Village Uprising in Roe Green

Roe Green residents have asked me to publicise their campaign on Wembley Matters:

  

Not again! Yes! Brent council has done it again. This time they have completely ignored procedures that should this have been Joe-public they would have descended on them breathing fire and brimstone.

Brent Council has granted itself planning permission to erect an ill-planned, poorly conceived structure that would shame any area within this Borough’s boundaries, let alone a conservation area.

The Council, in order to grasp a last-minute grant from the previous Government for an Intergenerational Centre, short-cut the public consultation procedure to secure this money, despite disagreements with the locals as to whether it was necessary.

The residents of Roe Green Village, one of the last few remaining examples of small First World War settlements just beyond the North Circular, are stunned by what they perceive to have been anti-democratic procedures adopted by Brent Council to put through a planning application for an insensitively proportioned and badly designed block, to be built on the edge of this small enclave of stone-white and mellow brick cottages that have survived all sorts since the First World War. 

What has come to the fore when this almost project was finally and properly revealed, was the Machiavellian way the Council went about finalising the planning permission for such a building.

 The argument rests whether Brent has the right to erect such a building without following procedures that their Planning Dept would not have correctly considered in other circumstances.

 The present Council has no deep knowledge or understanding of the area and its Senior Officers fail to properly advise them. 

Once we lose this unique and historical area, there will be no turning back, it will be gone forever.

BACKGROUND

Roe Green Village is a circa 1918 garden village styled residential conservation area, situated in the district of Kingsbury, which is part of the northern extend of the London Borough of Brent.

The Community is supported by a local association, the Roe Green Village Residents’ Association.

For  further information, please contact:

Debbie Nyman on debbienyman@talktalk.net

Liar, Liar by Captain Ska

Governors Go Ahead with Preston Manor Expansion Plans

Preston Manor High School governors have decided to go ahead with the next stage of consultation on expanding the school to include children from 4 to 11 year. This will ultimately in crease the population of the school by 420 Reception to Year places to give a total population of 1980 places. The pupil entry for Reception will be 60 and for Year 7 252. If the plans go ahead the permanent primary provision will be opened in September 2011. However 60 reception age children will start in temporary accommodation at the school in January 2011.

The statutory notice confirms that Year 6 pupils attending the primary provision would be prioritised for entry to Year 7 at the secondary school.

The plans were opposed by residents at their consultative meeting and again by residents and others at the Wembley Area Consultative forum. Opposition is likely to continue at this statutory stage.

Although the notice says that the consultation period starts from November 4th, the date of publication, the full documentation was not available on the consultation website today.

Extract from Statutory Notice

Copies of the complete proposal can be obtained from: Nitin Parshotam, Head of Assets Management, Children and Families, London Borough of Brent, 4th Floor Chesterfield House, 9 Park Lane, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 7RW.

Within six weeks from the date of publication of this proposal i.e. by 16 December 2010, any person may object to or make comments on the proposal in writing by sending them to Nitin Parshotam, Head of Assets Management, Children and Families, London Borough of Brent, 4th Floor Chesterfield House, 9 Park Lane, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 7RW. Email: Consultations.schoolorganisation@brent.gov.uk

House of Commons Burning Talks

Environmental groups opposing the Brent Cross incinerator took their fight to the House of Commons on Tuesday of last week.  Together with invited MPs, they heard leading waste experts spell out the dangers of incinerators, such as that proposed at Brent Cross, and the arguments for a “zero waste” alternative.  However, Mike Freer, local MP for Finchley and Golders Green failed to attend.

Brent Cross Cricklewood Coalition members from local Friends of the Earth (FoE) groups in Brent, Barnet and Enfield were invited to the seminar “Zero Waste – the Cost Effective and Sustainable Alternative to Incineration”.  The meeting, organised by Gloucestershire against Incinerators, part of the “UK Without Incineration Network” (UKWin), was attended by anti-incinerator groups from across the UK, as well as members of Parliament.  Keynote speaker Paul Connett, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Chemistry from St Lawrence University, New York State, had previously visited the Brent Cross site, and also recently addressed the United Nations.

Professor Connett said, ““The Brent Cross Cricklewood developers need to radically rethink their "energy from domestic waste" plans.  Putting a gasifying-incinerator, emitting unregulated and toxic nano-particles, into a built-up area, near schools and homes is madness.  Gasification is an unproven technology for domestic waste.  This has caused at least one evacuation of local homes in Germany, after which trials were stopped.

"It beggars belief that the developers continue to claim they are not planning an "incinerator".

"Instead of burning our domestic waste, we need to move towards a "zero waste system", where rubbish is considered a resource to recycle.

“Incineration and gasification detract from recycling, since they don’t work without burning good recyclable materials.  They also emit more greenhouse gases than when the organic component is treated by digestion."

Viv Stein, Brent Friends of the Earth Spokesperson, said, “Incinerators are a dead technology, sold on spin.  No new plants have been approved in the United States since 1995.  The UK is now being targeted by companies keen to make a profit here – at the expense of the public purse, local communities and the environment.

“Incinerators bind local Councils to costly and inflexible long term contracts which are bad news anytime, but madness when Councils are so strapped for cash.  Councils sometimes even have to pay penalties because they are not providing enough material to burn.

“Brent Cross Developer Jonathan Joseph and former Barnet leader, now MP, Mike Freer, strongly defended incineration at Barnet planning committee, promising  information was readily available that these plants are safe.  Yet one year on we have yet to see any independent evidence this is the case.  We challenge Mike Freer and Hammerson to tell us why.  If Freer wants to stick an incinerator amongst his constituents, he should have joined us to listen to experts’ concerns.”

Phil Fletcher, Barnet and Enfield Friends of the Earth Co-ordinator said, “Far from producing “energy from waste”, incinerators are a “waste of energy”.  Electricity from burning waste is extremely inefficient.  It is actually better for the climate to landfill plastic - and not incinerate it - if it cannot be recycled.

“There is no safe level of toxic nano-particles from the incineration processes.  They are small enough to get into our bloodstream, and can do long-term damage to our health.  The ash created from incineration still has to be sent to landfill [8].  We learnt how monitoring of these toxic particles at hazardous waste landfill sites can be flawed – it depends where detection points are actually positioned.  It was quite shocking to see these are operating as open sites - here in the UK - with clouds of dust visibly affecting the local area.”

Julian Kirby, Waste Campaigner, Friends of the Earth [9] who also addressed the meeting said, “The UK buries or burns over £650 million of recyclable materials every year.  That’s not just bad for the environment, it’s a massive waste of resources and a huge cost to our cash-strapped economy.

“Over seventy thousand new jobs would be created if the UK recycled 70% of its business and Council-collected waste.  Given the Belgian region of Flanders exceeds that already, and Wales and Scotland have both set 70% as a 2025 target, why must England be left behind?

“As the latest statistics show, we are producing less waste every year, and recycling more of it.  That is the direction we need to be heading – there is no need or place for incineration in a genuinely zero waste future.”

Other speakers at the meeting were Barbara Farmer from Sward, a Gloucestershire group opposing incinerators, and Jonathan Essex from Bioregional who promote reuse of waste, which creates jobs and puts disused land into use.

This meeting follows recent news that North London Waste Authority – including Barnet - has lost its Government agreement to borrow around £700 million for its seven-borough PFI waste plan.

Rethink Afghanistan - film and discussion

Time for school students to organise?

PRECOCIOUS

In blue lagoons I once did play,

Tossing the surf,

Catching the spray.

Living my life as each day came,

Never looking for fortune or fame.

Clever and youthful,

Strong and brave,

Carelessly riding the tidal wave -

but I was only 4.

From BLOT magazine 1976

 

 There is a connection between my last blog on SATs and the previous one on young people and the cuts.

The connection is that the generation now experiencing the cuts, whether through their school buildings not being rebuilt, losing their Education Maintenance Allowances, having Kilburn College sold off from under their feet,  seeing tuition fees increased or facing unemployment, is the generation that has experienced the full force of the target culture in schools. They have been the most tested generation of pupils ever.

Yes, there has been investment in schools but often of the wrong kind: thousands spent on the SATs regime and national curriculum materials and all serving the purpose of meeting targets..  Throughout, the mantra repeated by the government, teachers and often parents has been, "Keep your heads down, do what the teacher says, work hard and you will end up with good qualifications, a good job and enough money to have a decent quality of life".

Back in the 70s and 80s I remember when that mantra was blown apart in the face of unemployment and we are approaching that point now. Youth will be arguing "What was the point?"  I remember very well back at that time, when a child in my primary class in Fulham remarked, after I had foolishly repeated the mantra,  "My brother worked hard and got qualified and can't get a job so why should I bother?"

This is particularly true now because the Blair government, and the Tories before them, have reduced education to individuals getting the employment skills to keep the UK ahead of competitor nations. Having narrowed the purpose of education and reduced schools to qualification factories they will face resentment and rebellion, disaffection and desperation.

In the 70s school students organised in the National Union of School Students and other organisations. One of their major campaigns was against the use of corporal punishment in schools. The NUSS publicised their activities through a magazine called BLOT and for some time they got a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation. At the height of their influence they had the support of 30 or so MPs.

Now such magazines are 'last century' compared with social networking sites and their power to mobilise large numbers at short notice. I wonder how many would answer a call such as this (taken from a 1976 edition of BLOT):

You've got no rights, none at all - you've got no voice. No-one will hear you complain. You haven't got a chance to change a thing - you're too young to hear, speak or think. 

That's what a lot of people think of us. 

Well we know different - we know we think and we've got a lot to say but nowhere to say it. No-one to listen. I, me, myself will never be heard. I've got to be louder so I can shout and if we all shout together then we'll be heard.

Bew Review should end SATs and league tables

"Too many schools believe that they must drill children for tests and spend too much time on test preparation at the expense of teaching and learning."

Wow, who said that - the NUT, Green Party, NAHT?

No, the Department for Education announcing an inquiry led by cross-bencher Lord Bew.

Schools drill children to pass the tests so as to get a high position in the league table and to keep Ofsted off their backs. The only logical outcome of an inquiry would be to abolish league tables and SATs, something I have long campaigned for.

Schools are caught in a double bind, particularly in areas such as Brent where there is high pupil mobility, many children newly arrived from overseas and economic deprivation. In order to reach the nationally expected Level 4 the curriculum has to be narrowed, particularly in Year 6, to concentrate on English and Maths and additional support given in the form of 'booster classes' often after school or in holiday time. Year 6 for many children can become an arid experience. If schools don't put children through this programme their results push them down the league tables and they will lose pupils to better 'performing' schools as well as have Ofsted knocking on their door.

This is not to take away the achievement of Brent schools faced with these pressures. Krutika Pau, Brent's Director of Children and Families, this week issued a circular congratulating schools for 'their work in driving up standards' in the borough. She notes that at Key stage 2 (SATs taken by 11 year olds) scores in English and Maths are above the national average for both Level 4+ and Level 5. The question has to be asked though, is it worth the pain and the pressure on both teachers and children?

I have likened the boosting to training horses to get over jumps by a mixture of encouragement, threats and cajoling with the addition of half a dozen people placing their hands on its rump to push it over. It can get over the jump in this one off 'snap shot' but...

There is another issue that is seldom addressed. Both the 11+ examination which used to be used to select pupils for secondary modern, grammar and technical schools and the London Reading Test used to band pupils into ability ranges to ensure a balanced comprehensive intake, used different result tables for girls and boys. Boys needed a lower score than girls to get selected for grammar schools or the top band. This was to correct the perceived differences in maturation of boys and girls at this age. Girls were seen to develop intellectually, as well as physically, earlier than boys. If the results of boys and girls had been treated equally there would have been disproportionate numbers of girls allocated to grammar schools and the top reading band.

Now they are expected to achieve equally and we have an on-going crisis about 'boys' under-achievement' with all sorts of initiatives including the televised antics of a choir master experimenting with a group of boys in a competitive outdoor classroom with shades of Lord of the Flies. Not so much pushing them over the jumps with hands on rump but pulling them over by tugging on their penises!

I confess that as a headteacher I shared in the collusion whilst also protesting against it. Perhaps the comment that pulled me up most sharply was the mother of a high-achieving, creative girl who accused me of robbing her daughter of her childhood, because of the additional work and pressure in Year 6.

In answer to some of the criticisms about the crudity of pure attainment (test results) statistics, a contextual value added score has been added to the league tables. A significant measure is whether children have made the expected progress from Key Stage 1 (results for 7 year olds) and Key Stage 2. To monitor progress the National Curriculum levels are each divided into 3 sub-levels. Normal progress is to move up two sub-levels a year. Better progress than this results in a higher value added score. Apart from giving schools a whole new burden of statistical recording and analysis it can result in the paradoxical pressure on teachers of  Key Stage 1 pupils not to grade their pupils too high so that they can make greater progress measured against a lower starting point. 

In fact real learning, as most of us know from our own experience, doesn't proceed in a smooth linear progression but there are fits and starts, periods of consolidation, a few steps back before a surge forward - the model assumes a mechanical or even industrial learning process that just does not accord to real life.

Because of the drilling and boosting, secondary teachers often question children's primary school results, when they arrive in Year 7: is this child really operating at Level 4? Some secondary schools retest their children with standardised English and Maths tests, ignoring the results sent in by primary schools. Copland High School ensures a balanced intake by using a non-verbal reasoning test.

Following on from last year's SATs boycott by the NUT and NAHT, the Conservatives were suggesting during the election campaign that children should take the Key Stage 2 SATs on arrival at secondary school, rather than in the last year of primary school. It is hard to gauge what the impact of this would be: it could liberate Year 6 teachers and enable them to return to a broad, balanced and creative curriculum or instead mean that Year 6 pupils are 'boosted' right up to the end of the summer term and beyond so as to safeguard the primary school's reputation.

Anyway as Greens we should welcome the review and urge that both league tables and SATs be abandoned to be replaced by formative teacher assessment that guides future teaching and learning for each child.

Brent Cuts Briefing

Councillor Zaffar Van Kalwala contacted Brent Fightback to give his apologies for Thursday evening’s meeting, but sent the attached briefing prepared by him and Cllr Muhammed Butt, deputy leader of the Council outlining the probable effects on the people of Brent from the Comprehensive Spending Review.

BRENT: COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW (CSR)
October 2010

KEY POINTS:

• Brent Council will have 28% cut from its central government grant resulting in a total loss of £65m over the next 4 years
• Some of Brent’s low-income households face being worse off by upto £10,000 per year (based on increase in rents and loss of benefits)
• 41,000 residents will see cuts to their Housing and Council Tax benefit payments
• Freezing of the Sure-Start grant will result in a total funding cut of £1m
• 4.250 Brent 16-19 year olds will lose their Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
• Brent is in the top 20 most income deprived local authorities in the country. It also has the 4th lowest average income levels in London with 16,901 households (16%) having an average annual income of £15,000 or less.

BACKGROUND:

The Chancellor, George Osborne insists there is no alternative to his huge and unnecessary cuts, detailed on Wednesday 20th October to the House of Commons. That is simply not true. The Lib-Con Government’s reckless gamble with growth and jobs runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. Labour is committed to halving the deficit over the lifetime of this parliament but this Government is going much faster and much deeper than is necessary.

The CSR was meant to be fair with the Lib-Con Government saying ‘those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden.’ However, the £81bn worth of cuts released including significant spending reductions on welfare, housing and education will see some of Brent’s most vulnerable residents impacted on disproportionately.

The full extent of the cuts on Brent will not be properly known until early December when the Local Government Grant is finalised and a more detailed analysis of the CSR has been undertaken.

HOUSING:

• New social housing tenants face increase in rent with charges of up to 80% of market rates. The average rent for a three-bedroom social home is around £85 a week. National Housing Federation warns that this could triple to a “staggering” £250 a week, an extra £8,500 per year.

• Council houses for life could also end for new tenants, who might be handed fixed term contracts, under the proposals.
• Brent’s Council Tax benefit budget will be reduced by 10% from April 2013

• Cut of 50% to the social housing budget will severely reduce the supply of affordable housing in Brent. As mentioned, the Government wants to charge rents of up to 80% of the market rate and use the extra funds to make-up the housing shortfall. Brent has 23,000 people on the waiting list. These proposals are likely to add further stress to the borough’s housing situation.

EDUCATION:

• Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which provides young people from households with incomes of less than £30,000 an incentive to continue in education will be cut. 4,250 Brent youngsters will loose upto £1,100 per academic year.

• Funding for Sure-Start Centres will be reduced by £1m in real terms as the amount received by Brent is frozen for the next 4 years. For 2010/2011 a grant of £10m was given for the programme.

• Schools will only see a 0.1% increase in funding. However, if increased demand is factored in and taking out the previously announced Pupil premium this amounts to an actual cut to the schools budget. Brent has 185 4&5-year olds that do not have a school place for this academic year. This will rise drastically to a cumulative total of 500 by 2015. A government spending cut will only exacerbate one of the borough’s most pressing issues.

• 12% cut to the Education’s non-schools budget. This may involve cuts to areas such as Early Years, support for disabled children as well as grants for free school meals.

• Educational capital spending will be reduced by 60% putting spending on schools maintenance and development at risk.

• Adult-Learning funding to be cut by 25%. BACES (Stonebridge) will lose the ‘Train to Gain’ programme and will have to charge adults the full rate for GCSE/A-Level courses.

COUNCIL BUDGET:

• The settlement for local government is a cut of 7.1% for four years. Brent’s budget will be reduced by a total of £65m. This will see every council service area being cut by a minimum 7%. Some areas may have to make further cuts to support priority areas or to continue delivering other key services.

• Capital programme to be cut by 45% (£66m). This will mean less money for building schools, housing and adult social care.

• Majority of cuts in benefits and services will be ‘front-loaded’ and made in the first 2 years (2011/12 & 2012/13).

• Grants from the Department of Transport reduced by 28% which will see less funds available for Streetcare, pavement repairs and gritting.

• Funding for ‘Concessionary Travel’ which pays for 43,000 Brent Pensioners to have the Freedom Pass will be cut by 10%. Brent has already put in an extra £1.5m towards the scheme this year.

• Additional income for Adult Social Care will not respond to the increase in demand for the borough’s services.

• The rate of interest the council can borrow at from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) has been increased by 1% across the board. This will make raising finance for local building and development projects substantially more expensive.