Lycee International de Londres Winston Churchill produces record 14,000 page views on Wembley Matters

Unique page views on Wembley Matters topped 11,000 yesterday mostly reflecting interest in the story on the 1,000 pupil French School in London opening in Wembley at the former Brent Town Hall.  LINK Hits are normally between 1,500-2,000 a day. More than 14,000 have read the article.

What this means in terms of applications for places at the school remains to be seen.

GLA Labour backs Green call for public debate on Proportional Representation

Brent Central Labour nominate 'safe' candidates for London Mayor

Brent Central Constituency Labour Party has nominated Sadiq Khan and Diane Abbott as Labour candidates for the London Mayoral elections. There has to be both a male and female nomination.

The nomination of Sadiq Khan is no surprise as senior Labour councillors have been tweeting in his support for some time and he was active in Brent during the General Election campaign.

However his nomination has not been universally welcome. Cllr Sam Stopp, who was recently elected to Brent Scrutiny Committee, supported  David Lammy denouncing the current front runners as 'safe choices' and 'establishment' candidates.

He argues that Lammy has a wider reach outside the Labour camp.

Stopp said on Twitter that he suspects that there has been an element of 'machine politics' in Labour's Mayoral selection process and refers to a recent Comment is Free article by Rafael Behr LINK

Behr wrote about the leadership election where MPs have publicly endorsed candidates but it could be equally true of the Mayoral campaign where senior Labour councillors endorse candidates:

  Meanwhile the system by which Labour MPs publicly nominate candidates for the leadership and deputy leadership militates in favour of the status quo. Endorsements are traded for preferment in future shadow cabinet appointments or favour in elections to select committees. Hope of ascent up the parliamentary pecking order – or fear of a punitive pecking by a rival faction – often comes before appraisal of the arguments.

Of course this isn't limited to Labour and although the Greens have few preferments to offer it is something to be aware of in our selection process for London Mayor and GLA.

Meanwhile David Lammy appears to have got into a bit of a spat with Rev Paul Nicholson, a leading poverty campaigner. LINK

It will be interesting to see who is nominated by Hampstead & Kilburn and Brent North CLPs.

Greens condemn Government's contempt for democracy and accountability in education

Samantha Pancheri, Green Party Schools spokesperson has challenged the thinking behind the Government's Education and Adoption Bill whioch was published today.

She said:

It should not come as a surprise that the Conservatives have stepped up their backdoor privatisation of schools by announcing a new Bill that would see schools deemed as ‘failing’ forced into converting to academies.

Once again, the wishes of school staff, pupils, and parents are being robustly ignored by Nicky Morgan, in spite of multiple high profile campaigns against forced academisation, and a profound lack of evidence that conversion to academy status actually improves educational outcomes.

Alarmingly, the bill also includes a measure to scrap the requirement for academy sponsors to consult with school communities, demonstrating nothing short of contempt for democracy and local accountability, while the government dismisses anti-academy campaigns as hindrances.

There is simply no place for business interests in our schools. Education must be protected from being encroached upon by profit motives, and to have schools sponsored by the likes of BAE Systems is a disgrace.

If the Conservatives truly wish to improve educational outcomes for children and young people, they must move away from the rigid and impractical categorisation of schools by Ofsted, and instead look holistically at the environment and opportunities provided in schools. Teachers and unions have highlighted the impact of high workload and stress on their ability to meet pupils’ needs, and also that excessive testing of pupils is damaging their learning experience.

There are many positive improvements that could be made to the school system by reducing teachers’ workload, scaling back overregulation, scrapping unnecessary standardised testing and, above all, investing in schools to enable them to provide the staff and resources that pupils need and deserve in order to realise their potential.

This proposed bill will achieve nothing in that respect, and is nothing more than another step in introducing marketisation, and removing local democratic accountability from our schools.