Taguri may face 'official' Liberal Democrat candidate in Brent Central following donation allegations

Taguri emphasised his 'independent' credential and distanced himself from some Lib Dem policies before the allegations broke - the sign on his  campaign office has no prominent Lib Dem 'brand'

Few would have thought from Ibrahim Taguri's confident and articulate performance at last night's Sufra election hustings that he was about to be engulfed in a media storm over allegations LINK that he had offered a fake businessman a way around declaring donations to the party.

Taguri has now resigned from the party and therefore as an official Liberal Democrat candidate while investigations take place.

In a statement to the BBC he said he would continue campaigning as an independent until his name is cleared and he is readmitted to the party. Lord Ashdown on BBC Radio 4's today programme this morning suggested that he might be opposed by an official Liberal Democrat candidate.

Clearly this would throw the Brent Central campaign wide open with the potential for a split Liberal Democrat vote producing a primary battle between Dawn Butler and the Green Party candidate Shahrar Ali.

Shahrar Ali  commenting this morning said:

This election is now even more widely open than ever imagined. At a meeting last night Dawn Butler spoke of the 'elephant in the room' which was the 'clearing of her name' regarding expenses.

Today we learn  Ibrahim Taguri is under investigation for potential impropriety over advice on electoral donations.

Standing as an independent will not help him. The people of Brent demand nothing less than confidence that their politicians know right from wrong before presuming to serve them.

We need politicians we can trust.

Gateway abandons plans to open free school in Brent

Johnny Kyriacou, Principal designate, of Gateway Free School, has announced that Gateway will 'not proceed' after failing for the third year to find a school site in Brent.  He says pupils should not suffer as they will still have school choices selected through the Brent Council admissions system.

Kyriacou claimed that there was still a looming secondary school places shortage and that if the 800 or so pupils who currently choose schools outside of Brent were instead to stay in-borough there would be an immediate crisis.

This is the letter sent to parents:

Dear Parents/Guardians

It is with great regret and a profound sadness to announce that Gateway Academy will no longer proceed, thereby ending our attempts to provide an outstanding education to the young people of Brent.

In a recent meeting with the DfE we were informed that a building could not be secured in time for opening in September 2015 and that there remains no realistic prospect of being able to secure one in the future. There are a number of challenges to securing a building in Brent and that includes rising land prices and competition against developers for all available land, which means the DfE are not able to compete financially. That is not to say it is impossible but it seems very unlikely. 

We came close on a number of occasions, significant bids were made for various bits of land and on two occasions a deal with a property developer came extremely close to being signed only for them to pull out in the last minute for one reason or another. The DfE, through the Education Funding Agency have tried their best but not been able to succeed.

The Trustees felt that to go on for another year and campaign to recruit students without a building would not be in the best interests of the local community by raising their hopes and then seeing the school possibly be deferred for opening yet again.

I would like to offer my thanks to all those parents and members of the local community who supported us and were looking forward to the opening of our school. This journey represented over two years from application to pre-opening and to fail at the last hurdle through no fault of our own is devastating. 

I wish you and your children all the best for the future. You really do deserve the best.

Urgent message for parents who applied to Gateway School for September 2015

Brent Council has told me via Twitter that they do not know how many parents have applied for Gateway Free School as the school handled its own admissions. Earlier  this week Gateway announced that they were going to defer opening for a second time as they still have no site.

This will affect up to 120 children presently in Year 6 of primary school.  They advise any parents who did not also apply via the Brent Council procedure to contact them immediately. The second round of offers will be made on March 30th.

The Council told me that there are enough places for all Year 7s in September. I understand that there are likely to be places at Crest Academy, Ark Elvin (formerly Copland) and The controversial Michaela Secondary announced earlier this week that it still had some places.


Contact the Council on the main switchboard at 020 8937 1234 and ask for school admissions.

STAFF AND PARENTS SAY NO TO ST ANDREW AND ST FRANCIS BEING FORCED TO BECOME AN ACADEMYP

Press release from Brent Teachers' Panel

Ofsted accused of deliberately failing Brent Primary

At a well attended meeting on Wednesday 4th March at St Andrew's Church in Willesden, parents and staff from St Andrew and St Francis C of E Primary School in Belton Rd, Willesden, London were joined by members of the community to voice their anger at the school being forced to become an academy.

John Roche, who spoke for the staff and has been a teacher at the school some years, spoke about how the Year 6 results in the summer had been the best ever and among the best in the country. Ofsted monitoring visits have said that the school is making good progress. He questioned the whole premise of the Ofsted inspection that had 'failed' the school. He had seen documents obtained under Freedom of Information requests that clearly showed original grades being crossed out and lowered. “Give us our own Headteacher, our own Board of Governors and give parents back their voice” he said to loud applause.   

Irene Scorer, the parent speaker, said that parents need to stand next to their teachers and support them. “Start standing up as parents and say no to an academy. For our children's benefit we have to.” She also warned about the dangers of privatisation and running schools for profit. 

Hank Roberts, who spoke for the Unions, said that this was a government conspiracy. The aim was to turn all schools into academies and then run them for profit. He explained the history of how schools had first been bribed into becoming academies and how when the money dried up they are being forced. He quoted from the Parliamentary Education Committee’s report on Academies and Free Schools,“We have sought but not found convincing evidence of the impact of academy status
on attainment in primary schools.”He further urged parents to make every effort to ensure that St Andrew and St Francis was not forced to become an academy.

There were lots of contributions and no disagreement that this should be strongly opposed. The meeting also heard from parents, including an ex governor, about the undemocratic ways that the school was now being run with no parent voice on the IEB and with no substantive head causing real difficulties with communication. One parent reminded the audience that academies don't have to have qualified teachers – a way of saving money but bad for the children's education. Parents wondered why there was no substantive headteacher as Mrs Graham had left over a year ago. Jean Roberts, who chaired the meeting, confirmed that it was common practice for the head to be pressured to leave unless they supported an academy and then not to replace them. This made it easier to put in an Interim Executive Board (IEB) to run the school and have temporary heads who would do as they were told.

Among other speakers Pete Murry, Secretary of the Green Party gave the party's support to parents for the campaign and said that the Green Party were totally opposed to the academisation of state education. Dawn Butler, prospective Labour MP for the constituency said that she was shocked to hear that parents had not been given a voice in any decision about the school becoming an academy. A teacher from a Brent school which had been forced to become an academy warned parents that class sizes for example could rise as they had done since his school became an academy. 

The meeting concluded with a rallying call for action to stop the academy. Teachers are currently being balloted for strike action and from what was said in the meeting this action is being supported unanimously. 

Ends