Brent Council still fails to support Gladstone Park parents

As you probably know I have had an exchange of letters with Cllr Mary Arnold (Brent Executive lead member for children and families) over education in Brent and my claim that the Labour Council is not standing up for a democratically accountable local school system and in particular backing the Gladstone Park Primary parents in their campaign against becoming a forced academy. (Mary Arnold saw that as me 'attacking Brent Education'.)

James Denselow has posted this defence from Mary on his blog:

What is Brent Labour doing in response to Gove’s agenda?

Answer from Cllr. Mary Arnold – Lead Member for Children and Families:

We are primarily campaigning with London Councils tackling  Gove on free schools  which are unaccountable and in the wrong places, unaccountable academies, cutbacks in the Early Intervention Grant reducing surestart for early years and unfair access to childcare.

In Brent we joined other local authorities in a national campaign to challenge the injustice of moving GCSE grade boundaries so over 100 Brent pupils were downgraded in English, undermining their career chances. Our campaign was covered by the national and local press with lots of my quotes over the period..

My letters to the local press on Gove’s u-turn on the curriculum are published

http://www.brentlabour.co.uk/gove_s_u_turn

and my article on Gove forcing schools in his academisation drive and his shocking dismissal of parents’ views at Gladstone is on the website.

http://www.brentlabour.co.uk/supporting_gladstone_primary

I sent my letter published in Brent and Kilburn Times challenging Martin Francis’ letter attacking Brent Education the previous week to all Labour activists but I think the H and K members are not always included. Lee is therefore including website references in his campaign newsletters

There is more including a H and K education ‘think piece’ I am contributing to. Happy to talk to members and send on campaign articles with more coming up.

Cllr Michael Pavey, (Labour, Barnhill) Chair of Governors at Wembley Primary School is said to be challenging Arnold for her Executive post at next month's AGM. Denselow is challenging Lesley Jones for her position and a good source has said that Cllr Roxanne Mashari (Labour, Welsh Harp) in challenging Cllr James Powney. 

So we can expect some manoeuvring ahead of the votes and a debate is always healthy. However a Brent Council spokesperson in the report below on the Gladstone Park Primary campaign again seems to indicate that Brent Council is willing to do little to fight forced academisation:

A Brent Council spokesman said the authority was working with the headteacher and governors on offering 'programme of support':

The DfE's default position is that a school which fails its Ofsted inspection becomes a sponsored academy and parents are campaigning against this. We understand that governors are still making their case to the secretary of state. It is inappropriate for the council to discuss future options directly with parents' groups. We discuss options with the governing body, which in turn has the role of consulting parents. We're sorry if we didn;t respond in a timely way to explain that.

No condemnation of forced academies policy, no condemnation of DfE bullying, no support for the parents' battle and no expression of confidence in the staff and governors' capacity to improve the school without being forced to become an academy.

I think that's pretty poor.

Kids take over Chalkhill Park

I was greeted by whoops of excitement and shouted greetings as I passed Chalkhill Park at 6.15pm this evening. As you can see the children have taken it over and made it their own.  It is not yet officially open and a pensive child outside whispered, 'You know this is illegal'.  But a parent said, 'How can we tell them they can't go in. They have been waiting for the park for 3 years and here it is now and they just love it!'

A decision will be made tomorrow about a possible earlier opening. There are concerns that the grass sown between the gaps in the safety matting of the children's playground, which is at an early stage of growth, will be damaged but anyone wanting to keep the children out now that they have had a taste of the park  will have quite a job on their hands!

Garth McWilliams who designed the park should be thrilled by the children's reaction.

Chalkhill 'People's Park' may open sooner than expected after direct action

The 'People's Park' today

The recent warm weather has resulted in children and families making use of the new Chalkhill Park despite it not yet being officially open and still surrounded by builders' fencing.

The temptation of green grass and exciting play equipment proved too much of a temptation after three long years of waiting. A bit of low key spontaneous direct action resulted in an unofficial entrance being created.

I recently saw parents sitting chatting while their children played, a teenager doing her homework on a laptop at a picnic bench and young people chilling out. It demonstrated to me how badly the park was needed and how keen people are to get in there and use it.

Today there were 10 labourers working on the park. I checked and was told that the play equipment has received its final safety check and that a decision will be made tomorrow on whether the park should open now with any uncompleted areas being fenced off temporarily,

I think that would be a sensible decision as public use by families would be likely to deter any misuse of the park and why on earth shouldn't it be open if it is largely complete?

The official opening by the new Mayor of Brent will be on Saturday June 8th and plans include special activities, performance, bouncy castles, talent show and much more on the Saturday, outdoor gym equipment training on Sunday and Chalkhill Primary School pupils will take it over for a Carnival procession and other activities on the afternoon of  Monday June 10th.

Local authorities must be allowed to plan and build more community primary schools

This was my response to Boris Johnson's call for educationalists to drop their 'ideological'  opposition to free schools in order to solve the shortage of primary places crisis as reported in the Evening Standard this week. Johnson said, “There’s a lot of prejudice against free schools on the part of the education establishment and they need to lose it and need to build more.There’s a huge demographic crisis looming in London and we need to fund the schools. At the moment we’re worried there’s some kind of ideological foot dragging about free schools. They’ve got to blast ahead and make space."

It is truly shocking that 118,000 children will be without a school place by 2016 and Boris Johnson's solution of 'more free schools' will not answer the problem. Free school provision by its very nature is ad hoc, depending on a group coming forward often with unproven back of the envelope plans (just look at their websites)and there is no guarantee that they will be sited in areas of need.

The Coalition's insistence that any new schools should be academies or free schools means that local authorities cannot carefully plan the construction of new community schools across their borough ensuring that there is equal distribution and access.  The fragmentation of the school system under present government policies alongside the undermining, politically and financially, of local authorities means that LAs have the statutory responsibility to provide a school place for every child but not the powers to do so.

This is forcing them to adopt sticking plaster short-term solutions including bulge classes and expansions of present buildings which result in over-large schools, with in some cases more than 1,000 5-11 year olds in one building, loss of play space and cramped conditions. This worsens the quality of provision of all children order to cater for the additional numbers.

If we put children first, and not Michael Gove's ideology, we will restore a local authority's right to build new community schools with all the quality assurance provided by a properly planned and  funded, democratically accountable, local school system.