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

Conservatives hold Kenton, Greens beat Liberals into 4th place

The Conservatives held their seat in the Kenton by-election which was mired in controversy following a scurrilous Labour leaflet about the Tory candidate for which they had to apologise.

The Liberal Democrats did little campaigning in the by-election and came fourth after Michaela Lichten, the Green Candidate, who increased the Green share of the vote.

Welsh School planning application for King Edward VII Park refused

Campaigners are celebrating tonight after Brent Planning Committee refused the planning application to site the London Welsh School in Wembley's King Edward VII Park.

The application was defeated  decisively with 6 votes against and  1 abstention.

Denise Cheong and other residents, helped by local councillors, fought a spirited campaign reaching deep into the local community.

Denise and  Paolo Di Paolo both spoke on behalf of residents and Cllrs Stopp, Hossain and Mitchell-Murray addressed the committee.

It was unfortunate for the London Welsh School that the chosen site was so controversial. The school is unique and very special and I hope they are sucessful at finding a more suitable alternative site.

No 'even playing field' when it comes to the Welsh School's bowling pavilion planning application

Tonight's Planning Committee will decide on the planning application from the London Welsh School to take over the Bowling Green Pavilion and build an adjacent single storey classroom in King Edward VII Park. The application is supported by planning officers and the Council has gone to considerable lengths in smoothing the application's passage, even to the extent of putting S106 money aside for landscaping of the bowling green which is next to the proposed school.

This is in stark contrast to the obstructiveness of the council regarding Stonebridge Adventure Playground which is also due to be displaced from the Stonebridge site to make room for the expansion of Stonebridge Primary School and the building of new houses. They have been offered no help at all to find a new site and Cllr McLellan  made an untrue statement to the local paper suggesting that the Playground had refused an alternative site.

It is not to disparage the Welsh School, which I admire, to point out that it has 30 pupils whilst hundreds of Stonebridge and Harlesden children from many schools, use the Adventure Playground particularly at holiday times and weekends when other facilities are not open.

The motivation behind this is a mystery to me.

At the same time it is worth considering the precedent of giving an approval to the building of a school in the park, albeit a small one, when there are extant free school proposals elsewhere in the borough, one of which, Gladstone, proposed to building on playing fields next to Gladstone Park.

Looking at the papers for tonight it appears that the officers' despite being reminded of the Qiueen Elizabath II Fields in Trust Agreement LINK have not fully informed committee members of the content of the  agreement it. Instead they have merely stated that negotiations about that would be a separate process. They do not warn the Committee that in addition to the S106 costs of landscaping the bowling green that Fields In Trust may seek financial investment from the Council in the remainder of the park.

The Trust said:

I can confirm that Brent Council did submit a formal request to Fields in Trust with regards to granting a lease on the disused bowls pavilion area to the London Welsh Language primary school on a 15 year term, and in addition to erect a single storey classroom block and convert the paved hard landscape area to an all weather playground. 

  We were advised that the bowling green and Pavilion are unused and the area fenced off, furthermore there was no bowls interest. 

I can confirm that the Council’s request was rejected by our Trustees in January 2015 because the site is protected for recreational purposes and the proposed new use would be outside the objects of the Deed of Dedication.  In order for the matter to even be reconsidered by our Trustees the Council would need to offer up for protection a replacement site of at least the size of the land being lost or provide a payment which is to be made available for investment in the facilities within the remainder of the site.  To date we have not received a revised application, which I believe would only be forthcoming should planning consent be granted."

60 local residents have indicated to the Council that they would be interested in resurrecting the Bowling Club but the Council gets round that by saying that they are prepared to subsidise existing clubs but not a new one.

Can you talk about 'even playing fields' regarding bowling?

Suggestions that Collins Lodge could become a school building, initially claimed to be unsuitable, are now answered with the statement that the Council wants to retain the currently empty Lodge as a possible cafe/toilets in the future. The barely used dilapidated space next to the Lodge is claimed to be needed by Veolia.

The Friends of King Eddie's Park petition has been signed by all three Preston Ward Labour councillors, Sam Stopp (Wembley Central), Cllr Wilhemena Mitchelll-Murray (Wembley Central) and Ernest Ezeajughi (Stonebridge).

The application is the first item on the Agenda after formalities. The meeting begins at 7pm at the Civic Centre  (Conference Hall).

South Kilburn Hustings on Thursday - Granville Community Centre

Limited Eventbrite tickets available: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/skvoices-husting-2015-tickets-15583908891?aff=efbevent

Join the 'Time to Act 2015' Climate March on Saturday

Join us on March 7 to bring a message of urgency which cannot be ignored. Form blocs or join with others from your area to show solidarity and strength.

Join Brent Friends of the Earth and other activists. Meet outside Kilburn Park tube station at 11.45am, to join up with the march in Central London at 12:30 pm (Metropolitan and Jubilee lines have closers)

And together let's continue to power up and celebrate our movement – locally, nationally and internationally – throughout 2015, and beyond