Unequal Access to Education in Brent

There is increasing disquiet in Brent about the perceived shift of the  borough's centre of gravity towards Wembley. Nowhere is this clearer  than in the distribution of secondary schools. There are only four schools open to all pupils south of the North Circular Road (counting Crest girls and boys as two schools) which include three academies. In the north there are seven, including one academy; five are in the Wembley area.  After special needs and  sibling connection the main criterion for admission is distance from the  school which clearly disadvantages pupils from the south when applying  for schools in the north.

This inequality will be exacerbated if Preston Manor, Wembley High and Alperton follow the ARK in opening a primary school and giving priority  to those pupils in gaining access to their secondary departments. Preston Manor has already stated that it will reduce the number of  places in its secondary school available for external applications by 60.

Despite my best efforts I have not been able to persuade the council to make the case for  all-through schools or to provide an equalities impact assessment of the expansion plans. It seems that the pressure of  providing additional places in the short-term has blinded the council to the long-term implications.

The danger is that secondary schools  seeking primary provision in the face of the all-through competition from the ARK Academy, will also seek academy status on the same basis. The local education authority, already weakened by cuts, will lose further funding and will relinquish its role in ensuring fair admissions procedures and an equal distribution of school places.

The paucity of secondary places in the south of the borough will provide a rationale for private providers to seek to set up a free school (a school set up by individuals or a charity, using tax payers money, but outside the control of the local authority) in the area with a further loss of funding to the local authority. A 'bare bones' authority would offer so little to primary schools  that there would be little incentive to them resisting going it alone and seeking academy status.

This would mean the end of democratic accountability of our schools.

Primary Expansion Programme to go to Scrutiny on March 2nd

Cllr Harshadibha Patel has 'called in' the Executive's decision of February 15th on primary places expansion. This particularly relates to the controversial Preston Manor Primary School project.

The meeting will be held in Room 4 at Brent Town Hall on Wednesday March 2nd at 7.30pm.  Anyone who wishes to speak on the issue should contact Brent Council via Toby Howes on 020 8937 1307

Rally to Defend Our Public Services on Monday

NO CUTS! NO CLOSURES! NO REDUNDANCIES!

DEFEND OUR SERVICES!

Lobby Brent Council's budget fixing meeting 

MONDAY 28th FEBRUARY

Bring your placards and banners, bring your friends and your neighbours.

Be on the steps of Brent Town Hall

Forty Lane, Wembley HA9 9HD

From 6 pm.

TELL BRENT COUNCIL TO RESIST THE CONDEM CUTS!

Spread the word. 

Please forward this link to everyone who will be affected by cuts to libraries, the Law Centre, Charteris Sports Centre, Voluntary services, children's centres, services for children with special needs, services for the elderly, services for people with disabilities &/or learning difficulties, parks, council workers who will lose their jobs, council workers who will have their pay cut, council workers whose working conditions will get worse, people with mental health problems whose services are being cut and rents are going up, young people whose youth centres are being closed or cut, people with allotments, people who need to bury their relatives ..........

 

Support Cricklewood Library on Saturday and Bring Your Children

From the Save Cricklewood Library Campaign

What happened to the Mayor's cat, Ken ?
 
Local and London authors are sharpening their story-telling skills for the Read-In at Cricklewood library on Saturday
26 February (10.30-2pm,152 Olive Road NW2)

Supporting our story telling local resident  Ken Livingstone,candidate for London Mayor in 2012, by contributing their tales  are :

John Simmons - internationally known writer and teacher of writing for business and the contributing co-editor of 'From Here to Here' - 31 stories inspired by London's Circle Line amongst his numerous other books

Martin Francis - famous 'Wembley Matters' bloggist and organiser of environment education scheme 'Brent School Without Walls'

Anna Dolezal - well-known University of the Arts trained   local artist who has written five poems specifically for the  day

Jan Palmer -  retired local primary school teacher and artist whose children 'loved the library'

Graham Durham -  special educational needs expert consultant and secretary of the Save Cricklewood Library campaign

The event is open to all and is part of the campaign to prevent Brent Council closing Cricklewood Library and five other Brent libraries.

Preston Manor Primary School Approved

Brent Planning Committee tonight unanimously agreed the application to build a 420 pupil primary school on the Preston High School site despite 81 different objections from residents. To the last there were complaints about lack of consultation, disputed claims about the need for a school in this particular area, concern over the impact on local primary schools, worries about traffic and a general sense that this was a 'done deal' whatever representations were made..

Carmen Coffey, for the children and families department, continued to insist that there was a demand for reception places in the 'immediate area' (in earlier consultations we established she meant by this the HA9 and HAO postal codes!), but later said that only 40 places of the 60 place temporary school at Wembley Christian Centre had been filled.

When Cllr Bobby Thomas asked if the addition of a primary school meant that there would be fewer places at the secondary school for children from other primary schools she did not answer directly, instead she said that children from these schools often went to other secondary schoolssuch as Wembley and Claremont. In fact because children from Primary Manor Primary School will get automatic admission Preston Manor High School does propose to reduce  the places open to other schools by 60 places. She did state that children from the south of the borough would be unable to get into the school if it was over-subscribed.

Cllr McLennan asked about the impact of the housing benefit cap on pupil numbers as families were forced out of the borough. Carmen Coffey said that an assessment was being made but suggested that the families may be replaced by those forced out of inner London boroughs. This raises the question of why rents would be affordable to inner London families on capped housing benefit and not Brent families with the same cap.

The applicant suggested that residents' worries about traffic and parking would be answered by staggering the start and finish of the primary school in consultation with the secondary school and that children arriving by car from the west would be met at Ashley Gardens by a member of staff and escorted to the primary building. She conceded that in the first year because of the backlog of unplaced children there would be a number coming from the south of the borough by car but expected that by 2016 most of the children would be coming from the local area.

The issue of the covenants was raised by Councillor Cummins but he was told that this could not be considered by the Planning Committee and was a 'separate issue'. One that doubtless residents will be following up.

There is also the possibility of an appeal to the Schools Adjudicator when the admissions procedure to the secondary school is published.

Academy staff vote to strike against proposed redundancies

Staff at Crest Girls Academy in Brent were shocked to hear that 21 staff redundancies were being proposed. At an emergency joint unions meeting last Thursday, 79 staff (with 3 against) voted for strike action in the event that the current "business plan", which basically means the redundancy of 21 staff members, goes ahead.

Crest Girls is run by the academy group E-ACT and last year Crest Boys took successful strike action to prevent any compulsory redundancies at their academy.

A group from Crest Girls joined by other anti academy campaigners and ATL, NASUWT and NUT union officers from Redbridge who face E-ACT academies there, had a demonstration outside E-ACT's HQ in London. E-ACT were left in no doubt the strength of feeling felt at Crest Girls and particularly in the circumstances where their Director General (!) Sir Bruce Liddington earns over £265,000 plus bonuses per year.
 

Residents fight for park wardens

Local community rally to keep their park warden

Park Area Residents Campaign (PARC) has been formed to fight for the retention of a full-time park warden in Brent River Park. The Park covers Tokyngton Recreations Ground (Monks Park), St Raphael Open Space and the wild area around the Stadium Trading Estate.

PARC are a  broad  non-political alliance who fear that the area will degenerate and become unsafe if the warden is removed.

To find out more and to support the campaign go to their website HERE

Brent Parks consult on dog control orders

Brent Council Parks Department is currently running a consultation on Dog Control Orders. They are seeking to balance the  protection of children with the need of dog owners to have areas where their dogs can run free. One major measure is a restriction on the number of dogs being walked by one person at a time to 6. Professional dog walkers currently often have more than 10 dogs at a time. The proposals follow similar measures on Hampstead Heath. They also list areas where dogs will be completely excluded and where dogs must be kept on a lead.

The consultation ends on February 28th and the document is available HERE