Welsh Harp Centre provides community activities during half-term

It is good to see the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre reaching out into the community with half-term activities. The Centre was saved from closure as a result of campaigning by local schools, pupils and residents LINK and is now run by the Thames21 charity.

You can do your bit by taking part in conservation activities at the Welsh Harp Centre:

Three key pledges from the Greens to create an inspiring education system

 Kenmont primary school pupils, many from Brent, demonstrate against education cuts

Vix Lowthian, Green Party Education  Spokesperson announced three key pledges this morning to create an inspiring education system:

1. Invest £7bn to fill funding gap
2. Abolish SATs
3. End academies programme and bring existing academies under local authority system

The Green Party want to create an inspiring education system that transforms lives and transforms Britain.

But that can’t happen without the very basic foundations being in place and this Government has been removing those foundations brick by brick.

Since 2015 £2.2bn has been taken out of the education system and between now and 2020 the Government plans to take out a further £3bn. That’s over £200,000 for every school or £1000 for every pupil. The academies programme has taken schools out of the hands of local authorities and parents and given them over to private businesses. That means that if a school isn’t performing a commercial interest, it can be shut down at will by the owners, leaving pupils without a school to go to.

At the same time as schools are getting less resources, more is being asked of teachers and pupils. Children are now being tested from age 7 onwards, with their results affecting the classes they are put in and their chances of getting into a decent secondary school. Asking children of that age to learn, revise, and test their knowledge has sapped all the fun, creativity, and inspiration out of going to school. The fact that teachers too are assessed on how well they drill their pupils for these exams - with the shadow of Ofsted hanging over them - means they have no time to do the thing they are meant to be at school for: teaching.

We believe in creating an inspiring education system. First and foremost we must make up for the enormous shortfall, the massive neglect, in our education system. Greens will ensure the education spending deficit of £7bn is plugged, laying the foundations for a transformative education system. We will scrap SATs so that pupils are no longer subjected to pointless, pressurised testing. And we will put an end to the academies programme and bring existing academies back under local authority control so that our children’s education is in the hands of teachers and parents, not businesses.

Brent Education Question Time will tackle a vital election issue

I welcome the holding of Education Question Time at Queens Park Community School on May 26th. Education ought to be a central issue in this General Election with schools in Brent and elsewhere facing a substantial cut in funding which could lead to the cutting of teacher and teaching assistant posts, increases in class sizes, reduced resources and the narrowing of the curriculum.

This is not all - government policies and soaring house prices have caused a crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers and schools are having to advertise for new headteachers several times over. The stress of high stakes testing not only hits teachers but also pupils with the mental health of our young people a particular concern.

It is significant that the Brent Central meeting has been organised by parent campaigners, teaching and support staff, all speaking with one voice about their concerns.

Beyond the immediate crisis are issues to do with nature of education itself: whether the government 'reforms' to the curriculum and examination system, are of any relevance to the rapidly changing technological world that our children are growing up in as well as the context of accelerating climate change and over-consumption. Does memorising for examinations contribute anything to the creativity, flexibility, teamwork and resilience that will be required in the 2030s and 40s?

You can find out how much each of our local schools stands to lose at this website LINK

Cut Tory education policy waste - not school funding

With education in the news over the weekend as the teaching unions meet I was interested in this information from Janes Eades of Wandsworth NUT and CASE (Campaign for the Advancement of State Education).
 

Much has been in the news about the cuts which will be taking place in schools, forcing many schools to cut staffing.  However, there has been virtually no coverage of the waste of money as a direct result of the implementation of the Government policy of opening 'free' schools, UTCs and studio schools, combined with the conversion of schools into academies, controlled by trusts which are often not up to the job or which are financially irresponsible.

The NUT/ATL have put together information on how different parts of the country will be affected and this can be seen on the School Cuts website.

However, I have looked at ways in which the Government have been wasting millions:

Challenge issued to NASUWT as NUT and ATL set to ballot on education union merger

Hank Roberts, a long-time exponent of the need for one education union and Organising Secretary of  UNIFY has issued the following statement ahead the special conferences of the ATL and NUT to be held on Saturday. The conferences will decide whether to ballot members on proposals to merge the two unions.

Special conferences of the ATL and NUT will be held in London on November 5th. It will be an historic day for the education unions. Prediction is fraught with dangers but may I be so bold as to predict that both unions will have an overwhelming majority for going forward to a ballot of their respective memberships. Further I have no doubt that the respective memberships will return a yes vote in their ballots. Opinion polls over the years have repeatedly shown a majority in favour of uniting the unions. And why wouldn’t they? Our experience shows we have suffered because of our division in the face of ruthless government attacks on education. 

The question is why has it taken this long to break the logjam? I and others in 1996 set up a cross union body campaigning for professional unity. We called it Professional Unity 2000 in the somewhat optimistic belief that it was such a self-evidently good idea we would be able to achieve it by the year 2000.

In the event it has taken us 20 years and we detailed some of the history and events surrounding this in our 20th anniversary issue of our magazine UNIFY which was handed out at this year’s annual education union conferences.

Our immediate task is to win the ballots by the biggest majority possible and, immediately the ink is dry on our agreement, for the new union to take our great cause to the rest of our colleagues in the other education unions. The new union, the National Education Union, will have 500,000 members and be the fourth largest union in the TUC. But a union of all of us working in education would be over 1 million. A mighty force to be reckoned with. It would not be a magic solution to all our problems, but it would make a major difference to getting the Government to take our voice seriously. 

The other education unions need to reflect on the results of this and why it happened, in particular the NASUWT. My challenge to Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary is; you say the majority of your NASUWT members don’t believe in and don’t want a single united education union. In that case prove it. Commission an independent opinion poll of your members.

If they back your stance you can legitimately continue with NASUWT as a separate union with you as its head. If they don’t, start informal talks towards building unity further. The education barbarians are not just at the gates, they are in the stockades. We need to unite to have any chance of saving state education, and to build a future education system worthy of our children.

Hear Melissa Benn on motherhood, daughters, selective education and much else on Thursday

From Brent Culture:

Melissa Benn will be giving a talk at Kilburn Library this Thursday 20th  October

6.30-7.30pm

Kilburn Library, 42 Salusbury Road, London, NW6 6NN

Melissa is an author, commentator and journalist and member of the famous Benn political family, daughter of the late Tony Benn and sister to Hilary Benn MP.  She is also a local resident.  She has written and campaigned on many issues but is most known for her views on education.

On Thursday Melissa will talk about the seven books she has written; Public Lives, One of Us, Madonna and Child: Towards a New Politics of Motherhood, School Wars: The Battle for Britain's Education, What Should We Tell Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up Female, The Truth About Our Schools, Death in the City. 

She will also be talking about her current campaign to end selective education.

It promises to be a lively evening and will include a question and answer session so get ready to voice your own opinions!   

Eroding Trust: Discussion of Open Society report on Prevent Wednesday October 19th

The launch of of a new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative assessing the human rights impact of the government’s Prevent strategy in health and education.

The report, entitled “Eroding Trust: The UK’s Prevent Counter-Extremism strategy in health and education” seeks to contribute to the debate on Prevent, at a time when the government is preparing to update the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy of which it is a part.

Based on legal analysis, case studies of individuals directly affected by the Prevent strategy in health and education, as well as interviews with health and education professionals, current and former government officials, religious leaders, and community advocates, this report presents the most comprehensive account to date of how Prevent is being implemented in these areas.

The launch will take place on Wednesday 19th October in Committee Room 10 at 6pm. I would be delighted if you could attend.

RSVP to Priya Dev – devp@parliament.uk

Eroding Trust: Discussion of Open Society report on Prevent Wednesday October 19th

The launch of of a new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative assessing the human rights impact of the government’s Prevent strategy in health and education.

The report, entitled “Eroding Trust: The UK’s Prevent Counter-Extremism strategy in health and education” seeks to contribute to the debate on Prevent, at a time when the government is preparing to update the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy of which it is a part.

Based on legal analysis, case studies of individuals directly affected by the Prevent strategy in health and education, as well as interviews with health and education professionals, current and former government officials, religious leaders, and community advocates, this report presents the most comprehensive account to date of how Prevent is being implemented in these areas.

The launch will take place on Wednesday 19th October in Committee Room 10 at 6pm. I would be delighted if you could attend.

RSVP to Priya Dev – devp@parliament.uk

Labour stifles the anti-cuts movement

A year ago I published a piece on Wembley Matters which asked what Jeremy Corbyn, then the new Labour leader, would do about local council cuts.  I drew attention to the contradiction that under him Labour claimed to be an anti-austerity party while local Labour councils were implementing the Tory austerity agenda by making cuts to services. LINK

In December last year Corbyn and McDonnell, responding to pressure from local council leaders who in turn were under pressure from anticuts campaigns, threw the towel in and wrote to Labour councillors telling them to set 'legal' budgets:

Failing to do so can lead to complaints against councillors under the Code of Conduct, judicial review of the council and, most significantly, government intervention by the Secretary of State.

It would mean either council officers or, worse still, Tory ministers deciding council spending priorities. Their priorities would certainly not meet the needs of the communities which elected us.

In effect this meant implenting cuts.

In March this year, just as Councils were formally approving budgets, the People's Assembly Against Austerity LINK  asked councillors to sign the following letter:

As Councillors we believe this Tory Government's ideological opposition to public services lies behind the deliberate underfunding of Local Authorities.

Councils have faced unprecedented cuts; Local Authority grants in England have been slashed, with £12.5 billion of cuts and half a million Council workers losing their jobs since 2010. Osborne has forced through 40% cuts to Council budgets meaning that local authorities face the reality of cutting frontline services including Adult Social Care and Children's Services, leaving those that rely on them at risk.

We believe that austerity is a political choice. We oppose all cuts from Westminster and believe Osborne’s plans for Local Government will only make a bad situation worse.

We call on the government to reverse cuts to council funding so we are able to provide essential services our communities rely on. Furthermore we call for an end to austerity that is seeing living standards for the majority fall.

Given the Labour leadership's instruction this meant paper opposition only, although councils tried to find alternatives by rising charges and rents and finally raising council tax. This still meant of course that the poor were paying for austerity - but by a different route.

The situation is now worse as a result of cuts in real terms to local authority education grants. LA education budgets have not been increased to take account of increased pension and national insurance contributions or the increasing number of pupils in schools.

The anti-cuts movement had argued for councils to refuse to set budgets, set illegal budgets or devise a needs based budget, as an alternative to making cuts. This to be accompanied by a mass campaign involving councillors, trade unions, voluntary organisations and the public. 

In practical terms combining the two approaches didn't work because no group of councillors took the former approach although some individual councillors voted against budgets losing the whip as a consequence.  It was then difficult for local Labour parties to mobilise the public against cuts when they themselves had implemented them.

This year, by agreeing to the freezing of the Revenue Support Grant and the associated four year action plans, councils have accepted the government cuts and boxed gthemselves in for 4 years.

The Labour National Executive Committee has now strengthened control over Labour councillors with the following  rule change:

Members of the Labour group in administration must comply with the provisions of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and subsequent revisions and shall not vote against or abstain on a vote in full council to set a legal budget proposed by the administration.

Members of the Labour group shall not support any proposal to set an illegal budget. Any councillor who votes against or abstains on a Labour group policy decision in this matter may face disciplinary action.

My interpretation of this is that when in opposition Labour groups can decide to vote against cuts budgets but where Labour is in power individual Labour councillors cannot vote against cuts budget.  These are not just any cuts, these are Labour cuts - and therefore preferable?

I searched in vain for any reference to challenging cuts and mobilising mass campaings in Jeremy Corbyn's Conference speech.  I publish the section on local councils in full. He praises local councils for what they have done despite the cuts and describes (rather than advocates) some councils' decisions to take services back in-house. In doing so he says that this is cheaper and preserves working conditions. However this presents difficulties as year after year Labour administrations have argued that out-sourcing to private providers has saved council tax payers money whilst not acknowledging that lowert costs have been achieved by lower wages, worse working conditions, poor pensions etc.  

Even worse some councils have argued that the private and voluntary sector is more able to respond to local need in araes such as youth provision and social care.

Already, across the country, Labour councils are putting Labour values into action, in a way that makes a real difference to millions of people, despite cynical government funding cuts that have hit Labour councils five times as hard as Tory-run areas.

Like Nottingham City Council setting up the not-for-profit Robin Hood Energy company to provide affordable energy;

Or Cardiff Bus Company taking 100,000 passengers every day, publicly owned with a passenger panel to hold its directors to account;

Or Preston Council working to favour local procurement, and keep money in the town;

Or Newcastle Council providing free wi-fi in 69 public buildings across the city;

Or Croydon Council which has set up a company to build 1,000 new homes, as Cllr Alison Butler said: “We can no longer afford to sit back and let the market take its course”.

Or Glasgow that has established high quality and flexible workspaces for start-up, high growth companies in dynamic new sectors.

Or here in Liverpool, set to be at the global forefront of a new wave of technology and home to Sensor City, a £15million business hub that aims to create 300 start-up businesses and 1,000 jobs over the next decade.

It is a proud Labour record each and every Labour councillor deserves our heartfelt thanks for the work they do.

But I want to go further because we want local government to go further and put public enterprise back into the heart of our economy and services to meet the needs of local communities, municipal socialism for the 21st century, as an engine of local growth and development.

So today I’m announcing that Labour will remove the artificial local borrowing cap and allow councils to borrow against their housing stock.

That single measure alone would allow them to build an extra 12,000 council homes a year.

Labour councils increasingly have a policy of in-house as the preferred provider and many councils have brought bin collections, cleaners, and IT services back in-house, insourcing privatized contracts to save money for council tax payers and to ensure good terms and conditions for staff.

Corbyn's election campaign inspired many independent activists (and not a few Green Party members) to join the Labour Party and gave the left inside the Labour Party fresh energy. 

The problem now is that on the ground, and impacting on the poor, they face 4 more years of local government cuts, 'efficiencies' where fewer workers do the same or increased amounts of work, council tax rises, increased service charges, dodgy regeneration projects to increase the council tax base and privatisation.

Maintaining the morale of new recruits in such circumstances will present a real challenge.

Greens out in force to support the People's Assembly's 4 demands

There was an excellent Green Party presence at the People's Assembly March Against Austerity today as Greens rallied to support the four demands on Health, Homes, Jobs and Education.

NUT London Mayoral Hustings on Monday - what are the issues?

From the NUT

NUT call on the next Mayor of London to defend education and help teachers create a just society for all.

 The NUT will be holding a London Mayoral Hustings on Monday March 7th 6pm at the union's headquarters at Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, WC1H 9BD, near Kings Cross, off the south side of Euston Road. 

The meeting will be introduced by Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary. The flyer advertsing the event lists the issues that matter to London teachers: London's schools are under threat London is a city full of creativity, talent and potential. Our schools and teachers are amongst the best in the world. Yet this sucess is under real threat. Spending cuts School budgets across London face 12% cuts under Government spending plans. In some boroughs, the losses could be over 20%. That would mean understaffed schools, bigger class sizes, more children's needs unmet and a narrower curriculum. 

 Teacher shortages

 Talented, hardworking teachers are being driven out of London's schools by excessive workload, the lack of affordable housing and an exam factory culture which demoralises both staff ansd children. Poverty and unaffordable housing Almost 4 in 10 children in the capital grow up in poverty. Unaffordable rents force too many families into unsuitable housing. These conditions impact heavily on children's education and their schools. Lack of school places London needs 113,000 more school places to meet demand. Yet our Councils have neither the funds nor the legal powers to open new schools. Stand Up for London's Education 

The NUT believes that every child deserves the best. We have produced a Manifesto for London's schools calling on the next Mayor of London to defend education and help teachers create a just society for all. Help stand up for education Come along to our hustings and other local campaign activities across London.

Issues to be addressed:

• A good local school for every child
• Affordable housing for children and teachers
• Education – invest, don’t cut
• All children deserve qualified teachers
• An equal chance for every child in London
• An end to child poverty in London
• An end to exam factories

Proposals to put forward:

• A good local school for every child
• Affordable housing for children and teachers
• Education – invest, don’t cut
• All children deserve qualified teachers
• An equal chance for every child in London
• An end to child poverty in London
• An end to exam factories

- See more at: http://www.teachers.org.uk/campaigns/london-manifesto#sthash.MZheSnug.dpuf

What does school mean to you? Watch and give your own ideas

What Does School Mean to You?

What does school mean to you? We asked children in countries impacted by conflict and natural disasters what school meant to them. We have heard from children in Gaza, Central African Republic, Malawi, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Nigeria. What do you think? They're #UpForSchool - are you? Watch & then share your answer!And join 10 million others around the world - sign the petition at upforschool.org

Posted by A World At School on Friday, November 20, 2015

Three passionate voices on the education crisis

I tweeted the above open letter, first published in the TES, yesterday on both @WembleyMatters and @GreenEdPolicy and it has been retweeted many time, including by the writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen. The letter clearly resonates at a time when many teachers are leaving the profession.

Michael Rosen posted this on Facebook earlier today:

On the Guardian thread about teacher shortages and how they could possibly have come about, I posted some government policies to keep teaching recruitment and retention down:

1. Encourage the press to run stories saying that teachers are lazy and that there are thousands of bad ones.
2. Get the head of Ofsted to say the same.
3. Keep this up for decades. (both main parties)
4. Bring in hundreds of measuring and assessment systems, levels, targets, tests, exams, which then breed more 'rehearsal' tests and exams.
5. Bring in a punitive, rapid, unsupportive inspection system which ignores the fact that scores are attached to children so that if you're in a school where there has been turnover the inspectorate say that has nothing to do with us.
6. Run a new kind of school where the salaries of management are not open to public scrutiny.
7. Allow interest groups to open schools which take on proportionally fewer SEN, EAL and FSM pupils than nearby LA schools.
8 Allow covert selection and exclusion process to take place around these new kinds of schools because the LA schools have to pick up the pieces.
9. Use international data as if it is holy writ and ignore evidence that suggests that comparing countries does not compare like with like, that some countries which are 'top' are selecting. Obscure the differences between the countries by only talking about 'places' in the table, without ever making clear whether these differences are 'significant' or not.
10. Use China as an example of utopia in education without making a comparison between the two societies - as if education exists separately from the societies that produce the respective education systems.
11. Make sure that very nearly all the people running the state education system from government have no, or very little, state education experience themselves.

Yesterday, Kevin Courtney (who also retweeted the letter as @cyclingkev ) Deputy General Secretary of the NUT spoke at the London Green Party Annual General Meeting on 'Fighting for the Education our young people deserve.' This is an extract from his speech that was delivered with as much passion as demonstrated by Colin Harris and Michael Rosen.

Things have got to change if our education system is to survice as fit for purpose.

Let's pause and consider an alternative vision for education before the system imprisons us for another year

Children and teachers returned to school this week with both facing the narrow concept of education now embodied in the high stakes testing regime imposed by successive governments.

Before they and parents are captured by the system for another year I recommend viewing this Al Jazeera interview with Sir Ken Robinson. Wide ranging and at time very personal it gives much food for thought.

Another education system is possible.

Setting out Scrutiny Committee's role for 2015-16

The Scrutiny Committee will be setting out its aims as well as a draft work programme at its meeting on Tuesday July 14th.

This extract from the report to be considered at the meeting gives details of the Committee's approach:
 

3.1       Scrutiny activities will be led and co-ordinated by the Scrutiny Committee. This Committee will meet up to 10 times during the year.  The Committee consists of fourteen members comprising eight Councillors, four voting education co-opted members and two non-voting co-opted members. The voting co-opted members only have voting rights in relation to education functions.

3.2  The Scrutiny Committee will:

• hold the Cabinet to account for its decisions.

•contribute to strategy development through scrutiny of key policy documents and make comments on these to the Cabinet.

•support policy development through commissioning Member-led investigations of issues affecting the community or borough.

• provide scrutiny of external public bodies and services, including education,

health and other partners as specified by the Localism Act, 2011

• coordinate activities with other local bodies charged with scrutiny functions , for example, Healthwatch, tenant scrutiny, Brent’s Safe r Neighbourhood Board and the regional Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee.

• review and monitor performance to ensure continuous improvement.

• receive call-in of Cabinet decisions, public petitions and community calls to action.

3.3       The Council has a number of statutory responsibilities with regard to scrutiny of local bodies which will be built into the work programme of the committee during the year, particularly concerning health and police services.

Appendix A sets out the terms of reference for the Scrutiny Committee, these are set out in the constitution of the council. 

3.4       The Committee will be able to establish time limited task and finish groups which will focus on particular topics or issues of local concern. Through these time-limited reviews of local issues and services, scrutiny activities will not be limited to the members of the Committee. Rather all non-cabinet M embers can and should participate. These scrutiny reviews will also create opportunities for a broad range of organisations, stakeholders and the public in Brent to get involved in the work of scrutiny. 

3.5       The Scrutiny Committee may undertake external scrutiny of other organisations that provide local services such as education. The council has a statutory power to scrutinise local health provision and also crime and disorder functions. This can be achieved by requesting information from other public  agencies or by asking them to attend a meeting of the Committee for questions. M embers can also investigate any issue that is affecting local communities or the borough. External scrutiny is an area in which real value can be added, enabling Members to explore issues of public concern and take the lead on behalf of their community. 

3.6       The Scrutiny Committee will therefore: 

• develop an annual work programme based on genuine public participation and feed back from elected Members on local priorities.

• work closely with other local bodies and groups charged with scrutiny functions

• monitor and challenge performance and the use of resources both internally and externally

• make evidence-based recommendations to improve the work of the Council and other partner organisations

•scrutinise decisions and develop policy both in respect of the Council and external organisations

• scrutinise the Council’s budget, particularly at the pre-decision stage

• deal with call-in and pre-decision scrutiny

•commission in-depth reviews to be carried out by task and finish groups and to be brought back to the Committee for consideration

• produce an annual report on its work showing, in particular, the impact of the work of the Committee in improving outcomes for local people

• bring different agencies together to broker solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

Effective scrutiny

3.7       Scrutiny provides councillors with the opportunity to question Cabinet Members, officers and others in order to gain knowledge around an issue and make effective, evidenced-based recommendations. It also enables Members to capture the views of their constituents to provide community leadership. 

The principles of effective scrutiny are: 

•  being Member-led

The Scrutiny Committee determines its own work programme and decides what evidence to seek. Members take an active role in t he scrutiny process, for example by going on visits, taking part in consultation activities with service users, residents and discussions with local organisations. 

• a consensual approach

Effective scrutiny works towards developing a consensus-based view of the service or issue under consideration, focused on the needs of service users and residents.

• it is evidence based

Scrutiny should take evidence from a wide and balanced range of sources in order to develop a rounded view of the issues under consideration. 

Recommendations made by scrutiny should be firmly supported by the evidence gathered. 

• provide constructive challenge

Good scrutiny should foster a style of constructive challenge with officers and other witnesses, enabling sharing of views in an open and positive manner.

2015-16 Work Programme LINK

2014-15 Key Comments, Recommendations and Actions LINK