Alperton & Wembley Central are 'blooming lovely' - Best Garden Competition results

This year, as part of #Blossom2020, Wembley Central and Alperton Residents Association (WCARA) ran their first ever Best Garden Competition - they were impressed by the enthusiasm, passion and commitment shown.

First prizes, kindly presented by The Chase star and local resident Shaun Wallace, were awarded as follows:

BEST BACK GARDEN

 

Best Back Garden - Amarbai Patel, Alperton Resident - prize kindly donated by Birchen Grove Garden Centre

BEST FRONT GARDEN

Best Front Garden - Sandhya Patel, Wembley Central Resident - prize kindly donated by Birchen Grove Garden Centre

BEST USE OF SMALL SPACE

Best use of Small Space – Nawaar Al-Ahmed, Alperton Resident

Highly Commended prizes were presented as follows:

Back Garden - Neera Lakhmana, Wembley Central Resident & Jyoti Desai, Alperton Resident

Front Garden - Kit Friend & Siobhan Cafferkey, both Alperton Residents

Best use of Small Space – Manisha Patel, Wembley Central Resident

A token ‘thank you’ gift of a selection of seeds was presented to all other entrants.

Pictures of the winning gardens can be seen here:  https://www.wcara.org.uk/latest-news

Brent Schools asked to help name new park in Quintain development

I apologise for the poor legibility of the above flyer from Quintain. It advertises a competition for school classes to provide a name for the new park which will be built  amidst of the high-rise development around Wembley Stadium.

 Each class entering is asked to come up collectively with one name and submit a short description of no more than three sentences,

They are advised to use the following brainstorming ideas:

History of Wembley Park
Famous person from Brent
A member (sic) of Brent that has lived/worked in the area and has made an impact on their community

The competition closes on March 31st. Entries have to be sent to skills@quintain.co.uk

Humphry Repton

 The new park at 7 acres will be much smaller than the original Wembley Park designed by Humphry Repton for the Page family but Repton's bust will will be displayed in the remnant. Quintain won a 'Sharing Landscapes' competition last year LINK which aimed to encourage 'greater inclusivity in enjoying historic parks and gardens' and was awarded the bust.

Repton Gardens is the space behind the Boxpark

Repton (for good or ill) has already given his name to the Repton Gardens development of build-to-rent flats and retail (85 acres) which you can tour  to see the excavations and groundworks as part of the Open Doors programme: LINK

 

Humphry Repton's sketch showing the view of Wembley Park from Barn Hill, if his full scheme had been carried out in 1793

Repton already has his name in rather less than verdant surroundings in the Quintain development. There's probably a minor earthquake around his grave!

Green Party Education Policy offers a real alternative

I will be moving a motion revising the Green Party's Education Policy at our forthcoming Spring Conference. The revisions take account of recent developments in what has been termed GERM (the Global Education Reform Movement) and the various campaigns that have sprung up as a result of privatisation, forced academisation, test led curriculum and pedagogy and the attack on teachers; conditions of service.

The full briefing paper on the motion can be read HERE. This extract sets out the background:

Since the current Education Policy was written there has been much change in the direction of education both nationally and globally. What has become known as GERM (the Global Education Reform Movement) emphasises competition between schools and between countries, education’s contribution to global economic growth and competition, the provision of a ‘market’ in education with increasing involvement of private companies, a narrowing of the curriculum through a concentration on basic subjects that can be measured through standardised testing, and a convergence between the world of work and education. 

In England the three main parties, to varying degrees, support this movement, which has resulted in the promotion of free schools and academies, the increasing role of private companies not just in sponsoring such schools but also in the provision of curriculum and learning materials. Companies such as Pearson and Murdoch are poised to exploit this situation. Testing at the age of four is now being mooted as well as the existing Phonics Screening Test at six, Key Stage 1 SATs at 7 and Key Stage 2 SATS at 11. In the secondary sector there is a huge emphasis on examination results. Test results are used by Ofsted as the first measure for judging school performance and schools spend an enormous amount of time analysing and ‘interrogating’ the data. A blip in these results can lead to a local authority school being forced to convert to academy status.

The paradox is that increased centralisation and the granting of unprecedented powers to the Secretary of State for Education, in this government and any successor, have accompanied the rhetoric about setting schools free from local authority ‘control’ through academies and free schools. Currently the micro-management of schools by Michael Gove has extended to advocating particular policies on behaviour management. Peter Wilby has described the situation thus:

Michael Gove is on course to complete what Kenneth Baker began… the creation of a fully centralised school system in which the secretary of state for education has the powers of an elected dictator.

The agreement between the three main parties on this gives the Green Party the space to offer a completely different approach based on our underlying principles:

• Our rejection of the economic growth agenda and the accompanying international economic competition enables us to have a broader interpretation of the aims and content of education.
• This in turn enables us to reject the narrow curriculum, testing regimes and league tables associated with the GERM model and to put forward a child-centred approach taking account of child development, especially in the early years.
• Our belief that decisions are best made at local level rather than by centralised diktat means that decisions about curriculum (apart from a broad entitlement) and pedagogy are made by teachers and the school community rather than the Secretary of State.
• This enables diversity and creativity to take place within the state funded local authority school system, which will have the effect of empowering teachers and developing their professionalism rather than deskilling them.
• Our belief in cooperation rather than competition means that we put forward collaborative models of school improvement including school to school support and a partnership role for an independent inspection service informed by educational research/
•  Our support for increased democratic accountability at a local level involves improving the representation of parents and pupils within schools and democratic accountability through local authorities and removing the excessive powers of the Secretary of State.
• Our commitment to social justice means that we put forward policies that support fair admissions and fair funding of schools and inclusion of children with special needs.

Competition for Brent young people to take part in Civic Centre opening performance

As regular  readers will know I have been a critic of the Brent Civic Centre since it was first planned, particularly on the grounds that it was too expensive and too grandiose at a time when the Council was closing half our libraries and other amenities and cutting jobs.

It is there now and I want to see it working for the people of Brent in the way County Hall and the Festival Hall worked at the time of Ken Livingstone's GLC adminstration: open to the public and groups and at the heart of the community.

I probably won't be able to stand the hype at the opening ceremony but here is what the Council is planning. It is a pity that this competition is advertised in the school holiday and closes before children return so the message is unlikely to get out as widely as it deserves:

The opening ceremony

We are celebrating the opening of the civic centre on 6 October 2013 with a grand spectacle of music, dance, arts and performance. Find out more

21 ambassadors for 21 wards

We are looking for young ambassadors to represent each of Brent's 21 wards at the opening ceremony.
The ambassadors will officially open the building with the Mayor and the Leader of the Council as well as feature in the spectacular finale.

How to enter

For a chance to win and play a central role in this historic event simply send your drawing/collage/ photograph or write a poem which illustrates:

"What you love about where you live!"

Please send your entry with your name, age, address and a contact number to competition@brent.gov.uk or post to: Competitions, Floor 4, Brent Civic Centre, Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0FJ.

You must be a Brent resident aged 7 to 16 years to enter the competition. Winners have to be available to attend the ceremony on 6 October 2013, as well as some dates during September for film/sound recordings related to the finale performance.

The closing date for entries is Friday 30 August.

For more information about Brent Civic Centre visit www.brent.gov.uk/civiccentre

Education: The battle of the Michaels about control, curriculum and creativity

Michael Gove's ideas on education and schooling have been taken on by two other Michaels this weekend. Michael Rosen's You Tube interview goes to the heart of the issues around competition and curriculum while Scottish Education Secretary, Michael Russel, demonstrates the dialogue with teachers that is entirely missing in England. LINK

SCOTLAND'S Education Secretary Michael Russell  has accused his Westminster counterpart of running a school system in England so centralised that it rivals the control of teachers during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Scottish Education Secretary Michael Russell addressing the AGM of the EIS teaching union in Perth yesterday Photograph: Alan Richardson

Russell's comments, during a speech to the annual general meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union, follow an attack by Westminster Education Secretary Michael Gove on the Scottish school system.

Gove, who was schooled in Scotland, accused the new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) reforms of lacking rigour and urged Russell to remove the "Nationalist blinkers", and learn from what he described as an international trend in education towards more testing.

Describing the attack as a "badge of honour", Russell said criticising the CfE was tantamount to attacking everybody in Scottish education who had been working so hard to deliver it over the past decade.
"His definition of the word 'rigour' is essentially systematised rote learning in which you politically decide the content of the curriculum and apply what one might describe as 19th-century teaching methods to it. That is not where we are going in Scotland and it doesn't work," he said.

"A lot of his approach is based on a misunderstanding and he doesn't even know how the Scottish system works. It has changed quite a lot since he was in Aberdeen."

Russell said the approach to CfE in Scotland was collaborative, which he contrasted with the top-down model in England where there has been continual conflict with teaching unions.

"Conflict doesn't work and we know that too clearly from looking south of the Border. Two weeks ago my counterpart condemned the English teaching unions as Marxist because they opposed his education reforms, but I fear even the most ideologically driven education system in the world – that is probably in the Cultural Revolution in China – involved less prescription."

The row with Gove came as Russell became the first education minister to address the EIS annual general meeting for 167 years.

This week, EIS delegates backed strike action before the end of the year to protest over their growing workload associated with the roll-out of CfE, and Russell was attacked in a number of speeches.
However, he was greeted with respectful applause when he stood up to deliver his landmark speech and only a small minority of members briefly heckled him on the issue of workload, with one shouting "rubbish" when he told them support materials were in schools.

Russell, who said later that he did not think strikes were helpful, went on to promise that "needless red tape" would be stripped from teachers' workload.

He also told the meeting in Perth that the Scottish Government would work closely with the EIS and other key players as part of a new group to identify the key issues and come up with ways to reduce "needless workload and bureaucracy".

"My ambition and the ambition of the Scottish Government is to allow teachers the flexibility to plan and deliver high-quality learning and teaching," he said.

"The Curriculum for Excellence is about freeing up teachers to deliver the best-quality education to help young people succeed in the global workplace and assisting in the development of skills. It is not about burdensome paperwork."

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan welcomed the commitment, saying: "Much of what he had to say was well received by teachers and lecturers in the hall and we welcome his comments on bureaucracy and pension negotiations.

"Overall, although delegates clearly did not agree with everything that the Cabinet Secretary had to say, it is positive that he was willing to speak to teachers and lecturers directly and also to listen to their concerns about education in Scotland."

Climate Change: Education, Employment and Engagement

This 2008 film warned of the perils ahead. Have we done enough in the last 5 years?
 
The Mayor of Brent and Council Leader Muhammed Butt will present prizes to the winners of the Brent Climate Change Competition at 1.30pm on Wednesday March 20th at the Climate Change Conference being held at College of North West London, Dudden Hill.

This full day conference for 200 older secondary school students and further education students will include film, panel discussions and workshops all aimed at raising awareness of climate change, publicising university courses and training opportunities in the green technology sector, and publicising opportunities to engage in campaigning activities on the issue.

The conference is jointly organised by Brent Council, Brent Campaign Against Climate Change and the College of North West London.

Speaker	Title
Caren Trafford Environmental writer, Presenter, Educator	"One world… one problem"
Carly Walker-Dawson   Deputy Chair of Woodcraft Folk British Youth Council Vice-Chair (Participation & Development) IFM-SEI Rainbow Network Co-ordinator	If Climate Change takes place at the same speed as it does now, what will the UK look like in the year 2113?
Isobel Edwards   YUSU Environment and Ethics Officer and People & Planet society Treasurer	Easy changes to make to the life of a student which can have a big impact on their carbon footprint
Kelly EatonWaste Development Officer - Waste Policy Team - Recycling & WasteBrent Council	Recycling and One Planet Thinking: Reducing your impact on climate change
Thivya Jeyashanker & Edison Lasku Brent youth parliament Chair and Vice Chair	“Encouraging engagement and participation of young people”