Natalie Bennett explains Green Party policy on education

Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green party, spoke yesterday at a meeting of the Anti Academies Alliance on Green Party policy. My apologies for the jerkiness of the video at the beginning.

New free schools announced for Brent, Ealing and Harrow

The Government today announced 35 new free schools which are due to open in Sepotember 2015 although most of them do not yet have sites.

The blurb is from the DfE, not me.  I presume the Wembley Ark Primary is on the Copland site, now Ark Elvin, although it was not on the plans that went before the Council. Elsley Primary School is close by.

Gladstone and Gateway Secondary Free Schools failed to open last month as planned because they were unable to secure a building. Children had to go to other Brent secondary schools. Michaela has opened but building work is still in progress around the children.

Katharine Birbalsingh has started the process of bidding for a Michaela Primary Free School.

ARK Wembley Primary Academy, Brent, London

• primary (ages 4 to 11), 630 places (plus 60 in nursery)

ARK Wembley Primary Academy will be a mixed primary that will open in 2016 and build to full capacity of 630 pupils by 2022. The school will also have a 60 place nursery for 2- and 3-year-olds. ARK already runs 27 free schools and academies and will also open a free school in Ealing in 2017. ARK has a track record of running successful academies and free schools and the school will follow the successful ARK model by focusing on pupil success, with a commitment to developing aspirations and motivating pupils to achieve no matter what their background or prior attainment.

One Degree Academy, Brent, London

• all through (ages 4 to 18) 420 primary places, 300 secondary places, 120 post-16 places

The One Degree Academy, for 840 4- to 18-year-olds, has been put forward by the team behind the tried and tested One Degree Programme in Brent. The programme mentors local young people to develop their self-belief and transform their academic performance. The school will have very high expectations and aspirations for its students. The school’s curriculum will give students a global perspective and will make imaginative use of technology to enhance their learning.

ARK Ealing Academy, Ealing, London

• secondary school (ages 11 to 19), 900 secondary places, 300 post-16 places

ARK Ealing Academy will be a mixed school in Ealing, London. The school will open in 2017 and will eventually include a 300-place sixth form. ARK is a multi-academy sponsor with a track record of running successful academies and free schools. The school will follow the successful ARK model by having a strong focus on pupil success, a commitment to developing and building on aspirations, and motivating pupils to achieve regardless of their background or prior attainment.

North Twyford Church of England High School, Ealing, London

• secondary (ages 11 to 18), 1000 secondary places, 350 post-16 places

The trust that runs the popular and ‘outstanding’ Twyford C of E High School North is to open a new school in Ealing that will provide a rigorous academic education. All pupils will follow a core programme of English, maths, science, languages, history, geography and RE. Pupils will have longer afternoons for sport and creative programmes and will all have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. The school will have the same principles of embedding a positive ethos within a distinctively Christian framework of values while applying a non-faith, open admissions policy.

In Harrow secondary academies are combining to set up a primary school:

Harrow View Primary School, Harrow, London

• primary (ages 3 to 11), 630 places (plus 26 nursery places), 12 special educational needs places

7 successful Harrow academies:

• Bentley Wood High School
• Canons High School
• Harrow High School
• Hatch End High School
• Nower Hill High School
• Park High School
• Rooks Heath College

are collaborating to extend their high standards by setting up a brand new primary school. Harrow View Primary School will serve a new community in the Harrow View area which is being constructed on the old Kodak site. The proposed school will also include a 26 place nursery and specialist provision to support 12 pupils with autistic spectrum disorders in a mainstream setting.

The same schools, with the addition of Whitmore are setting up a High School in Pinner

Pinner High School, Harrow, London

• secondary school (ages 11 to 18), 900 mainstream places, 240 post-16 places, 12 special educational needs places

8 successful Harrow schools:

• Bentley Wood High School
• Canons High School
• Harrow High School
• Hatch End High School
• Nower Hill High School
• Park High School
• Whitmore School
• Rooks Heath College

are collaborating to extend their high standards by setting up a brand new community secondary school. The new school will build on the high academic standards achieved at these popular schools and create 1,152 places. The proposed school will also offer specialist provision for twelve pupils with autistic spectrum disorders, sustaining their education in a mainstream setting with specialised support and facilities.

'The MDC is okay with me' says Pavey but others disagree

Brent's Cabinet met at Roundwood Youth Centre this afternoon, as part of a programme to move the meeting around the borough. It was followed by a walk-about in the area.  There was more discussion than usual with backbenchers and residents contributing but once again a Brent Council meeting was marred by the failure of councillors to project their voices and the lack of microphones.

Democracy must be HEARD to be done!

The Cabinet approved the action plan arising from the Brent Education Commission which includes partnership work between schools and support for the Brent Schools Partnership which has recently appointed a Strategic Director who will work a three day week.

One of the more controversial issues was  planning school places:

Objective: Ensure that the local authority is proactive in encouraging the best schools in Brent and free school providers  to set up new schools in areas where extra places are need.

Activities:

Work wuth the Education Funding Agency, DfE Free Schools team, the Regional Schools Commissioner and other partners to attract the best quality providers to Brent.

Promote the establishment of effective local chains/federations/partnerships to promote new schools and offer a local solution for schools at risk of failure.

A Labour Council supporting free schools and chains will stick  in the throats of many, particularly on the day the Michaela Free school opened in a building that remains a building site and when Gateway and Gladstone Free Schools failed to open on time.

Deputy Leader and former lead member for Children and Families, Cllr Michael Pavey, raised the possibility of the strategy changing if there is a change of government policy after the General Election.

Cabinet approved plans to make school expansion contracts more attractive to building companies by putting several into a package.

The London Mayor's plans for a Mayoral development Corporation in the Old Oak/Park Royal area provoked most discussion. As explained in an earlier blog Brent Council has not opposed the MDC in principle. Backbencher Cllr Dan Filson thought that was a mistake and said that Brent should start from the position that the MDC is undemocratic and limits the input of Brent council into the plans. He though that having the three council leaders (Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing) sitting on the MDC would not solve the problem as they would not have time to get down to the nitty gritty. The focus of the MDC was on Old Oak rather than the important task of reinvigorating the Park Royal Industrial Estate and rescueing it from being mainly devoted to warehousing.

Resident John Cox said that in the Harlesden incinerator campaign there were 180 councillors they could lobby. With the MDC it would be just three.  He said much of the land was publicly-owned, which we purchased in 1948 when nationalising the railways. Instead of flogging off public assets for the maximum value to developers, and then being supplicants to try and get some (so-called) affordable housing, we should value some of the land as zero, in perpetuity, and the state should build social housing. We could even call it council housing if we wanted to. He said the area was more like the Docklands development rather than the Olympic site.

Cox said that there was no chance of Crossrail coming to Wembley Central station  but Cllr Butt said that the Council had not given up the battle to make Wembley Central a destination: 'We can't afford to not having trains stopping there'. It was essential for the housing planned for Wembley.

Cllr Claudia Hector, another Labour backbencher, said that housing in the new development must be 'genuinely affordable' not the London Mayor's 80% of affordable rent. Director of Regeneration and Major Projects, Andy Donald, said the council was aware of that and that there would be a mixture of housing.

Cllr Pavey said that he thought the MDC was the right structure, with the wrong Mayor.  He could not see a combination of the three local authorities (Ed: Ealing's suggestion) as working for such a large development.

Muhammed Butt said that the three councils were continuing to talk but he stressed that they must come up with a 'credible alternative': 'We will have to work with the MDC if we don't come up with anything else'.

The Cabinet approved a bid to the GLA to make Alperton and Wembley Housing Zones. 20 will be created across London at a cost of £400m to create 50,000 new homes and 100,000 associated homes over the next 10 years.

Margaret McLennan said that the Zones were essential, especially in Alperton, to provide much needed infrastructure including new schools, health centres, transport etc to kickstart the areas. Cllr Perrin, lead member for the environment was concerned that this was at the  cost of moving businesses out of the area and there were also issues over contaminated land near the canal at Alperton.

I was pleased to see that £6m has been set aside for the provision of school nurses but this is going to external procurement, rather than in-house and only one bidder has emerged. it was confirmed that the provision would be free to local authority, academies and free schools but not to private schools. There was no detail about how many hours per school would be involved.

There was a rushed discussion of the Borough Plan where the Council hope to engage young people in schools in discussions about the future of the borough and no discussion at all on the Quarter 1 Performance Report where council services are given a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) rating. Support to enable families to be independent, take up of 3 year olds nursery education grant and the number of in-year applications for primary places getting a place withion four weeks of applying were all given a red rating.

Parent survey of Local Authority role in education shows potential support for Green Party policies

I print below the full press release from London Councils on the YouGov poll they commissioned on parents' views of the role of local authorities in education.  Green Party policy adopted at our Spring Conference is for the restoration of LAs power to build new schools where they are needed and for the integration of academies and free schools into the LA system.  Labour Party policy, especially on academies and free schools, has not broken free from Coalition policies.

The survey shows that we have a potential audience amongst parents for these policies.

• Leadership: 41 per cent of parents would turn to their council first if they had governance and leadership concerns – only 28 per cent say Ofsted.
• Free schools: 68 per cent feel that local authorities should have powers to intervene in these schools, an increase of 6 percentage points from last year.
• School places:  81 per cent support council influence over school places, up from 76 per cent last year.

London parents would turn to their local authority first if they had concerns about their local schools, a new survey reveals.

In the first survey of London parents since the Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal, the highest proportion, 41 per cent, of parents said their first point of contact if they were concerned about governance and leadership in their child’s school would be their local authority - 28 per cent said Ofsted, 4 per cent said central government.

The poll, carried out by YouGov on behalf of London Councils, which represents London’s 33 local authorities, also found rising support from parents for councils to have a role in underperforming free schools.  Of those polled, 68 per cent of parents considered that local authorities should have power of influence over free schools, up by 6 percentage points from last year.

Asked whether they support councils having influence over all schools in their area (including free schools and academies) to find more school places or expand, 81 per cent of parents agreed – up from 76 per cent last year.

Cllr Peter John, London Councils’ Executive member for children and young people, said: “If you’re a parent and you’re worried about leadership or staff issues at your local school, it’s only natural you’d turn to your local council where they know the local issues. But councils don’t have formal oversight over free schools and academies, which is evidently confusing for parents, as this survey reveals.

“What’s more, parents increasingly support a council role in influencing schools to expand, if there is clear local need to build more places. This isn’t surprising given the scale of the shortage in London.
“Of course head teachers should run schools day-to-day, but it’s clear from this survey that on the wider issues, parents want a council role. The government should listen to mums and dads and allow councils to act in parents’ interests.”

Pressure on school places continues to rise in London due to a recent baby boom. London needs to create 133,000 primary and secondary school places by 2018, according to recent London Councils’ analysis (1). Councils are responsible for providing a place for every child, but cannot open schools themselves or direct academies to expand in areas of need.

83 per cent said there is an important council role in ensuring education standards are high in schools, up slightly from 82 per cent who said this last year.

The poll also revealed that 51 per cent of parents thought the education system was more under central government control than they had previously assumed.

There was also a modest 3 per cent rise (from 29 per cent in 2013 to 32 per cent in 2014) in parents opposed to the idea of moving toward more academies and free schools.

Brent School Improvement Service sets out changes as interim head leaves

Rebecca Matthews, Interim Head of Brent School Improvement Service, is ending her contract and will be leaving tomorrow. Sara Williams is currently trying to find someone to cover the role. Clearly given the events at St Mary's RC in Kilburn and the concerns raised in the report of the Education Commission, a quality permanent appointment is essential.

Matthews today wrote to Brent headteachers announcing changes in the core offer made by Brent School Improvement Service: 

One of the main changes to the Core Offer reflects our determination to get the right level of support to schools as soon as possible.  To that end, link advisers and school improvement leads will be undertaking data analysis during July and August as soon as provisional data are available.  

If this early analysis raises concern, at the start of the autumn term, we shall write to you and visit your school as soon as can be arranged so that we can discuss the appropriate levels of support.  It may of course be the case that provisional data will change as there are always marginal changes when dis-applications are taken into consideration.  However, we agree that waiting for Raiseonline data in October/November means that we lose critical months.  Evidence shows that the sooner we can establish Rapid Improvement Groups, the better the progress within the school, and the greater the involvement of governors, the school improvement service and other relevant partners, including school to school support.

For some schools this will mean a change in their School Improvement Partner, an individual who monitors and supports the school.

The accompanying document sets out the role of the local authority: 

Brent is committed to working with schools to ensure that all are good or outstanding. The School Improvement Service recognises that much of the expertise to ensure this happens resides in schools.   It also recognises that the pressure on schools to secure or retain good and outstanding judgements requires focussed effort and the danger of stretching capacity too far can result in a fall in standards.  

It is therefore essential for the local authority to retain a leadership role; as the guardian of quality and standards for all schools; a coordination role in order to capitalise on expertise in schools and facilitate its use to ensure that standards are not diluted elsewhere; and a brokerage role to identify and sign post good practice.  

The partnership between the School Improvement Service, the Brent Schools Partnership (BSP) and the two local Teaching School Alliances offers an exciting and creative opportunity to develop new ways of working that will benefit all schools, leaders, teachers, children and young people.  Such partnerships are best developed over time, and this core offer is revised in July 2014 following the first full year of implementation, learning lessons from the past year and receiving feedback from schools and school improvement staff involved in the process.  During the course of the coming academic year, ways of working collaboratively will continue to develop.  

It is the LA's responsibility to maintain a full overview of the effectiveness of all schools including sponsored academies, converter academies, free schools, the local college and training providers.   This responsibility is fulfilled through desk top analysis as well as through visits to all schools.  All schools are allocated a link adviser who will respond to the statutory responsibilities through at least one visit per year to each school.  

For maintained schools, we will deliver a differentiated Core Offer which departs from the more universal offer previously in place. The purpose of this Core Offer is to provide an appropriately differentiated offer for the most effective and efficient use of public funding.  It will ensure that the best schools are able to define and develop their improvement journey as they see fit, purchasing support from the LA or elsewhere as required.  For those schools not yet good or outstanding, intensive, skilled and purposeful support and monitoring will challenge and encourage the school to improve at speed, and result in intervention if this is not successful.

Where academies, free schools, the college and training providers fail to provide the standards required, it is appropriate for the LA to hold these establishments to account.    This will be through robust discussion with the head teacher and sponsor or trust representative and for 16-19 institutions, with the principal or director.  For academies the LA may raise concerns about performance directly with the Department for Education. (Schools causing concern; Statutory guidance for local authorities; May 2014)

Brent has had several schools now which had been judged 'Good' by Ofsted previously now being down-graded to 'Requires Improvement' or 'Inadequate'. An early-warning system for such schools is essential and the document sets out what will be provided: 

For schools which are good or outstanding, and whose data shows improvement, the LA’s involvement will be light touch.  Once a year, maintained schools will be visited by the school’s link adviser.  Other institutions will be visited by a local authority officer.  The meeting will address a range of issues, depending on the context and situation of the school.  These could include:

·    Standards at the end of each key stage

·    Attainment and progress at the end of each year and for all groups

·    The impact of the pupil premium for low achievers and the more able

·    A review of Ofsted key issues

·    A review of previous recommendations from the School Improvement Service

·    The school’s key priorities

·    Moderation of the school’s self-evaluation

·    A learning walk to judge the quality of teaching and learning

·    The opportunity to identify good practice.

This visit will ensure that the LA can validate the school's own assessment of its strengths and areas for development.  It will also allow for an assessment of the school's capacity to sustain its position and bring about further improvement.  We will support and challenge good and outstanding schools where specific improvement is required and we will celebrate good practice and disseminate it across all schools. 

This will lead to a short report providing an annual ‘health check’ for the school with any recommendations that result from the meeting.  Support to implement the recommendations could be purchased by the school from the School Improvement Service or any other provider or brokered through the Brent School Partnership or with the Teaching School Alliances.  Opportunities for support still exist for these schools, but they will be provided through the traded offer.

It is noteworthy that Brent now recognises and claims a role in monitoring academies and free schools and it will be interesting to see how this develops and whether doors are opened to LA officers:

Academies and 16-19 institutions judged as requiring improvement, serious weaknesses or special measures will also be offered the RIG process without cost, but if they accept, they will be expected to source their own additional support which could be from the local authority or elsewhere.  If an academy or 16-19 institution chooses not to accept the RIG (Rapid Improvement Group), the local authority will ask for details of the actions that the trust, corporation or board will be putting in place to secure improvement, and would request a termly update on the impact.

 However action by the local authority if such interventions are unsuccessful is limited as academies and free schools are directly accountable to the Secretary of State and FE colleges have their own management boards.

Ironically, academisation, which reduces the LA's powers of intervention is listed as a possible solution for failing maintained schools:

The production of the action plan will be the responsibility of the school, working with the link adviser.   The content of the action plan will lead to the implementation of a support programme, with help from the School Improvement Service, the Brent Schools Partnership or the Teaching School Alliances as appropriate, which will be monitored and reviewed at each half termly meeting.  The plan should be specifically tailored to the needs of the school to include support for leadership and management, teaching, learning, inclusion and governance.

Improvement for schools in these circumstances must be swift and embedded in sustained good practice, recognised by Ofsted monitoring visits or LA reviews.   If improvement has not been demonstrated, the LA will use its powers of intervention to ensure improvement.

LA powers of intervention for maintained schools include:

·      Requiring a governing body to enter into arrangements to secure improvement

·      Appointing additional governors

·      Appointing an Interim Executive Board

·      Suspending the delegated budget

·      Considering academy status.

Michael Pavey, previously lead member for children and families in Brent, when first taking over the role had opposed academies and free schools but later acquiesced in the forced academisation of Gladstone Park Primary and actively supported Copland High School's take over by Ark Academy. Little is known of the new lead member, Cllr Ruth Moher's views, but a policy of forced academisation in a Labour authority is bound to be controversial.

Finally there will be efforts to ensure the quality of 'school improvement specialists' and the move to 'school to school support' will continue:

The local authority is well placed to have an overview of quality in the borough.   It will broker school to school support as required.  We recognise that we will not be the only agency involved in this work, but we can offer a broad overview of all schools when required to identify appropriate support.  We will work with the Brent Schools Partnership and Teaching School Alliances to secure leadership capacity and appropriate support to accelerate improvement.  We will work with partners to assure quality and review the impact of support, training and service delivery.  We will share our findings with head teachers and chairs of governors.

We will work with partners to increase leadership and governance development opportunities. Together, we will provide an enhanced range of support and training as required through a needs analysis.

We will provide support both from school improvement specialists and encourage school to school capacity.  We will ensure that school improvement specialists are highly qualified and experienced, most having recent and relevant headship or senior leadership experience, Ofsted training and wide experience of school improvement strategies from a variety of contexts.  We will involve schools in the appointment of these staff and look to secondment opportunities as appropriate.

Not mentioned sufficiently in the proposals is the funding implications of the proposals with the Brent Council budget expected to be under severe pressure next year.  The School Improvement Service has already suffered cuts, the financial compensation for schools engaged in 'school to school support', and the capacity of sufficient numbers of schools to buy into the Brent Schools Partnership are all issues to be addressed.

After all, Michael Pavey claimed that forced academisation of Copland was necessary because Brent Council did not have the capacity or resources to manage the school improvement process itself, and needed Ark to do the job

Education Commission honestly critiques Brent's record but does it have the answers?

Regular readers of Wembley Matters will be aware of concerns over the fragmentation of education in the borough as free schools are proposed and academy conversions take place. The provision of additional school places has been ad hoc and often last minute and led by the Regeneration  department of the Council rather than Children and Families.

An Education commission set up by Chief Executive Christine Gilbert, a former head of Ofsted, is reporting to the next Cabinet on Monday.  The report is to be welcomed but needs a much wider discussion. It is hard to see how how its far-reaching recommendations can be given proper consideration at a meeting with much else on the agenda and a lead member for Children and Families only a few weeks into her post.

The introduction starkly sets out the issues which in effect also constitutes a critique of the lack of leadership on education in the borough, a matter also raised on this blog.

Brent boasts impressive results in early years education and at key stage 1. Its GCSE results are close to the London average and its key stage 5 results are higher than the London average. But these achievements obscure less flattering statistics. 

Given the excellent education the youngest children in Brent receive, it would be reasonable to expect progress would be equally impressive by the time they reach key stage 2. Unfortunately, it is not. Brent lags the London average at key stage 2 and its position relative to the other 32 boroughs is getting worse: it slipped from 15th place in 2012 to 22nd last year. This trend cannot be allowed to continue. 

A few years ago, Brent outperformed most London authorities at GCSE, now it barely manages to be average. Although overall its youngsters perform creditably, disproportionately few of them get the highest grades. And even though a third of the authority’s secondary schools are classed as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted – compared to less than a quarter nationally – it has the highest proportion of ‘Inadequate’ schools in London. 

Unfortunately, these failings are magnified by a lack of shared vision and the absence of a strong, energetic relationship between the local authority and its schools. All want the best for the children in their care but too often good intentions are unsupported by good practice. And where good practice exists it is too rarely shared.

In short, education in Brent is muddling through; scrambling reactively to avoid immediate problems when it should be planning ahead, pulling together and setting its sights on becoming one of the highest performing boroughs in London so that children and young people thrive in all Brent Schools.

There are 34 recommendations in the report which I reproduce below.  The full report needs careful consideration but two things immediately strike me. One is the contradiction betweem the authority cutting back on its School Improvement Service whilst at the same time wanting to get to know its schools better and have early warning of any difficulties. Will handing over responsibility to the Brent Schools Partnership, an organisation at an early stage of development, be sufficient to address this problem. There is a worrying absence of any reference to the role of School Improvement Partners (SIPs), the 'inspectors' of old, in the school improvement process, and consideration of their effectiveness and quality control.

Secondly, given the fact that Crest Academy, City Academy and now Alperton Academy have received less than Good, and sometimes Inadequate Ofsted ratings, and the failure of two planned Free Schools to open, is the proposed cooperation with academy and free school providers a viable option?

The impact of cuts and staffing uncertainties is honestly assessed:

Feedback to the Commission indicated that the Council’s approach towards many issues is not sufficiently strategic or ambitious. It is described as often being too reactive and too late.

The Commission was given the example of the abolition of assessment levels, as announced by the Secretary of State. There seems little preparation for this and, consequently, a risk that each school will act separately, resulting in a lack of common language about assessment and learning across the borough.

Another example is the lack of forward planning for free schools meals capacity.

Head teachers believe that, to some extent, significant reductions in education staffing, particularly at managerial levels, have made this inevitable.

Another factor is the lack of continuity of staff within the Council. Lots of interim posts add to the challenges of long-term strategic planning and reduce the drive to implement agreed priorities.

Establishing a staffing structure, which has resilience and continuity, should be a priority for the new Director, Children and Young People

RECOMMENDATIONS

Education Strategy and Leadership 

1.     The local authority should set out a clear statement about its own role, within the changing education landscape, for discussion with the education community. This should be rooted in ambitious aspirations for and expectations of Brent Children and Brent Schools. The statement should underline the moral imperative for all schools in the borough to have shared ownership for the education of all children in every Brent school.

2.     The role of the governing body as an important force for support, challenge and improvement should be recognised and the local authority should invest in the development of governors.

3.     A strategic group involving the principal education partners should be established, chaired by the new Director of Children and Young People, to drive forward the education strategy in conjunction with key education partners.

4.     This new strategic group should develop and agree the vision for education in the borough. This must not be a protracted process. The resulting vision should lead to a strategy which contains a few key goals that are owned by all key participants and result in well-defined, agreed actions.

5.     The local authority, in collaboration with schools themselves, should set out challenging but achievable excellence targets demonstrating high expectations for children in the borough. The Commission believes that these excellence targets should include an expectation that all schools in the authority will be good or better within three years and that outcomes at key stages 2 and 4 will be at least 2% above the London average within three years.

6.     The Leader of the Council and the Lead Member for Education should establish a forum for meeting on a termly basis with a group of representative head teachers to ensure the education strategy is being taken forward and to reinforce the importance of education as part of the political agenda of the council. 
 

Planning School Places 

7.     The local authority should produce an agreed strategy for place planning. The quality of education and the potential for school improvement in any expansions should be the foremost priority when determining the programme of expansion.

8.     The Council should appoint one head of service to be responsible for drawing up and implementing all aspects of the place planning strategy across the two departments that currently have responsibilities for place planning.

9.     The new Director of Children and Young People should urgently review the authority’s arrangements for projecting the future school population and the geographical spread across the Borough to ensure they are rigorous and fit for purpose.

10. The local authority should be proactive in encouraging the best schools in Brent and free school providers to set up new schools in areas where extra places are needed. The Council should encourage open competition in order to establish new schools.

11. The place planning strategy, and future updates about its progress, should be kept under review and progress should be discussed with school leaders, chairs of governors, academies, and faith and community groups, on a regular basis. 


Knowing Brent Schools

 

12. To support school improvement, the local authority should put in place a system to provide each school with a picture of how they perform against both local and national indicators. These would be a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators. The process for designing this system, in particular the evidence used, should be co-produced with schools, both head teachers and governors.

13. To support their role as champions and guardians of the needs and interest of children, the local authority should produce an annual report that should be easily accessible to parents and the local community. This should set out achievements and progress in education in Brent, as well as highlighting challenges and areas for development. It should be sent to the governing bodies of all schools in Brent as well as academy trusts, Ofsted and the Secretary of State.

14. The local authority should urgently investigate, with schools, the introduction of a data tracking system that can be used to risk assess the progress and performance of schools within the school year as well as at the end of the year. This system should be co-produced with head teachers and school governors.

15. Through the new strategic group, an agreed programme of peer reviews should be established between schools, drawing on best practice in models elsewhere. The peer review model should influence Brent’s current Rapid Improvement Groups (RIG) process. Regular development opportunities should be provided for teachers to observe good practice in other schools.

16. The local authority and schools should devise a programme of activities to showcase excellence and interesting practice in education in Brent

17. The local authority, in conjunction with the Brent Schools Partnership and teaching schools, should publish case studies of good practice in local schools, before the end of 2014. This should give a clear picture of what good and outstanding schools look like in practice.

18. An annual schools awards scheme should be established in 2014/15 to recognise and celebrate practice in Brent schools. 
 

Promoting and supporting school - to - school networks 

19. As part of its changing role, the local authority should work together with all education partners to build the capacity and effectiveness of the Brent School Partnership. This should include its ability to commission teaching schools and other excellent providers in Brent.

20. The Brent School Partnership and the local authority should be encouraged to learn lessons for school partnerships from other authorities and from families of schools, such as chains, federations and trusts.

21. Mechanisms should be put in place across all schools in the borough for school-to- school challenge and support in order to improve practice and build shared ownership for the education of all children in Brent schools. The local authority should play a key role, encouraging schools to consider the benefits of cluster and other partnership arrangements and to break down any barriers that may prevent such collaboration.

22. The local authority should provide funding to the Brent School Partnership to appoint a full time Director, or coordinator, for two years with a formal review built into the end of year 1.

23. The new strategic group (see recommendation 2) should work with the Brent School Partnership steering group to agree a set of priorities and a costed programme for action in the school year, 2014-2015, for all schools. The local education authority should provide financial support to incentivise collaboration and work in clusters or networks. It should also agree a process for how the Brent School Partnership and teaching schools might be commissioned to provide and broker support for schools causing concern, including use of the Rapid Improvement Group process.

Providing challenge to address weaknesses

24. There should be more forensic examination of the schools that are assessed as being at risk or requiring improvement through investigation of teaching and its impact on learning in the classroom.

25. There is a need for more effective support for schools that are struggling, drawing on the wider capacity and expertise of other Brent schools.

26. The local authority should be bolder in deploying executive heads, NLEs, LLEs, teaching schools, federations and academy sponsors to ensure that schools judged inadequate or requiring improvement have the necessary leadership and governance expertise to drive improvement.

27. The local authority needs to identify underperformance at an early stage and to be prepared to be more robust in how it addresses concerns, including issues relating to underperformance in leadership. 


Improving school governance 

28. All schools in Brent should review their governance arrangements and consider reconstituting their governing body in line with the new regulations.

29. The local authority should complete and implement its review for nominating local authority governors with a view to speeding up the process, drawing in a wider pool of talent and making the skills and capacity of nominees the primary criteria for nomination.

30. The local authority should produce guidance for schools on conducting audits of governor skills.

31. The local authority should give greater priority within the governor development programme to understanding and using data and to supporting the role of governors in school improvement.

32. The local authority should broker collaborations between pairs of governing bodies to scrutinise each other’s performance data and to engender confidence and skill in providing constructive challenge.

33. The local authority should look at opportunities for governors to observe how each other works, perhaps on a cluster or network basis, and through developing contacts in other boroughs to observe and learn about good practice.

34. The best chairs of governors should be encouraged to seek accreditation as National Leaders of Governance and be deployed to support other chairs.

THE FULL REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE

Brent turns to academies and free schools to help solve school places crisis

As the video above shows the Green Party and Brent Council are united in the demand that local authorities should be given back the right to build their own new schools in areas of need.  The current Coalition requirement that bans any such new build and instead states any new schools should be academies or free schools is based on furthering the Coalition's privatisation agenda.

It has meant that local authorities have to rely on free schools or academies setting up in areas of need to provide extra places, rather than being able to plan new schools themselves. T address the places shortage Brent has resorted to bulge classes in existing schools (an extra class for one year group that then moves through the school as a 'bulge'), fitting more children into an exisiting building with subsequent loss of shared rooms such as libraries and IT suites, addditional building on the site-often reducing play space, or 'satellites' - use of buildings some distance from the existing school that come under the management of the parent school.

These solutions can sometimes work but I am concerned that they may also be storing up problems for the future in terms of overcrowded school sites, lack of play space, and over-large primary schools catering for more than 1,000 primary age pupils. When satellites are beyond walking distance from the main school it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to include all children in the special events that build a shared ethos and sense of community.

The Brent Executive will tonight consider going out to consultation on a new school places strategy  that includes the above actions but also advocates working with free school and academy providers. At a time when the DfE has barred 14 academy chains from taking on more schools because of their inadequacies LINK and there has been a furore over restraint of children at a Harris academy in Haringey LINK that approach will need very careful consideration.

The desperation of Katharine Birbalsingh's Michaela Free School revealed by it advertising in a fried chicken shop window in Bridge Road, Wembley Park, does not indicate that free schools are what parents want for their children.

The Executive document states:

Working with preferred promoters to open free schools is a means of reducing the call on council capital spend since the Education Funding Agency  will meet the cost of construction. The council’s Executive agreed in August 2012 a set of criteria for working with a free school partner. These are attached as Appendix 4. Where a site is identified as available and appropriate for a new school, a suitable promoter for a free school could be selected, using the criteria and an informal selection process used. This approach has been used in a number of London authorities, including Ealing, and can be used for the site which is definitely coming on stream in Brent, namely the Oriental City site.

 It is less clear on the academies route:

The academy presumption route whereby the council would put forward a school proposal which it could advertise and promote to potential academy sponsors. Under this route, the council would supply the site and use its own capital to build the school.

This becomes a strategy:

We should develop local capacity to sponsor or promote new schools, working with academies in the primary sector

 In the light of problems surfacing in academies and free schools this would mean the council providing the site and the cash for the building and then handing it over to a trust, charity or private company with no further control or oversight.

Obviously this is not  problem of the council's own making but the document does seem to make a virtue out of necessity, brushing over some of the issues I have discussed. In reality some school governing bodies have found themselves considering options for expansion or satellites that may provide extra places but could also impact on the quality of provision and education of chidlren currently in the school. Some have rejected requests to expand on this basis.

The report notes:

In respect of community schools only (so not for academies, foundation or voluntary aided schools), the local authority has the power to instruct schools to expand. This is not a power that this local authority has exercised hitherto

Ironically, if it were to use such a power, the council may find local authoirty schools converting to academy status in order to avoid what they see as damaging expansion.

The council lists a number of principles and then 21 strategies:

• All Brent schools should be good or outstanding

• All Brent schools should be part of a ‘family of schools’ which promotes resilience, mutual support and improvement

• The council and schools should work together to meet the challenge of providing sufficient school places

• Schools should operate in good quality, safe premises

• Children should be educated close to home

• Schools should work with their local communities

• Meeting the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities should be central to our vision for education in Brent

• We should make efficient use of resources

Principle 1: We should only undertake expansions with good or outstanding schools where leadership is secure.

Principle 2: We should promote federations between primary schools, both to address quality issues and to address the future viability of one form of entry schools

Principle 3: We should actively consider two-site schools and 5FE schools and 5FE schools where there is leadership and management capacity

Principle 4: We should develop local capacity to sponsor or promote new schools, working with academies in the primary sector

Principle 5: We should work towards the amalgamation of separate infants and junior schools

Principle 6: We should not currently seek to develop more all-through schools

Principle 7: The local authority should establish a joint body with schools which oversees school place planning and school organisation, monitors the impact of the plans and programmes and makes recommendations to the council, diocese or DfE.

Principle 8: We should expect expanded and re-structured schools generally to meet government guidance on space standards but be prepared to consider innovative design solutions to achieve this.

Principle 9: We should seek to minimise disruption to schools during expansion and support school leaders to manage the challenges.

Principle 10: We should continue planning primary places using planning areas.

Principle 11: We should consider expanding voluntary aided schools where there is local Brent demand, working with the relevant partners.

Principle 12: We should continue planning secondary school places on a borough wide basis, with analysis of how admissions policies can be used to maximise choice and intake to Brent schools

Principle 13: We should consider how community benefits from school facilities can be maximised when we expand or build new schools

Principle 14: We should consult with local communities as part of the planning process to minimise/mitigate the impact of new school developments.

Principle 15: We should build inclusive provision into expansion and new school proposals

Principle 16: We should improve accessibility for all pupils, ensuring that all our secondary schools are physically accessible.

Principle 17: After assessing educational suitability, schemes for expansion

or new schools should be judged in terms of value for money and deliverability

Principle 18: We should identify potential sites for new schools where there is no capital cost of acquisition on the basis of suitability and location

Principle 19: Where a site is identified, we should seek a partner who could apply to the DfE under the free school route, using the criteria already agreed by the council

Principle 20: We should explicitly adopt the DfE recommended 5% surplus places to enable choice and to reduce the need for temporary accommodation

Principle 21: We should be ready with contingency plans for temporary accommodation, given the population fluctuations in Brent.

The problems outlined in this article makes it even more urgent to put on as much pressure as possible for loacal authorities to be given back the power to plan and build new schools. They are best placed to know the needs of the local area and have the resources to plan on a rational basis.

Brilliant 'Gove Must Go' rap by Chester MC

The fight is not just against Michael Gove but against the whole neoliberal Global Education Reform Project (GERM) supported by all three main political parties, nevertheless this is FUN!

EDUCATION NOT FOR SALE: TUC report condemns profiteering from education

...

 The government's free school and academy programme has cost taxpayers nearly £80m in consultants' fees according to a new TUC report published today.

The research – which analyses official Department for Education (DfE) figures –shows how since 2010 ministers have signed off £77m of public funds to lawyers, head-hunters, accountants, estate agents and management consultants.

The report says the additional bureaucratic cost of starting up free schools and academies is diverting money away from children’s education.

The findings come as the TUC and its education unions prepare to launch a new campaign against privatisation and profit-making in schools, colleges and universities.

The report raises a series of concerns about the government’s education reforms including:

The use of private consultants – £76.7m of taxpayer funds (which might otherwise have been available for children’s education) has been paid to 14 private firms to provide additional services to free schools and academies since the government took office.

These include PKF UK Ltd, an accountancy group whose parent firm BDO UK claims on its website to offer “offshore tax planning” to “high net-worth individuals”.  PKF UK Ltd was paid more than £8m in public funds between December 2010 and June 2013.

Another company to receive millions in public money is Veredus, which is part-owned by outsourcing giant Capita. Veredus, which specialises in head-hunting, has received over 4.7m from the government.

Value for money – the government has expanded its free school-building programme despite the fact that many remain under-subscribed.

Between October 2012 and December 2013 it spent over £200m of taxpayers’ money to purchase land and property for free schools, bringing the total spent on free school-building projects to over £500m since 2010.

These purchases went through even though free school students make up a tiny proportion of school learners in England.DfE figures show that last autumn the 154 English free schools for which official data was available were teaching 21,973 pupils – the equivalent of 11 large secondary schools. This equates to just 0.3 per cent of the 7.5m pupils currently attending state-funded schools in England.

Conflicts of interest – the TUC research also reveals that at least three of the twelve largest chains of academies (schools funded and overseen directly by the government and managed independently of local authorities) have links to the Conservative Party.

Lord Harris of the Harris Federation has been a Conservative donor, Lord Fink, a director of Ark Schools, who – like Lord Harris – is a Conservative Peer and is a former Conservative Party treasurer and major donor, and the David Ross Foundation, which was set up by the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, who has also donated to the Party.

The report also highlights how the academy sponsor and Conservative donor Theodore Agnew chairs the DfE’s academies board, an internal group aiming to boost the number of sponsored academies.

Value extraction – the report highlights how taxpayer-funded academy chains have paid millions of pounds into the private businesses of directors, trustees and their relatives.

These include Grace Academy, which runs three schools in the Midlands and was set up by Conservative donor Lord Edmiston. Grace Academy has paid more than £1m either directly to or through companies owned or controlled by Lord Edmiston, to trustees’ relatives and to members of the board of trustees.

Corporate ownership – the number of private companies applying to run free schools has tripled since 2011.

Between 2011 and 2013 applications from corporate sponsors shot up from 8 to 25 per cent. Over the same period applications from teacher-led groups plummeted from 24 to 6 per cent and applications from parent and community groups fell by a third.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The government’s education reforms are being driven by free-market dogma rather than what is best for learners.

“Money that should be spent on children’s education is instead being swallowed up by private firms and in expensive property deals.

“This report highlights how companies have been allowed to cream-off millions in profits from running schools and support services.

“Let us be under no doubt, our world-class public education system is under threat from corporate interests and our schools, colleges and universities are now less accountable to taxpayers and local communities.”

Next Tuesday (18 March) the TUC and the education unions are launching Education Not For Sale – a campaign against privatisation and profit-making in schools, colleges and universities.

Education Not For Sale calls for:

•  A commitment from all political parties that no school should be run for profit, either directly or indirectly, and for this to be enshrined in legislation.
• All publically-funded education institutions must be democratically accountable to their local communities, which includes a key strategic role for local authorities.
• All pupils at state-funded schools must be taught by fully qualified teachers and all schools must be governed by the national curriculum.
• The funding and governance of all state-funded schools should be fully transparent to enable local communities to determine how state funding is being used, and potentially misused, in all local schools. This should include requiring all schools to establish a register of interests to prevent indirect profit-making by private companies
• In further and higher education, the government should introduce a new requirement that public support must only go to educational and training organisations that are not-for-profit, and should put in place a tougher regulation for those organisations owned by for-profit companies.

 Full report is available HERE

Six page campaign booklet PDF available here: LINK