent alternative free school provision call-in - what are the options?

Details of the Call-In of the Cabinet's decision to support a free school providing alternative education at the Roundwood Centre have now been published LINK

The Call-in was made by Cllrs Chan, Abdi, Mashari, Chappell and Hector.

The request was made by Cllr Jumbo Chan:

I am writing to request that the Cabinet’s decision to confirm approval of the establishment of an Alternative Provision Free School on the site of Roundwood Youth Centre, taken on Monday 15 April 2019, is called in.
Whilst I understand that it is not possible for Brent Council to open new community schools (Education Act 2011), we believe that there have not been compelling attempts to identify – or at least sufficient evidence of compelling attempts to identify – all the routes to establishing a new school on the site of the Roundwood Youth Centre (see Item 5.1 of Report from the Strategic Director of Children and Young People to the Cabinet on 15 April 2019). This may include, for example, evidence of formally approaching existing Local Authority schools to develop plans for them to run an Alternative Provision Local Authority unit at the site of Roundwood Youth Centre. 

The proposed alternative course of action suggested: 

Cllr Abdi:

We need to fully explore all the available alternatives. I am in favour of expanding existing local authority controlled schools instead of assisting the set up of another free school in Brent.

Cllr Chan:

That the Cabinet explore and evidence options for a Local Authority controlled school to provide Alternative Provision at the site of Roundwood Centre, and then proceed a with Local Authority controlled school to provide Alternative Provision at the site of Roundwood Centre.

That the Cabinet explore and evidence options for a Local Authority controlled school to provide Alternative Provision at the site of another site, for example, Roe Green Strathcona. 

Because the present and previous Labour administrations made little effort to oppose academisation, and indeed sometimes supported it, there are now no local authority secondary schools in Brent - they are all either academies or faith schools.  There are three types of academy in Brent: Capital City, (formerly Willesden High) which was the original Labour concept of converting failing local authority schools; stand-alone academies which converted from  local authority status mainly for financial rather than ideological reasons, and schools that are run by academy chains (Ark Wembley, Ark Elvin, Crest).  Special education provision is also largely academised via Multi-Academy Trusts except for the Phoenix Arch School.  There is also the Michaela Free School with its 'private school ethos' and controversial disciplinary regime and educational philosophy.

There was some wavering by primary schools a few years ago over academisation but the vast majority remain under local authority oversight.

If the aim is for the alternative provision to be run by a local authority school there appear to be two main choices: run by a Brent local authority primary school or by a local authority secondary school from a neighbouring borough.

Despite academisation some of the stand-alone secondary academies maintain a close relationship with the local authority and are seen by the council as part of the Brent 'family of schools'. They along with local authority primary schools are part of the Brent Schools Partnership (BSP).  The special schools have formed Multi-Academy Trusts but are  not part of an academy chain.  They might be cited as preferable providers if no local authority school solution is available, on the grounds that they have deep roots in the borough and links via the BSP to the council. However they all lack democratic accountability and oversight  and this is particularly worrying when some of the borough's most vulnerable pupils will attend the provision.

A further possibility is that the provider is a secondary faith school with a positive record of social inclusion.

An aspect of the proposal that will not be considered at the Call-In is the consequence of an expanded alternative provision in Brent. Ofsted has expressed concern over 'off-rolling' when pupils disappear from secondary school rolls just before examinations and there has been long-term concern over disproportionate permanent exclusions of Black Caribbean boys. Will secondary schools, keen to maintain or enhance their position in the league tables that are based on examination results, offload pupils that are unlikely to achieve good passes on to the alternative provision?  Will it contain disproportionate numbers of Black Caribbean boys or pupils with special educational needs or disabilities?

Brent NEU condemns 'abject failures of governance' at Woodfield School - £400k in wrongful payments uncovered

Brent National Education Union responds to the ESFA report on Woodfield School financial irregularities. NEU statement below:

Damning ESFA Report exposes abject failures of Governance at Woodfield School.

£400,000 in wrongful payments uncovered.

An investigation by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) into financial irregularities related to the academy and Multi Academy Trust (MAT) conversion process between Woodfield academy school and The Village school in Brent has just been published.

£400,000 was wrongly paid to two consultants, one of whom was Greg Foley who acted simultaneously as Chair of Trustees, Member of the Finance Committee and Chief Financial Officer. (All this information can be found out from public records.) Those in charge at Woodfield failed utterly in their duty of oversight and care of monies that should have been spent on their special needs pupils.

Going onto the school Website and looking at the names of Trustees reveals that Kay Charles has been an ex-officio Trustee since September 2017. Kay Charles became the Executive Head of The Village and Woodfield school on the same date. Records show that she was in attendance at every Governing Board meetings for 2017/18.

Kay Charles Ex-officio (appointed 01.09.17)

Resources Committee

Evaluation & strategic development Head Performance management

Brent Schools Partnership

The Village School

None

In the ESFA report there are repeated references to the Chair and Chief Finance Officer (CFO) breaching and not complying with the financial regulations of academy trusts. This was under her oversight.  

Hank Roberts, Brent NEU President and National Executive member said:

“As whistleblower I feel totally vindicated by the findings of this report. The bankrupt academy system is an open invitation to help yourself to school funds. Kay Charles has proved herself inadequate to the task of halting this corruption. If she won’t put the interests of state education above her own, she should go. 

“Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council and Sandra Kabir, Chair of Governors of The Village were warned that there were questions over the finances at Woodfield a year ago, yet neither expressed opposition to the proposal that Woodfield and The Village become a MAT. Now is the time they should show leadership and call for this proposal to be dropped rather than support this disaster in waiting. This is the agreed policy of Brent Constituency Labour Parties and recently was unanimously confirmed by the Local Campaign Forum (LCF) and fully supported by the local Labour MP Barry Gardiner.” 

Governors and trustees of the two schools were aware of the financial situation and failed to act on NEU members’ concerns. Despite this, the majority of these governors and trustees are proposed as trustees and governors of the new MAT where they will be overseeing a budget almost twice as big.

Cllr Jumbo Chan, who has supported the campaign to stop the academisation throughout, said:

“The decision by the governing body of The Village to academise the school was wholly unnecessary and misguided. In light of the ESFA’s damning report into Woodfield School, it has further highlighted a dearth of wisdom at the heart of the decision.

“In addition to offering no concrete benefit, the decision to academise ignored completely the swathes of concerns voiced by parents, campaigners, and the school’s own outstanding teachers and support staff.

“Nearly a year later, the academisation process has left The Village School in limbo, demoralising and sowing uncertainty amongst its committed staff.

“That the ESFA has now produced a litany of gross failings with regards to Woodfield School – including procurement, related party transactions, governance regulations and register of interests, including large payments of thousands of pounds of public money to consultants – corresponds to problems in the academisation process elsewhere.

The ESFA report is a wake-up call that leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the whole academisation process should immediately cease. I urge the governing body to now finally listen to its staff, and withdraw its application to academise, and remain within the Brent Council family of schools.”

-->

Academisation: How to turn the tide June 16th

NEU Joint General Secretary at Green Party Conference

Will Ark hit the rocks in Barnet? Join protesters on Wednesday Jan 25th

Residents, parents and teachers are  planning to turn out in force at Barnet Planning Committee  at Barnet Town Hall at  7pm on Wednesday when the Education Funding Agency makes an application LINK for the proposed Ark Pioneer School.  The EFA will to attempt to “solve”problems raised  by residents  regarding traffic congestion, high levels of air pollution, little parking for staff, dense development, 7 days a week schooling, transporting children from the other side of the borough and answer claims that the proposed site is not where new housing calls for a large all -through school such as this. The 4-18 school  in Barnet Lane would commence with 90 children admitted to  Reception and 180 to Year 7.

The EFA are proposing to buy up roads around the school and meet the cost of re-modelling them. Those opposed to the plans are asking whether the money could not be better used on existing schools.

It is not only the planning aspects of the school that concern teachers and parents but the proposed teaching method. It will be called Ark Pioneer because it introduces a new system, unlike those at existing Ark schools in Brent. 'Blended learning' through technology is central  to the plans.

In an extended article on the Local Schools Network website LINK Matthew Bennett traces the origin of the concept back to Rocketship Education in the US:

John Danner’s plan for Rocketship was to ‘make something that’s KIPP-like in terms of results’.  The chain copied many features of the KIPP (US Charter Schools) model:  an extended school day and year, a narrowing of the curriculum in order to focus on literacy and maths, and a ‘data-driven’ approach geared to driving up students’ test scores.  In 2012, the young ‘Rocketeers’ had an 8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. day.  This was divided into two 100-minute blocks of literacy instruction, one 100-minute block of maths, and a further 100 minutes in the ‘learning lab’.  There was no provision for art, music or PE.  The current curriculum seems to be slightly broader, including science, social studies and art as well as maths and reading.  But science is ‘embedded’ in maths, and social studies and art are ‘embedded’ in literacy instruction.  50 per cent of teachers’ pay is tied to their students’ scores in maths and reading tests.

But more than that teachers and parents are concerned that this model will be used to have lessons delivered by teaching assistants rather than qualified teachers, with children overseen as they work on ipads.   John Danner made it plain that the method was aimed at saving money:

-->

I do think we’re at a time, as a country, where this stuff really fits pretty well with economic crises … when you’re in a situation when you’re gonna be laying people off anyway, how do you make that as good as possible, and one of the ways is to have more of the work happening somewhere other than a classroom, through technology

John Danner, co-founder of Rocketship Education, 2010 (ibid)

Barnet NUT are holding a meeting on Wednesday but will finish in time to get down to Barnet Town Hall.  Jenny Brown, a teacher, resident and parent, as well as member of the Campaign for the Advancement of State Education (CASE), is urging people to join in the protest at Barnet Town Hall:

I think it is vital that people turn up  on Wednesday to apply pressure as part of the challenge to computer learning replacing  teachers. 

Teaching is based on a  pedagogy not rote content. Our profession is being threatened along with creative thinking, well being and the development of each child, young person and teachers of the future.

Brent primary academies perform less well than the best maintained primary schools

Regular readers of this post will know that I am extremely sceptical of the value of the SATs, especially the Year 6 tests, and even more so after last year's fiasco.

Because it is a new system with new expectations the 2016 results cannot be compared with previous years and comparison between schools is unreliable given that some schools may have been panicked into 'teaching to the test' and abandoned much of the rest of the curriculum.  The changes in the curriculum and testing resulted in much press coverage of distraught children and we saw the launch of several national parent campaigns against the tests.  Teachers felt that the new 'expected standards' were far too high and unattainable for many children.

Nevertheless readers may be interested in the results for Brent as announced by Brent Council:

The headline measure for Brent of the proportion of pupils attaining the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics is 55 per cent compared to the national average of 53 per cent and the London average of 59 per cent. The proportion of Brent disadvantaged pupils attaining the expected standard is 48 per cent, well above the  national average of 39 per cent and just below the London average of 49 per cent.

This is the first set of test results following the introduction of the new national curriculum and cannot be compared to the results of previous years. 

The new measures of the progress that pupils made during Key Stage 2 show that the average progress scores for Brent pupils are above the national averages for reading, writing and mathematics. Brent is below the London average for reading and writing but well above London for mathematics:

An ongoing issue is of course the merits, or not, of academies versus local authority schools, faith schools and 'all-through' schools (catering for 4-19 year olds). Independent schools do not have to take SATs so no comparative data is available for them.

SAT results are a very limited measure and I would argue that there are more important aspects of schools that should be taken into account.

Bearing in mind these caveats it is possible to review those issues in the data published by the DfE which can be found HERE along with much more background information about schools.

Using the rather crude measure of the percentage of Year 6 children reaching the new 'expected standards' the figures are:

National: All Schools 53%
                All state funded schools 55%
London Average: 59%
Brent Average: 55%

The highest faith school in Brent was Our Lady of Grace (Catholic) at 93% an exceptional result compared with other Brent schools. The highest other faith groups were:  NW London Jewish Day School 76%.  Islamia Primary 67%. St Mary's CofE Primary 56%.

The highest local authority school in Brent was Wykeham at 80%

The highest academy was Oakington Manor which has only recently converted to academy status  from foundation status at 75%

Other academies:

Ark Franklin 57%

Sudbury Primary 56%

Ark Academy (all through) 53%

St Andrews & St Francis Academy 47%

Preston Manor Academy (all through) 31%

It doesn't appear that all-through schools can claim any superiority on this measure and other academies are mixed.  Although Our Lady of Grace has a stand out result other faith schools  are lower than the best local authority maintained school.

From this very limited survey I cannot see any clinching argument for mass conversion to academy status.

REMINDER

If you have a child born between 1 Sept 2012 and 31 Aug 2013 you need to apply for a Reception place before Sunday Jan 15th https://www.eadmissions.org.uk/eAdmissions/app

'Rescue Our Schools' looks forward to a busy 2017 as they stand up for parents, pupils and communities

I have received this update from Rescue Our Schools, a campaign which made a big impact in 2016, and thought it worth sharing.

 Dear All,

What a year 2016 has been for education. We thought it was time for a quick sum up of the key events and what Rescue Our Schools has achieved in our inaugural year, before we look forward to 2017 and steel ourselves for still more battles to rescue our schools from dogma and cuts. So here goes with ….

The 2016 Schools Report: Department for Education

A Shocking White Paper unleashes a wave of Parent Activism

March 2016: The government unveils its White Paper ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere” and so-called Fair Funding Formula for schools. The plan is to force all schools to become academies and to get rid of the role of an elected parent governor. Within weeks we form Rescue Our Schools, juggling it with parental duties during the Easter holidays. Parent group Let Our Kids be Kids forms at the same time, and within weeks thousands of families support the May children’s strike against the test-driven curriculum in primary schools, driving out creativity and ushering in stress and anxiety for young children in its wake. It’s time to get not party political, but parent political. This was Rescue Our School’s rallying cry as we spoke publicly for the first time in front of 20,000 people in Trafalgar Square, at the People’s Assembly Rally. Wow! We are out there! Next stop the Parents Defending Education conference, where star turn Fiona Forrest speaks alongside Michael Rosen against the prison routine in her daughter’s school. The Guardian covers the story and within days there is regime change at the South London secondary.

Morgan gets her alphabet muddled, and presents an S bend as a U turn

…because it was never really a U turn re forced academisation. The announcement in June that this policy was to be abandoned came alongside a continued commitment to force schools in predominantly academy-run areas to join the club. Likewise, if they were deemed to be failing, they would be forced to become academies. Anyone who cared to read the small print could see the government was still ideologically driven to remove local authorities from education. It goes without saying that there was still no evidence that becoming an academy improved education… That said, we like to think that Rescue Our Schools helped usher in this concession of sorts. Forced academisation was one of the key reasons why we set RoS up. We also contribute detailed evidence to the Commons Select Committee on Education on our deep reservations about multi academy trusts.

Back to the Future with Grammars…

July 2016: Nicky Morgan is sacked as education secretary as Theresa May becomes prime minister. Justine Greening takes over at the Department for Education. Despite being the first comprehensive-educated education secretary, within weeks it’s announced that the government wants to bring back grammar schools.  Another campaign group, the Fair Education Alliance, is set up to fight grammars amid a near consensus that selection will worsen social mobility and damage education for the majority of students.  Discontent among Conservatives is widely reported on at the party conference in October.

Autumn Brings a Hint of Backtracking..

The March White Paper is quietly dropped.  The government is no longer proposing to drop the role of elected parent governors. This is another victory for Rescue Our Schools: we fought strongly against getting rid of parental involvement. However the government is still pushing hard for multi academy trusts, and their governing structures often give parents little opportunity to be actively involved as governors. RoS founding members are all too aware of this from personal experience. Meanwhile, Justine Greening announces small concessions on SATS and a government-led consultation. Parents and professionals remain unconvinced and set up More than A Score with Rescue Our Schools as a key coalition partner.  The aim of the alliance is to phase out SATS and other standardised tests and bring back a more creative approach in the primary curriculum. Meanwhile, we submit a detailed response to the government consultation on grammars, pointing out that the government’s priority should be funding  and the teacher recruitment crisis, not more piecemeal meddling in school structures. We also speak at the World Transformed festival in Liverpool, alongside the Labour party conference, and at anti-cuts events in both Parliament Square and outside the Department for Education in London.

But the Battle Lines are drawn against Cuts..

Finally, in December the government unveils its proposals to redistribute schools funding. Some areas that have traditionally been underfunded are due to get more money (but by no means all of these areas). Meanwhile, London in particular is due for a 3 per cent hit.  It has achieved better results through greater funding and increased collaboration between schools: both these approaches are under attack from this government. Local campaign groups spring up to fight for investment in our children’s education. At Rescue Our Schools we will support the effort in whatever way we can.

Some wise words for the New Year

Our children are, as ever, our future. Under this government they are being scandalously shortchanged. But there are 14 million households in England with dependent children. That is a lot of voters – and a lot of increasingly disgruntled voters. So, politicians, it’s time to wake up and realise that the more you damage our children’s education, the more we as parents and teachers will damage you at the ballot box. You have been warned…

For all our lovely Rescue Our Schools supporters…

We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas - and thank you for supporting us and believing in us in our launch year. RoS is up and running, engaging parents across the country, and is a partner in key campaigns. All up we have spoken at demos across England and at numerous local campaign meetings against unwanted free schools, multi academy trusts and other ideological intrusions into communities. We expect 2017 to be an equally busy year. If you can spare a few hours a week to our campaign please get in touch at info@rescueourschools.co.uk. Remember: We're not party political but we want you to get PARENT POLITICAL! From the Rescue Our Schools team