Teather cancels her meeting with Gladstone Park parents

Sarah Teather has cancelled her appearance at tonight's meeting with Gladstone Park Primary's Parents Action Group on the grounds that the meeting had been advertised to a wider audience and might raise the temperature when calm was required to maintain a dialogue between the DfE and the school.

She said:

I have spoken to the Secretary of State about Gladstone Park school and will continue to push the Department for Education to work with and not against the school. I am hopeful that a constructive solution is possible here.

My offer to meet separately with the parents action group as originally agreed remains open.

I understand that the parents will still meet tonight to discuss the campaign against forced academisation. 6pm Pakistan Coommunity Centre, Marley Walk, Station Road next to Willesden Green station.

DfE's 'bullying brokers' must be brought to book

More from the Guardian on DfE bullying and the tremendous campaign by parents against forced academies by Warwick Mansell and Geraldine Hackett LINK

With Gove due to reappear before the education select committee this week to answer questions about what he knew about bullying allegations within the Department for Education, news reaches us of an official complaint that has been made about "intimidation" by one of that department's academy "brokers".
The complaint came in a letter sent by Tim Crumpton, a Labour councillor in Dudley, West Midlands, to the office of Gove's schools commissioner, Elizabeth Sidwell, last November. Crumpton, the council's cabinet member for children's services, asked the office to investigate "bullying" by the broker.

As reported in this column, these DfE brokers are seeking to push many schools towards academy status. Crumpton said he had accompanied the senior official on three visits to schools in Dudley. "On each occasion, [her] behaviour has been intimidating and bullying towards governors, headteachers and local authority staff," he wrote.

The broker had provided no agenda or subsequent notes of the meetings at schools under pressure to become academies, while, said Crumpton's letter, on each occasion she had said: "The minister will make you become an academy, and will intervene both in the school and in the local authority if they do not support this action."

Crumpton told his local paper, the Stourbridge News, he had received an unhelpful response to the letter from the DfE.

The DfE said: "We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims."

Meanwhile, campaign groups associated with at least four schools that are under sustained DfE pressure to convert to sponsored academy status have joined together to set up an organisation called Parents Against Forced Academies. The group has a proposal on the 38degrees campaigning website which, with approaching 2,000 supporters, was top of a list of "hot" issues on the site as of last week.

Parents at Roke primary school in Kenley, Surrey, have now said they intend to launch a legal challenge against the DfE's move to enforce academy sponsorship under the Harris chain.

North End Road reconnection controversy returns to Wembley Park

Controversial plans to reconnect North End Road in Wembley with Bridge Road at the Bobby Moore Bridge, beside Wembley Park Station, (see plan above) remain in the revised Wembley Plan which the Brent Executive will approve for consultation  this evening.

A quiet haven at present

When the original plans for reconnection were published four years ago LINK they attracted opposition from the Wembley Community Association which wanted to keep the low traffic levels of North End Road which serves the quiet residential area of  Empire Court and Danes Court.  At present the road ends in pedestrian and cyclist ramps at Olympic Way between Arena House (soon to be a secondary free school) and 1 Olympic Way. Since 2009 the Victoria Hall student accommodation has been built on North End Road.

North End Road leading to Victoria Hall

Brent Council say that 'a new road link at North End Road is a key component of the overall strategy enabling the promotion of highway access into Wembley (and beyond) from the North Circular'.  They claim that the new connection will benefit the development area during stadium events and reduce traffic along Neasden Lane and Forty Lane 'allowing prioritisation for non-car modes. The connection may also facilitate improvements to bus services, depending on results of the bus strategy'.

Henry Lancashire in his submission to Brent Council says that the proposed link will conflict with the popular bus stop opposite Wembley Park Station and increase the danger of pedestrian access to the bus stop. He states that the current access enables cyclists to take a safe route from the Brent River Park and can only increase in popularity if the proposed cycling/pedestrian bridge across the Chiltern Line from St David's Close is built. Brent Cyclists also express a preference for the link from North End Road to Bridge Road to be for cycling only. They state 'This would be far cheaper to implement than a connection for motor vehicles, and, with work and highway adoption or land-take in the Atlas Way/Fourth Way/Fifth Way area, could provide a viable, high-quality corridor for walking and cycling via the Brent River Path all the way from Stonebridge Park to Bridge Road.

Lancashire suggest that the required land acquisition for the link will be a) costly and b) damaging and in particular that the green space associated with the river opposite Victoria Hall will be lost: 'This is a valuable wildlife corridor used by species including wrens, robins, blackbirds and pipistrelle bats'.

Brent Council respond that the bus stop will be moved 'slightly to the south' and will be accessed via the Olympic Way underpass (people  dash across the road at present and I don't really see that changing).  They say negotiations are still going on for land acquisition and they are trying to keep the costs down: 'The scheme has been revised to remove the need for land from Victoria Hall'.

In their submission to the Council Quintain Estates and Developments state:

We do not consider this connection to be justified to mitigate the impacts of development and instead it appears mainly top be based on a need to provide circulation to and from the Industrial Estate on Stadium Event Days. In any event,  it is not required to mitigate the impacts of development currently consented in the regeneration areas.

 I am currently trying to find the likely cost of the proposal which in 2009 was put at £20m.

An intensive week of parent action ahead on forced academies

Parents are taking on the dictator

 Following the formation last  week of an umbrella parents' campaigning group Parents Against Forced Academies (PAFA), this week will see the most intensive action yet opposing Michael Gove's policy of forced academies.

On Tuesday there is a Westminster Hall debate by MPs on the issue of forced academies. Ian Mearns Labour MP for Gateshead told the Save Gladstone Park Parents Action Group:

Let me start by saying that I am firmly opposed to forced academisation. I think school improvement is a vitally important process, but it is not contingent upon schools changing their status and becoming academies, but as you will already be aware that is not a view shared by the Secretary of State and his supporters. Interestingly the Chief inspector of schools, who heads up Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, is on record as telling the Education Select Committee that academisation was not the recommended model for Primary Schools, given the different economies of scale for Primary’s, as opposed to their Secondary counterparts.

However, the dilemma is that many dozens of schools now are in a similar position to your own, and unless there is some coming together of the schools who are opposed to this process, I can only see the schools being picked off and ground down by the process.

John Pugh’s debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday is only a debate where Minister’s are made aware of the concerns of Members of Parliament and their constituents about various matters. It does not form part of the legislative process, but can be important in terms of getting issues on the record and a formal Ministerial response.

As a member of the Education Select Committee we are constantly trying to hold Ministers to account to justify their policies and the way in which they are implemented by the Department; and you can be rest assured that I will continue to thoroughly scrutinise all policies by the Government.

On Wednesday March 13th the Gladstone Park parents will be assembling at 3.15pm in the Year 3-4 playground at the school to travel down to Victoria together to join the NUT organised  'Gove Must Go' from Cathedral Piazza (assemble 5pm) to march to the DfE. Roke Primary campaigners will also be joining the march.

On Tuesday March 19th  Roke Parents will lobby the Harris Federation who are the academies group chosen by Michael Gove to become Roke Primary';s sponsor. Lord Harris is a major donor to Tory Party funds. The lobby is at 4.30pm outside the Harris HQ, opposite the Whitgift Centre, a few minites from East Croydon station. (Brent residents can get there directly from Wembley Central Station on Southern Trains - they run hourly at 6 minutes to the hour). Full address 4th Floor, Norfolk House, Wellesley Road, CRO 1LH7

Not content with that on Saturday March 16th  parents from the Downhills, Roke and Gladstone Park campaigns against forced academies will be guest speakers at the Anti Academies Alliance Annual General Meeting in London.

The Guardian describes the DfE broker's behaviour HERE