Government moves goal posts to force more primary academies

David Laws today increases the primary floor target in KS2 SATS English and Maths for 2014 from 60% to 65% of Year 6 pupils achieving Level 4.  Failure to meet these targets will result in the schools being forced to become sponsored academies.

Moving the goal posts in this way will be another step in the Coalition's aim of increasing the number of schools converting to academy status to meet their aim of making academies 'the norm'.

476 primary schools are below the current floor target of 60% but this increases to  866 with the 65% target.

The Coalition argue that this number will reduce as schools 'up their game' but this will of course lead to more stress for children, teachers and headteachers and a narrow test-centred curriculum  for pupils in their last year of primary school.

Some commentators also expect that the policy may lead to some schools 'voluntarily' converting  to academy status, choosing their own sponsor, rather than face the risk of having one imposed on them at a later date. There is an added incentive for headteachers because they are usually removed by the sponsor when a school is forced to become an academy.

Clearly Gove is taking no notice of the current resistance to forced academies and is tightening the screw  on schools. He is hoping that under the guise of raising standards and making children 'secondary school ready' he will be able to escalate the privatisation of the school system.

In turn we must up our resistance  with a united campaign of teachers, governors and parents to the forced academy strategy.

The story behind Harris's academy aspirations

George Monbiot has given national prominence to the forced academy issue LINK which has attracted many comments on the Guardian website.

This comment sums up the issues very well:
 
Our local secondary schools were taken over by Harris, essentially forcibly. It's no coincidence that Harris is a donor to the Tory Party, and the Tory party are now repaying him. There's no clear information on how much money is now being channelled through Harris for these schools, but if you take an average secondary school budget of £3m-£4m depending upon numbers, you can start to see what big business this is. Harris is fast approaching £100m of taxpayers' cash.

Of course, much of this goes to the schools. But Harris also has set up two profit-making companies which he can instruct his schools to use for provision such as buildings and maintenance. I'm sure that there are also "preferred suppliers" for other services. In addition, Harris provide some services centrally - of course they would claim not to make a profit, but in 2011, the average cost of each member of the Harris Federation staff was over £80,000. His chief executive, and pet Gove advisor, Daniel Moynihan, paid himself a quarter of a million pounds. This came from school budgets. That's the salary of 3 headteachers, or nearly 10 new teachers.

This is just one academy chain. Dig into the others and you will find some equally odious developments.
We need to recognise what this is. Under the guise of Gove and Wilshaw's blatant lies about "falling standards", "dumbing down" and "failing schools", and aided and abetted by a mendacious Tory press happy to repeat obvious nonsense about academy status granting "freedom from LEA control" in areas in which the LEA never had any control, we are witnessing the outright privatisation of our education system.

Our schools are being handed on a plate to rapacious businessmen under the guise of school improvement, yet the real agenda is to marketise the system, remove schools from any local accountability, and allow businesses to reap huge profits from siphoning off money which we paid in taxes for our children's education. Gove and the Tories know this would never obtain public approval, so the lie is pushed again and again that this is a benign process to raise standards, but the events at Roke, at Downhills, at Kelsey Park and Cator Park, to name but a few, give the lie to this. This is a sell-off.

Labour have cowered on this issue because it was them who started this nonsense about academy status being the universal panacea, to cover up what they were really doing, which was rebranding difficult "sink" schools to try and change the intake. That policy worked up to a point as long as the intake changed. But it was always a nonsense to suggest that there was any connection between academy status and results - plenty of academic studies have now demonstrated this link is simply bogus. They are now facing the result of their own propaganda, and to stop this sell-off, they will need to face up to their own lies and mistakes, and admit that this is never what academies were about. Can you hear Twigg saying that ? No, I didn't think so.

Michael Rosen has also commented on the forced academies issue in his latest 'Dear Mr Gove' letter LINK

Brent's relationship with Quintain under strain over the Wembley Plan

An Officers' Report going to the Executive on March 11th reveals some areas of strain in Brent's relationship with Quintain Estates, the major developer of the Wembley Regeneration Area.

The Council accept Quintain's claim that parts of the current Wembley Retail Park are shown as suitable for tall buildings but state that this is subject to an assessment of the impact of the buildings on views. On site W18 at the Wembley Retail Park,  Quintain  argue for higher density of development but Brent responds that "the indicative residential development capacity reflects the high proportion of family housing sought on this site (thus affecting the number of habitable rooms per unit), the domestic character (resulting in an 'urban' character rather than 'central') and the incorporation of the public space within this site."

Quintain object to the policy requirement that the development of the car park at York House (Site W9) should be relatively low rise and should include a substantial area of open space. Brent Council respond that there is still a deficit of open space in the area and the site provides scope for publicly accessible open space between buildings. 'Relatively low rise' reflects the high rise nature of York House and the need to provide good levels of sunlight in existing and new open spaces.

In line with apparent reservations on surrendering building land for open space, Quintain consider there is too much detail on the proposed park north of Engineers Way and particularly object to its East-West orientation.  Brent respond that this is fundamental to achieve an open aspect to 'what will be a densely developed area' and that the space would connect the proposed new primary school at Fulton Road,on the west side, to its catchment area in the residences to the east.

It appears that  Quintain's approach can be summarised as: build tall, build densely, and with limited open space.  Presumably this would extract more profit from their land acquisition. They go further in this statement which seems to threaten section 106 planning gains:

WEM36 and WEM38 set out requirements that major new development provides new open space and food growing facilities. Such exceptional provision, which also includes the provision of play space in WEM40 and wildlife enhancements inWEM41, will have an impact on viability and thus will have an impact on Section 106 obligations, after CIL.

Brent Council deal firmly with Quintain's objection to the provision of large food stores (over 2,000 sq m) being directed to Wembley High Road. The Council argue that this is essential to benefit the whole area and in order not to let the regeneration of the stadium area lead to a decline in the High Road. The argument is that new shops on the High Road between the junction with  Park Lane and Wembley Triangle will establish continuity between the older area and the new development.

Quintain certainly seem to be on a loser with their objection to policy limiting the proportion of frontage in the town centre that can be occupied by hot food take-aways. The Council's robust response is that there is widespread support for such a policy, including from the GLA, and 'there can be adverse impacts on the health of the population from fast foods.'

There is much more in the Wembley Area Action Plan so I will return to other aspects later. You can access the documents by following this LINK to Item 8 of the Executive Agenda.

If you want to comment on the plan and some of the issues above, Consultation will start from 25th March 2013 and last for 6 weeks. It will be agreed by Full Council in June and planning inspectorate examination hearings will be held in October 2013 with adoption the following February.

Viridor recommended for Brent's recyclate sales contract

The Brent Executive will be asked to approve the award of the contract for the processing and sale of recyclable material collected by the Council to Viridor Waste Management Limited. Currently this service is provided by Veolia but market testing by the Council suggested that the service did not provide good value so they put it out to tender.

The Council recognises that there is a high level of risk attached to the contract because of the unpredictability of tonnages collected and the amount paid for recyclates. They note:

In terms of improvement from the current position, this price creates an overall benefit that ranges from £448,625 if there is no increase in tonnage next year to £533,500 if 22,006 tonnes are collected. There is no certainty around waste arisings and the council cannot rely on a guaranteed level of income .

This presents a high level of risk. Next year’s waste budget has been set on the basis that

22,000 tonnes of recyclables will be collected. Any shortfall in that level of recycling which comes about through failure to divert recyclables from the residual waste stream will come at a cost of £107.25 per tonne. A 1,000 tonnes shortfall will cost £107,250, and only achieving 18,500 tonnes would cost £375,375 of the proposed saving. Only achieving present recycling levels will deliver £448,625 - £375,375 = £73,250 saving against planned budgets, whilst diverting 22,000 tonnes in total would deliver the full £533,500.

Currently the procurement process is under way for the new Public Realm contract covering waste management, recycling, street cleanings and parks and BHP grounds maintenance. 

3.333p per minute parking charge to be introduced in Brent

Brent Executive will decide on new proposals for on-street parking charges in the borough. The Officers' report recommends a charge of 20p for stays of up to 15 minutes to encourage turnover of parking places for short shopping trips. This is NOT the first 15 minutes of a longer stay but a quick shop and drive away charge.

For longer stays a 'linear' charge will be introduced of £2 per hour. This will replace the present 'step' charge that sees a stay of 59 minutes cost £2.40 and 61 minutes cost £6. Customers will be able to pay for additional time in  increments of 20p (the smallest practical coinage). 20p will buy an extra 6 minutes.

The report admits that it is hard to predict the impact of the changes which it claims overall represents a reduction in charges.  If more people stay for up to 15 minutes, revenue will be lost.  If the reduced and simpler charges lead to more stays then income will hold up.

Overall  the on-going cost is forecast at £330,000 per year subject to the above uncertainties and will be partially met by the reduction in Word Working allocations.

'Grasp the Nettle' trailer - inspiring!

Further information LINK

Shaye's musical take on Cameron's Broken Britain

I like this musical critique of Cameron despite some difficult scanning...

Wembley Park cut off from the rest of London this weekend

There are closures on the  Metropolitan and Jubilee lines this weekend so no trains from Wembley Park. Best bet is the slow old Bakerloo from Stonebridge Park or Wembley Central (fingers crossed) or over to Alperton for the Piccadilly. Other lines are also affected - details below.

• Circle

  Part closure

• District

  Part closure

• DLR

  Part closure

• H'smith & City

  Part closure

• Jubilee

  Part closure

• Metropolitan

  Part closure

• Northern

  Part closure

• Overground

  Part closure

• Waterloo & City

  Planned closure

• Bakerloo

  Good service

• Central

  Good service

• Piccadilly

  Good service

• Victoria

  Good service