A video for all teachers suffering under government education policies

Don't watch this if you are offended by the F word and other obscenities. Do watch if you feel current education policy justifies such language use. The video pre-dates the Coalition and so applies to the target culture of the three main parties.

Butt's blog bites back

Brent Council leader, Muhammed Butt's, New Year blog has on the Council website LINK has received four comments.  He wrote about the Council's strategy on improving and creating employment opportunities:

Posted 16/01/2013 10:05:11 by Shel

It's great to see that the creation of new jobs and getting people into work is a top priority. I hope Brent will be able to fund projects aimed at getting locals into work through training sessions on interview techniques, job hunting, finding relevant training programmes etc... I can-not express the great importance of such programmes. 4 years ago, I attended a 2 day workshop run by Brent Council aimed at getting the long-term unemployed into work. At that point I had been busy raising 3 children. The workshops gave me the confidence to get back into employment and my career has been moving from strength to strength. I feel indebted to the programme.

Posted 16/01/2013 08:56:47 by Jean Roberts

It is good to see that you are concentrating on jobs and growth. Education is also under attack by this government with its drive to make all schools academies or free schools through bribery with our money or by force to big chains who will ultimately run the education system for profit. Brent should be doing more to stand up for our great community schools. We now face a possible free school paid for by the DfE (our taxes) without any consultation with the community, appearing somewhere in Wembley Park. The ruling by the Information Commissioner that this process should be open and transparent will hopefully mean we will find out exactly what is happening.

Posted 15/01/2013 22:34:19 by Tracey Burke

Increasing employment opportunities is a laudable aim but I have concerns that this is being promoted as some kind of panacea for the supposed ills in society. What type of employment opportunities will these be? Will there be affordable housing and ethical private landlords to house these employees? There is a wealth of research that points to perceived ills as being in depth and entwined issues, the underlying commonalities being inequality, low pay scales, lack of affordable housing and statutory services raising the gateways for access to services. We are mindlessly accepting central government cuts that will decimate our most vulnerable members of society. What you don't clarify Mr Butt is how your cabinet will support people who work for disgustingly low pay with little or no employment rights. Nor do you address your strategy for supporting Brent residents who will never be able to work? As you are only too well aware the universal credits system that will hit us shortly is a template for increasing inequality. How are you and your cabinet planing to ensure that this government doesn't impact on the residents who vote for you and for whom you have statutory duties of care?

Posted 15/01/2013 17:41:41 by Michael Calderbank

I'm very glad to hear that jobs are such a priority. In that case, I take it, the council won't be making compulsory redundancies as a result of implementing cuts to the budget? Also, I wonder how many people who work for external contractors procured by Brent Council to provide services are paid less than the London Living Wage, and why paying a living wage isn't a precondition of the tendering process? Perhaps you can let us know on your next blog?

Free Harlesden family history course begins on February 6th

Plaque in Hazeldene Road - find out about YOUR family history

Harlesden Routes is a free family history programme LINK which will run between January to March 2013 to support local people in taking the first steps in learning and researching their family history. We are looking for committed individuals who live, work and/ or have strong family connections with Harlesden. Participants must be willing to develop a case study based on interviews and or research of an aspect of their family history which can be shared with others locally.

Harlesden is a culturally diverse area with many untold stories and experiences of local history and migration which makes the area a positive and inclusive place to live and work. Every Generation mission is to promote the oral and family heritage of the lives and history of local communities.

The Harlesden Routes Course will start on February 6th with all activities taking place on a Wednesday evening at the Unity Centre LINK. In addition there also be a trip to Brent Museum and Archives and the ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ family history exhibition at Olympia.

The session will cover different aspects of family history using local records and online archives, using photographs, social history, creative writing, interviewing techniques and the importance of DNA.

Harlesden Routes is a partnership which involves Every Generation, Catalyst Gateway, and Brent Museum and Archives. The projected is funded by Harlesden Community First and LIFT.

Place are limited so please email patrick@everygeneration.co.uk for an application form or further details.

Taking the Michael reaches new heights

By some means not yet revealed,  Michael Rosen's satirical letter to Michael Gove has appeared on a semi-official website which specialises in government contracts LINK

In case it disappears I reproduce Michael's advice below:

For the start of the year, I’m sending you some helpful ideas, from how to keep student numbers down to keeping teachers in check.

I thought I would try to be positive and lay out a set of modest proposals for you to consider in 2013.

1 Universities
It’s imperative to keep down the number of students. “Graduate” is really another name for people who think they’re entitled to be paid well. We are in an era when we must all pull together to ensure that workers work more and earn less (or as employers call it, “keeping labour costs down”) and large numbers of graduates swimming around the economy are an impediment to this. What’s more, three years of independent living and discussion have the potential to turn many of these young people into dissenters and trouble-makers. There is an argument for saying that it is the job of government to enable a population to increase its cultural capital, raising the level of education of as many people as possible. You must portray this sentiment as a utopian fantasy of a long-lost past.

So, let’s put into practice a set of clear policies:
a) You and your colleagues (and Eric Pickles) need to put a lot of effort into mocking and rubbishing university courses. Don’t worry about consistency here: pick on both vocational courses and seemingly obscure academic ones: “A degree in leisure management, ha ha ha”; ‘A degree in medieval German literature, ha ha ha”.
b) Suggest at every opportunity that academics and students are spongers and skivers. Contrast their use of public money, long holidays and low hours of work with MPs’ honesty, diligence and industriousness.
c) Make a big deal out of things like the “knowledge economy”, “what Britain does best”, “centres of excellence” and “world-class universities”. Rely on journalists to put this inflated waffle (which you don’t believe in anyway) on their front pages while relegating the cuts to a one-inch column on page 11.
d) It is absolutely vital to boast about making it possible for the “disadvantaged” to go to university while making it harder for them to do so. Fees of £9,000 a year are already much too low and some students from poorer families are slipping through the net and going to university. We must discourage them from doing so. I suggest fees in the region of £20,000 a year. One scholarship a year per university would serve the purpose of looking as if you’re being “fair”.
I am so glad that your colleague David Willetts has highlighted the problems of white working-class boys going to university. Given your party’s electoral precariousness at the moment, it is vital that you and your colleagues present a narrative which suggests that Britain today is a place where white people can’t get on and black people are given incredible advantages.

2 Ebacc
There is a real danger that you’re about to be stabbed in the back by your predecessor Kenneth Baker. He has come up with a plan to abolish exams at 16, create higher schools and training places for 14- to 18-year-olds. With utmost urgency, you must dig up anything you can on Baker to suggest that he is either an out-of-touch old backwoodsman fart and/or he is in thrall to Trotskyists.
For you to be able to push through what is fast becoming an exam that will be a major impediment for most young people to develop as learners, you must:
a) ignore all evidence on adolescents and learning;
b) make misleading comparisons with the old O-levels;
c) keep talking about “rigour” without explaining what you mean by that word;
d) rubbish teachers by saying that, unlike MPs, they are lazy and misuse public money.

3 Primary school exams
The phonics screening check and the spelling, punctuation and grammar – Spag – test.
You must resist all demands to provide evidence that these tests will improve reading and writing, as there is none. Avoid public debate about this. Potential problems coming up are:
a) that many more children failed the phonics test than learn how to read using the old mixed methods;
b) many good readers failed the phonics test;
c) some children are being told they have “failed” and so can’t proceed to “real” books.

Rely on ill-informed newspaper editors to keep these stories off the front pages. When it comes to the grammar test, I predict that there will be real problems, with teachers not knowing how to teach for it and hardly any children understanding what is being tested. Therefore you must keep up the campaign of rubbishing teachers, showing how, unlike MPs, they are lazy and misuse public money.
In a key speech, make the suggestion that most British children are ignorant, illiterate, stupid and badly behaved.

4 Academies programme
Stop trying to be nice. Step in now, and make every state school in England an academy. Hail this termination of public accountability as a triumph of “freedom from control”. Make sure that your own burgeoning powers of control over the nation’s teachers and young people is never mentioned. It is crucial that whenever an academy fails an inspection, you must rubbish the teachers, showing how, unlike MPs, they are lazy and misuse public money.

It is highly unlikely that you will be able to keep tabs on all the academies, so I suggest that you create a set of regional committees to manage them. These must not be called “local” in case people compare them to local authorities and the management committees must not be elected, but made up of people appointed by you.

5 Teachers
Abolish all teacher training. In a key speech, try to whip up people’s bad memories of individual teachers (who were usually just people trying to implement what governments made them do) by saying how “we all hate teachers”. Play to people’s feelings that it is always other people’s children who are “bad influences” on their own, and what is needed is a “firm hand”. This should enable you to usher in the replacement of teachers by ex-military personnel who can do the job of patrolling past the computer terminals (equipped with News Corporation syllabuses), which all children will be looking at all day in the exciting schools of the future.

6 History
You must work even harder on the history curriculum, ensuring that all our children in England are proud of our country’s history. I’m not absolutely sure what this means if Scotland becomes independent, but I’m sure you’ve figured out what “our country” means better than me. Meanwhile, can we make sure that dead white men are celebrated the most? All attempts to show either that some dead white men did bad things, or that there are some important things done by dead white women, dead black men and even dead black women, must be eradicated. We need to have our classrooms filled with pride. After all, thanks to your government, more and more children are arriving at school with empty bellies, so at least let’s fill them with pride, eh?

7 Business
All schools must be turned into limited companies. Headteachers should be employers (“school company directors”) while compulsorily non-unionised teachers and pupils are the workers. Schools should be required to make goods and sell services for money and become places that offer car-cleaning, photocopying, fruit-picking, biscuit-making and the like at highly competitive rates.

8 Your job
The moment it looks as if staying in your job is an impediment to your long-term objectives of becoming leader of the Conservative party, make it clear to David Cameron that you’ve never been very interested in education and you have outlived your usefulness.

I hope that these proposals will be of use to you throughout the year.

Preston Manor strike may be called off after conditions of service concessions by management

NUT members at Preston Manor All-through School  will be deciding next week whether to accept the advice of their leaders and call off the strike planned for Wednesday January 23rd after concessions by the school management on conditions of service but with academy conversion going ahead.

Brent Teachers Association Secretary Jean Roberts wrote to NUT members:

Because of your determination and collective strength, your tremendous unity and solidarity throughout this whole process, you have won on EVERY point you asked for to protect your terms and conditions after conversion.

Together you have won probably the best conditions in any converter academy, not just in Brent, but in the whole of England.

This will mean that a Co-operative Academy will still go ahead but the strike ballot is still live and the union reserves the right to strike if the concessions are not written into agreements by February 1st.

Jean Roberts told members:

You all have been magnificent in your determination to oppose this conversion, first voting overwhelmingly in the staff ballot and then as NUT members voting for action when your views were just ignored – not even a governors meeting was called to discuss the result. I would hope that Matthew Lantos and the Governors realise they need to regain your trust over what had happened and to apply those Co-operative values which they signed up to.

Council challenged to exclude Veolia from Brent public realm contract

 

Following  a two year local campaign by activists in North London, French multi-national waste company Veolia withdrew from a North London Waste Authority £4.7 billion waste contract just before Christmas.  Campaigners opposed Veolia on the grounds that it abuses human rights through its complicity in Israel's violations of international law in the occupied territories of Palestine.

Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in a letter to NLWA councillors wrote:

It is my view that Veolia’s violations of the UN Global Compact principles and its deep and protracted complicity with grave breaches of international law make it an inappropriate partner for any public institution, especially as a provider of public services.

....I urge you to follow the example set by public authorities and European banks that have chosen to disassociate themselves from Veolia and take the just and principled decision not to award Veolia any public service contracts. Such a measure would contribute to upholding the rule of law and advancing peace based on justice.

Veolia currently  operates waste collection, recycling and street cleansing services in Brent in a contract that expires in 2014. The procurement process for a new contract, that also includes parks maintenance, has begun.

Brent Palestine Solidarity Campaign has pledged to campaign against its inclusion in the upcoming Brent Council public realm procurement process. Liz Lindsay, Secretary of Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign said:

Brent Council must not ignore Veolia’s grave misconduct. They should not include Veolia in their procurement short list. Otherwise they will risk Veolia pulling out at the last minute as they did with the NLWA procurement, This would leave  the Council obliged to give the contract to the only remaining bidder  left in the process.  I am sure  Brent Council will recognise Veolia’s role in Palestine and exclude Veolia from the start.

Declaration of interest. I am chair of Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Preston Manor teachers strike as Co-operative values betrayed

Values betrayed?

 Members of the National Union of Teachers at Preston Manor All Through school are to strike against the governors' intention to convert the school to become a Co-operative Academy.  Staff,  parents and the community had all been assured by the school's  headteacher Matthew Lantos and the then Chair of Governors, last year that forming a Co-operative Trust was not the first step to becoming a Cooperative Academy. The first strike will take place on Wednesday 23rd January in an attempt to force the governing body to step back from their intention to convert the school on February 1st.

The NUT wrote the following letter to parents this week.

 Dear Parents/Carers

You will be aware of the consultation over academy status. The joint education unions sent you a communication during that consultation (see overleaf) about why they believe this is NOT the right move for Preston Manor. In a secret ballot the staff rejected the move by 86.5% - a massive vote against an academy. This was also on a large turnout of staff. Parents have also voted by a good majority against the school converting.

Due to this overwhelming opposition the NUT, by far the biggest teachers union in the school,
balloted our members on possible strike action. This is particularly after the governors decided to ignore the staff and parent ballot and continue down the academy path. NUT members have voted YES by 94.6% on a high turnout to take strike action if the Governors do not listen to staff and parents.

None of our members want to go on strike and we are hoping to negotiate with Governors to at least postpone the process. Currently the school is a co-operative trust school supposedly run on a democratic basis. There has been no opportunity to develop this with almost immediate academy conversion.

The Governors are not following the Co-op values they and you agreed to.We therefore are asking the governorsto heed the democratic vote and not convert. The school, Co-op and unions have had the opportunity to put their arguments to both staff and parents/carers. No-one can claim that the facts were not clear to those voting. People clearly voted against an academy.

We ask that you support the NUT members in their action. The first day for action is proposed for Wednesday 23rd January. We really hope that this can be averted by the Head and Governors deciding to step back from conversion on 1st February.

Please contact the parent governors (details on school website) and tell them that you support the teachers and that governors should follow the democratic wish of staff and parents

Roke Primary parents denouce government 'master plan'

The Save Roke Primary School campaign in South London, which like Gladstone Park Primary faces being forced into becoming an academy  has issued the following statement after today's news that Ofsted is to focus on schools in under-performing local authorities:

Ofsted’s move to make blanket inspections across under-performing areas is front page news today. This will catch out not only failing schools but those like our school – a popular, well-achieving primary – caught out by a temporary blip in performance. Roke primary has been forced to academy status, and alarmingly, handed to David Cameron’s personal friend, mentor and major Tory donor, Lord Harris of Harris Academies raising concerns about vested interests.  

Roke parents are campaigning against rushed Academy takeover with an overwhelming majority against being coerced into forced academy. Roke Primary school has no consistent history of low standards, just one unsatisfactory Ofsted report. Despite strength of parent feeling, there is no DofE appeal procedure allowing the parents’ case to be heard. The speed at which the school has gone from being outstanding to being cast as a ‘failing’ school- in just 7 months – resulting in Roke being snatched from local authority control has taken parents by profound surprise. Many are left with questions about whether takeover has been unfairly fast tracked by the Government. 

Roke parent Debbie Shaw comments, ‘We believe that this is a concerted government master plan to catch out not only low performing schools, but wavering schools just like ours who have a temporary blip in their results. This is clearly part of a larger government agenda.”

Roke father, Nigel Geary-Andrews said, “It is alarming that the government is rushing through forced academies on schools like Roke, where there is no proven record of failure over any length of time, without any consultation with parents at all and no way of appealing. This does not seem democratic or transparent to me”.

We would like reassurance from Mr Gove that his new targeted approach will allow schools such as ours time to show that we have turned around performance in a short space of time. As well as a voice for the parents through proper consultation - and the right to appeal.

An investigation in The Guardian 15/01/13 revealed that, ‘The government may be flouting its own education guidelines’. DofEofficial directions say poorly performing primaries should only be obliged to become sponsored academies ‘when a school has been underperforming for some time and if the problems are not being tackled’.

A shotgun Ofsted inspection was announced at Roke Primary on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after it was revealed in The Guardian that, ‘The government may be flouting its own education guidelines’. Parents are eagerly awaiting the results of the monitoring visit which they believe will show evidence of excellent improvement at the school.

There is disquiet among parents about the Government’s choice of sponsor. Roke is being handed over to the Harris Federation, run by millionaire Tory Lord and Carpetright businessman, Phillip Harris- who David Cameron has named as a personal friend who helped to prepare him for power. Lord Harris has donated in excess of £2 million pounds to the Tory party, as well as personal donations to David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson. He plays a key role in advising the government on failing schools and academy policy. 

Parent, Janine Norris expressed concern at the close relationship between the Harris Federation and Government decision-makers, ‘It concerns me and many other Roke parents that the Government has not got the good grace to seek our views or explain the decision and we can’t help but wonder whether the fact that Lord Harris has donated substantial sums to the Tory party is a significant factor’.