Forced academies: Victory and victims

Parents at Snaresbrook Primary in the London Borough of Redbridge were celebrating tonight after the Department for Education decided not to intervene in their school.  After being judged 'Inadequate' and put in Special Measures the school faced being forced to become an academy, a fate that has befallen Salusbury Primary School in Brent and is being challenged by parent campaigners at Gladstone Park Primary.

Unlike Salusbury and Gladstone Park, Snaresbrook and its parents had been strongly backed by Redbridge Council.

A DfE spokesperson said:

Our policy remains unchanged - we cannot stand by when a school is judged inadequate and believe that becoming an academy with the support of a strong sponsor is the best way to ensure rapid and sustained improvement.

Snaresbrook Primary School does not have a history of underperformance and has made significant progress after being judged to require special measures by Ofsted in June. We therefore do not plan to intervene to convert Snaresbrook to an academy.

However, being judged inadequate by Ofsted is extremely serious and we will continue to monitor the school’s progress in coming out of special measures.

Gladstone Park Primary too did not have a history of under performance and previously had a 'Good' Ofsted rating. Its results are still above the national average at Key Stage 1 and Key stage 2.  However despite passionate requests from parents Brent Council did not get behind their campaign or make strong representations to the DfE. Governors are currently consulting on an academy sponsor.

Meanwhile Roke Primary School (now Harris Primary Academy) parents are facing the consequences of the Croydon school being taken over by the Harris Academy chain in September.

Inside Croydon LINK reports than 1 to 1 SEN support has been removed in a move that some parents interpret as an attempt to reduce the number of SEN pupils in the school.  Children and parents were in tears after the news.

In a further move showing disregard for parents and pupils, the management  closed the Bourne Children’s Centre, which ran toddler and parents’ groups.  The building into a storeroom, causing a marked decrease in provision of service for families with children at the school.

Parents also accuse the academy managers of manipulating pupils attainment data in order to create the impression that the new academy is out-performing expectations. Parents report that pupils previously said to be exceeding levels in face to face meetings with teachers are now categorised as below expectations, enabling the school to claim vast improvement at the end of the year.

Inside Croydon reports:

Harris has provided each child with targets for the next half term, yet many parents said these had already been achieved in the last academic year when the school was still Roke Primary. The headteacher sent a letter telling parents that “previous levels you have been given may vary slightly to the levels recorded on this report”.

A spokeswoman for the Roke parents’ group told Inside Croydon:

We predict that results will now show remarkable improvement during the first year of the Harris academy and be used as a false benchmark of their success in turning our school around, as well as legitimising contentious forced academy policy.

Academy status and the new management have had to apologise for mistakes in homework which appeared to be cut and pasted from American websites and for unzipping 5 year old girls' dresses to check that what they wore beneath met the new school uniform requirements.

The Snaresbrook victory, along with the news from Lewisham, should reinforce campaigners' determination to fight for our public services. Let's hope Brent Labour will get behind them.

Kalwala and Butler first to be nominated for Brent Central

Tokyngton became the first ward to nominate for the Brent Central Labour Parliamentary candidate tonight. Outsider Cllr Zaffar van Kalwala who has worked on a gang strategy for the borough and has a following in Stonebridge is the male nominee. He is also currently active in the Harlesden Incinerator campaign. He beat heavyweight candidates such as Tony McNulty rhe former MP.

After the nomination Zaffar tweeted:

Delighted and honoured to be nominated by Tokyngton ward for Brent Central. Thank you to all my friends and family for their support

 The female nominee was Dawn Butler, the former MP for Brent South. She tweeted:

Thank you Tokyngton for an amazing nomination. I am honoured.

With 30 or so candidates the race is still fairly open but with only three female candidates Dawn Butler is likely to figure again in the lists. The 9 Brent Central wards out of the boroughs 21 wards will make nominations. See comment below for further details on the process.. 

10.30am Saturday to Stop the Harlesden Incinerator

A message from the Harlesden Incinerator Campaign

 STOP THE INCINERATOR IN NW10

The Site visit is at 10.30am this Saturday 2 November

PLEASE JOIN US at the site in Channel Gate Road NW10

FROM 10am ONWARDS to be ready to greet the Ealing councillors

Please bring your Banners and Placards –

A BROLLY, and a huge amount of POSITIVE SPIRIT

That means HOPE by the way NOT GIN!!!

WE CAN WIN……….

WE JUST NEED TO SHOW EALING THAT THERE IS COLOSSAL OPPOSITION TO THIS HORRENDOUS SCHEME

Now it’s down to each and every person to contact all their friends and neighbours

We need at least 500 people there on Saturday

then they will see how much people DO CARE

Don’t let a bit of rain keep you away, we need everyone to be there!

Don’t forget we will never have this CHANCE again !

Thanks Ian

Many thanks for all your support!

 @NOincineratorNO  and @NoNW10dump on Twitter.

Met accused of 'spying' on Green Party councillor

The Metropolitan Police have been accused of ‘spying’ on a Green Party councillor in Kent.

The accusations follow a Freedom of Information request revealing 22 police records relating to the Councillor Ian Driver’s activities as a campaigner in his local area

The majority of entries relate to Driver’s role as an organiser of a campaign protesting against the export of live animals from Ramsgate and Dover ports. One record notes a meeting in support of equal marriage organised by Councillor Driver.

The records released to Driver by the Metropolitan Police after he submitted a Data Protection Subject Access Request include 22 database entries covering the period June 2011 until June 2013.

Keith Taylor, Green Party Member of the European Parliament for the South East, will write to the Metropolitan Police insisting they delete the records.

Mr Taylor said:

It beggars belief that the Metropolitan Police have been recording the lawful activities of an elected councillor working in his community. Surely police officers have better ways to spend their time.

This revelation follows the folly of the Metropolitan Police’s long-running obsession with keeping tabs on environmental activists. All too often they are wasting taxpayers money.

There’s no doubt that the Metropolitan Police should remove these records of Ian Driver from their database.

Councillor Ian Driver said: 

A friend advised me to submit a data access request after I told him about how the police were taking photos and car number plates of everyone attending anti-live animal exports demonstrations. When I got the results back, I was flabbergasted. There was a page and half of database entries taken from what I believe is commonly known as the “Domestic Extremism Data Base” which is held by the Metropolitan Police.

All of the activities I have engaged in during the campaign against live animal exports from Ramsgate and Dover have been perfectly legal and above board. I simply can’t believe that hard pressed Police forces would waste time and money spying on me simply because I have exercised my democratic rights to peacefully protest and speak out against a brutal and barbaric trade.

I was amazed to note that one of the records mentions a meeting I organised in support of Equal Marriage at Margate in 2012. This is something which the Prime Minster, the Deputy Minister and Leader of the Opposition of this country all support, but for reasons unknown to me the Police decided that my act of organising this meeting should be recorded in a database used for spying on extremists and subversives. You couldn’t make this nonsense up

Victory for Lewisham Hospital campaigners

From Huffington Post LINK

The Court of Appeal ruled today that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt did not have the power to implement cuts at Lewisham Hospital in south east London.

Three judges announced their decision on the second day of a hearing in London.

Supporters of the highly-regarded hospital cheered when Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Sullivan and Lord Justice Underhill, gave their decision in an appeal brought by the Government over a High Court judge's ruling in July.

Mr Justice Silber had then ruled that Mr Hunt's move to downgrade A& E and maternity services was "unlawful".

Rosa Curling from law firm Leigh Day, who represented the Save Lewisham Hospital Group said: "We are absolutely delighted with the Court of Appeal's decision today. It confirms what the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign has been arguing from the start - that the Secretary of State did not have the legal power to close and downgrade services at Lewisham Hospital.

"This expensive waste of time for the Government should serve as a wake up call that they cannot ride roughshod over the needs of the people

Make London a 'Fracking Free Zone'

Brent Friends of the Earth's protest against fracking outside Willesden Green station garnered support from many residents who were opposed to the environment damaging process. Brent Council didn't quite get the purpose of the protest, stating deadpan that there were no plans to frack in Willesden Green and that clay was an unsuitable fracking medium.

The campaign is aimed at increasing awareness of the issue and getting politicians across London, councillors, Assembly members and MPs,  to commit themselves to oppose fracking.  Campaigners heard that one local councillor had received 50 emails on the day that the protest had been announced.

Despite the Council's statement, there are fracking possibilities nearby: Barnet Friends of the Earth are campaigning about a possible site in Edgware. The process uses huge amounts of water and areas of high population need all the water they can get. They also need clean water and fracking threatens to contaminate our supplies. The water table does not stop at borough borders.

The campaign is reminiscent of the Nuclear Free Zones that local authorities adopted a few years ago. The Council and other London boroughs could make a political and environmental stand by declaring Brent a 'Fracking Free Zone'.

One landmark tree lost in otherwise little damaged Fryent Country Park

 

Although the Barn Hill trees I mentioned in my previous post survived this morning's storm unscathed, there was a major casualty across Fryent Way on Gotsford Hill. Two hybrid Italian black poplars have long been a landmark on top of the hill, but alas only one remains.

The trees bent away from each other and were given the nickname 'the quarrelsome trees' or 'unfriendly trees' because they resembled children who'd had an argument and turned their backs on each other.

It was a strange sensation as walking across the fields I realised something was missing from the landscape. The fallen tree was like some great stricken animal, a sensation helped by its rough creviced bark that resembled an aged elephant's skin.

A passerby walking with his wife and daughter remarked, 'We'll have to call it the lonely tree in future.'

The breaking point

The fallen tree

The 'Quarrelsome trees' on the horizon last winter

The Lombardy sycamore avenue on Barn Hill was barely touched except for the loss of a few small branches and continues to rise above the oaks of Barn Hill.

Some oaks were damaged losing huge branches heavy with leaves and acorns, but I saw no uprooted oak trees.

The willows were buffered by the gales but only lost small branches. If gathered up and planted these will root themselves.

Some of the trees that seemed ripe to fall remain standing. This tree on Hell Lane/Eldestrete has been leaning at a dizzy angle for some time - and continues to do so.

On Designer Outlets and Food Banks

Labour leader of Brent Council, Muhammed Butt, has been tweeting enthusiastically about the opening of the London Design Outlet (LDO) in the Quintain development next to Wembley Stadium. Equally enthusiastic, if not ecstatic, has been the news editor of one of our local newspapers.

Now I don't want to rain on their parade but a visit yesterday left me with very mixed feelings. You will have seen in my review of the film Project Wild Thing that I share concerns about children's early induction into consumerism and children were very evident at the LDO. A campaign against advertising aimed at primary age children and younger has received support from the Green Party. LINK

As an eco-socialist I recognise that the modern variation of capitalism relies on creating desires and wants, rather than simply fulfilling needs. John  Naish in 'Enough-Breaking free from the word of more' (2208) writes that the evolutionary human tendency, which began in the stone age, to make things for aesthetic as well as practical reasons...

...has been craftily subverted: we are encouraged to believe that we can acquire chunks of mate-pulling mojo by waving  credit card as impressively branded mass-produced items. It's a crying shame that the mojo seems to wear off so quickly. But that's what keeps our wasteful system whirring around - there's always an improved, more impressive modern hand-axe substitute waiting to drop off the production line as soon as you've paid for yours. This also helps to explain our culture's current obsession with having everything fashionable and new, rather than items that are substantially constructed to last for donkey's years.

This can be seen especially with mobile phones and computers. Some firms now offer automatic updates to the latest model as part of the deal.

Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' made a terrific impact as it revealed the strategy behind brands, logos and designer labels. Aimed at creating demand in the youth market and promoting the label rather than the product the strategy  can be seen at work in the London Designer Outlet'.

When there are calls for economic growth this often refers to precisely this form of consumption. As the UK  produces very little itself the 'growth' is in selling imported items to each other. As a Green I am in favour of economic 'development' which involves restructuring the economy in fundamental ways, rather than just the growth of the service sector.

Producing more 'stuff' depletes the planet's resources and accelerates climate change through increased carbon emissions

But what relevance has the LDO for the large number of Brent residents who are having to choose between paying the rent or feeding their children,  where even a £5 overspend can be a major problem? What relevance for the increasing number of families having to use food banks?

What impact will all those designer goods dangled in front of their eyes have on children and teenagers wanting to keep up with their trendiest mates? How many parents will go to the money lenders that Brent Council is trying to discourage to answer their children's demands, getting into greater debt in the process?

We want to see investment in green jobs that would retrofit our housing to make it energy efficient, investment in public transport infrastructure that would reduce car use, development of green and alternative technologies to carbon-based ones, and the building of affordable social housing.

Brent Green Party put forward the idea of a green industrial zone in its response to the Wembley Plan. This would involve encouraging green industries in the area at  reduced rents and business rates, linked with apprenticeships and training opportunities at the College of North West London.  Real jobs and real skills would result rather than the zero hour contracts that are too often the norm in the retail industry.

What has happened to the affordable housing and social infrastructure (schools, health centres) that Quintain were supposed to build as part of the Wembley regeneration? 

Muhammed Butt will argue that local people wanted improved shopping, that big brands have confidence in the strategy, that the LDO will bring in customers from across the region and will encourage fans attending the Arena and Stadium to stay and spend in the area,  that the LDO provides new jobs, that it is all part of the transformation of Wembley.

Even on its own terms the strategy is a risk as it is by no means clear that shoppers will travel to Wembley rather than other big shopping centres, or that in a period of austerity enough people will buy the goods if they do come. On Saturday few bulging carrier bags were in evidence and most people were just looking out of curiosity.

Time will tell.