Never go alone to Atos assessment

Alan Wheatley and Pete Murry at today's ATOS demonstration

Guest blog by Alan Wheatley

The 'closing Atos' demonstration that Pete Murry (Brent Green Party) and I (Haringey Green Party) attended  was called by Disabled People Against the Cuts and UK Uncut, to protest at Atos Origin's sponsorship of the London Paralympics. The company is a 'top sponsor' of the London 2012 Paralympics even while what it gives to the International Paralympic Committee is but a fraction of the £112m Atos Healthcare is paid per year by the Department for Work & Pensions to assess -- and generally deny -- disabled people's eligibility for disability benefits.

About 40% of claimants denied Employment & Support Allowance take their cases to tribunal. about 40% of those win their cases to tribunal, and 40% of those win their cases. The success rate for those who go to tribunal with legal support is 70%, and cuts to legal aid will no doubt skew the tribunal results in favour of Atos. Atos and its staff who deny seriously sick and disabled people their benefit entitlements are never fined for their 'errors' when a claimant wins their tribunal, and a recent National Audit Office report stated that the cost to the taxpayer of 'clearing up the mess' at tribunal is £60m. The NAO called for the 'commercially sensitive' and thus confidential contract between the DWP and Atos to be rewritten so that Atos would be penalised for 'errors'.

I would urge anyone going for any kind of disability benefits entitlement assessment with Atos to go with someone. If you go alone, it is just your word against theirs regarding how you are treated under the examination that is really more of an observation. Moreover, I was on an anti-Atos demo outside their testing facilities adjoining Neasden Job Centre on Tuesday 28 August, with Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group. A woman with a walking stick and probably in her 50s came up to our group and told us her tale of having gone in their in her car from Hertfordshire for a 'Work Capability Assessment'. Though she had seen the adverse Panorama programme about how Atos Healthcare treats vulnerable people, it had not occurred to her that she should have someone to accompany her.

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group has increasing experience of members accompanying others to such assessments, yet no experience under such circumstances of the way the lady we met was treated when she went alone. She said, "The woman 'doctor' was so rude! She said to me while I was having difficulties getting through the door into the examination room, 'Come on! I haven't got all day! I've got another patient to see after you,' and 'Your mobility problems can't be so bad if you wear lace-up shoes.'"

But she was not the only claimant to not think of getting others' support in attending the 'Work Capability Assessment'. Two of our members recently attended a meeting for unemployed workers groups aroung London that was hosted by TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber's Secretary Tom Mellish. None of those groups had thought of accompanying people to 'Work Programme' interviews or Atos 'examinations'.

While today's demonstration might not have actually closed Atos, more and more disability benefit claimants getting support in attending Atos 'Medical Examination Centres' are more likely to get civil treatment if they go with someone.

Sign petition for student amnesty at Metropolitan University

This Coalition government is making a pig's ear of education policy with the news this week that a number of free schools that have been rushed through now not opening in September, leaving children without a school place, and the collective punishment of students for administrative problems at London Metropolitan University.

A petition has been launched on the latter issue which states:

We believe that it is completely contrary to natural justice that students should be punished for problems emanating from their University.

We therefore demand that the UK Border Agency agree to an immediate amnesty for the international students at London Metropolitan University affected by the Agency's decision to revoke the University's ‘Highly Trusted Status’. This would enable them to continue their studies while the problems at London Met were addressed.

We believe that the UKBA's decision is a disproportionate reaction to a situation that could be addressed without the recourse to such drastic action. The UKBA's decision punishes thousands of students who are entirely innocent of any alleged immigration breaches and sends a disastrous message to the rest of the world that UK higher education is not accessible to international students. Its actions threaten the immediate futures of thousands of London Metropolitan students, as well as the future of the University, and casts a huge shadow over the very valuable contribution that international students make to the culture and sustainability of UK higher education.

Sign the petition HERE

Paralympic Torch Relay at Willesden Sports Centre

Plenty turned out despite the early start. In the end it was two hours late so additional people got to see it.

Brent Labour backs Central Middlesex campaign

Following a meeting between Cllr Krupesh Hirani and Cllr Muhammed Butt last weekend  three Brent NHS campaigners last week, Cllr James Denselow, Brent Labour Party's Communications Officer, has published the following statement:

Brent Labour fighting against the closure of Central Middlesex Accident and Emergency (A&E) services

Brent Labour Party has given its full support to the campaign against the Coalitions disgraceful plans. Labour Cllrs condemned the plans in the Council Chamber and have been working with campaigners to raise awareness of the issue. Both Cllr Butt and Cllr Hirani will address the march against the closures on 15^th September.

However, the reason Brent has been unable to run a Council backed campaign against the closures is because unlike in Ealing, there is not cross party support for the campaign. Both the Lib Dems and Conservatives in Brent have refused to criticise the plans put forward by their own Government.

Cllrs from both parties should get behind the campaign so we can fight the plans as a united Borough.

List of action being taken:

1.       Motion passed but only with support from Brent Labour

2.       Letter to Secretary of State Andrew Lansley MP to come

3.       We are out on the doorstep every single weekend in Brent talking to residents on this issue

4.       Online poll has been set up http://krupesh4brent.com/2012/08/20/poll-on-central-middlesex-hospital-ae/

5.       We are meeting with campaigners

6.       Council will be responding to the consultation through scrutiny

7.       Brent Labour will be at the march

8.       Difficult case to use taxpayer resources for a campaign in cases where we do not have cross party agreement – that is why we the Brent Labour Party will be campaigning on this issue without taxpayer resources

Gove's Olympic legacy in a nutshell

Don't let Reading Recovery get squashed pleads teacher

 I hope Michael Rosen doesn't mind me pinching this from his blog LINK but it is very relevant to children, parents and teachers in Brent.  I was trained to be a Reading Recovery teacher and taught it for many years, Tt is carried out very successfully in both Brent schools where I am chair of governors and in other primary schools across the borough.

It is an intensive, structured, 1:1 daily lesson by experts and so is 'expensive' - but it works.  With the change of college heading up the scheme, the possible demise of Brent School Improvement Services that provides training and continuing support, the government's exclusive emphasis on a particular phonics teaching method, and funding cuts, Reading Recovery is under threat.

This heartfelt post by a Reading Recovery teacher was carried on Michael's blog.

I am a Reading Recovery teacher. RR is based on more than 40 years of research and analysed data. It is proven to be cost effective. It works. The government knows it works. But it is not run as a business. RR's only purpose is to help children learn to read...

When we read we bring together 3 sources of information:
Visual, which means the words and letters and punctuation and layout etc
Structure, which means what is it possible to say in this language?
Meaning, does it make sense?

Children and adults who can read are using these automatically. When children learn to read, right from the start they are bringing together the 3 sources of information, as you well know.

When children who can read make mistakes on the phonic screener it is probably because their brains are overriding the nonsense; they are trying to make meaning because that is what reading is.
Lots of the readers at my school did not do well at the phonics screener. The head teacher was shocked - it is a high achieving / outstanding school in all other aspects. She said "But I can read and I know what the non-words say?" I said, "Yes but you are not 6 years old and you were expecting it. You are maybe more used to the world trying to catch you out?"

And from now on there will be even more phonic drilling, so that next year the schools will get 'better results', and the govt will say, 'Told you so, phonics is the answer'. We (but not me!) are going to be teaching children to deliberately switch off the use of structure and meaning and just decode using visual information like a robot can do.

At the moment the children get 30 minutes phonics a day and 10 minutes, if they are lucky, a WEEK reading with their teacher. They hardly ever get read to, just for the fun of it. Teachers don't have time for this. Given many children's impoverished oral language, these days, research shows that little children should be getting 3 stories a day. This never happens. Never.

Although I would make very different use of the time, 30 minutes phonics a day does have some relevance to real reading of real words, but is now going to morph into even more time spent on learning to sound out nonsense words.

Interestingly, the contract for supervising ECaR which also looks after Reading Recovery, has been removed from the Institute of Education and given to a university (Edge Hill) that is also now going to be responsible for pushing phonics schemes at us. The phonics people have been working very hard to squash RR and it looks as if they have done it. RR is trademarked and copyrighted etc, so is not available for someone to step in and make £millions out of it...

£millions have already been made out of phonics but it would seem the train is not yet full of gravy.

My soul is destroyed.

Do subscribe to Michael Rosen's blog it is a vital and entertaining ongoing  critique of the Coalition's damaging education policies.

Alf Filer's killer jailed for drunk driving

Alf with  students defending  the Harrow Mosque from the EDL in 2009

 The man responsible for the death of Alf Filer,  local activist in Brent, member of Brent Fightback and a lecturer at Harrow College before he moved to Worthing, has been jailed for drunk driving. Alf is greatly missed and often crops up in our conversations. If he was still alive he would be in the forefront of the current battles against cuts and austerity.

Here is the item as carried by the BBC:

A drink-driver has been jailed for six years for killing a man who was standing by his broken down car in East Sussex.

Joseph Lavelle, 36, of Worthing, West Sussex was two-and-a-half times over the drink-drive limit when he hit Alf Filer, 58, on the A27 in Hangleton. 

He was jailed at Lewes Crown Court having admitted death by careless driving under the influence of alcohol.

The painter was also banned from driving for five years, police said. 

Mr Filer, also from Worthing, died at the scene on 23 June last year.

The political activist and former lecturer had only moved into the area from London in the past year.

Sgt Neil Walker, from Sussex Police, said: "This is another tragic example of the way in which drink-driving wrecks lives. This terrible incident has robbed a family and the community of a well-respected and much-loved man."

Kids needed to promote the outdoors

Using the sense of touch to get to know a tree in Fryent Country Park

Seeing the reaction of children when they visit Brent School Without Walls LINK with me in Fryent Country Park and have the chance to run through meadows, build shelters, pond dip and bug hunt, always reminds me of the importance of such experiences.  Often children seen as behaviour problems in school surprise their teachers by their engagement and on one occasion that I remember a child who was an elective mute in class chattered happily about what she was doing.

Now there's an opportunity for children themselves to find ways of encouraging more children to make use of the outdoors.

A group of advisors – made up entirely of children – is being recruited by the National Trust to provide advice on how to encourage more of the nation’s children outdoors. The idea follows the charity’s recent Natural Childhood Report of 50 things to do before the age of 11¾ campaign. It shows the Trust stepping up its game in encouraging children to explore the outdoors and to experience nature at first hand.

The National Trust is looking to sign up ten children aged between seven and twelve to the council where they are to take up an important role in developing the charity’s outdoor campaigns as well as making their properties more fun for younger children.

The perfect candidate will be brimming with enthusiasm and fun, plus having a natural love for the outdoors and fresh air. Potential applicants are also required to have an adventurous spirit and a wild imagination. A fondness for rolling down hills or jumping in muddy puddles would be considered a bonus.

 Offering children the chance to try out the National Trust and to gain inspiration on what might be improved, if appointed to the Kids’ Council, the Trust has opened up its doors to children for free during the whole month of August. Over 200 places are be free of charge to children, giving the opportunity to explore National Trust properties across the country.

Successful applicants to the council will be announced later in the year. These children will be offered free year-long access to places for themselves and their family. Canoeing, surfing and camping will be part of the winning prize to offer kids and their families access to the full range of the National Trust properties.

The Kids’ Council will meet throughout 2013 and will report its findings to the National Trust’s Visitor Experience Director so that suggestions can be put into practice, helping make the outdoors more fun for the nation’s kids.

The application process closes on 7^th September 2012. Application forms can be downloaded from the website at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kidscouncil and sent back via email or handed in at National Trust properties.

Tony Berry, Visitor Experience Director of the National Trust, comments: 

We are really committed to helping kids enjoy the great outdoors and we want to make our places the most fun and family-friendly day out destinations in the UK.  I’m really excited that our new Kids’ Council will help us do just that. Our Kids go Free promotion for the entire month of August will not only give kids and their families the chance to go out and explore, but hopefully inspire them to apply for our Kids’ Council and so let is know what we can do better in future.