Another Brent free school will now not open in September

Another free school due to open to Year 7 pupils in Brent will now not open in September. Gateway Academy, which promised a very different educational philosophy to that of  Michaela Academy, was to due to take about 100 Year 7 pupils. The DfE has not been able to secure a site for the school.

Parents of these children, if they have not already protectively accepted a place at another Brent school, will need to apply to the Secondary School Admissions Department of Brent Council. Sara Williams, Acting Director of  Children and Families, has said that there are enough vacancies in other Brent secondary schools for the unplaced pupils. These are likely to be at Copland Community School, due to academise is September, the Crest Academies and perhaps Capital City Academy.  Other Brent secondary schools have been oversubscribed LINK

This is the lettter Johnny Kyriacou, Principal Designate of Gateway, send to parents earlier today:

Dear Parents/Guardians

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we have to announce that the opening of Gateway Academy has been deferred and will now open in September 2015. The Department for Education took the decision because they were not able to secure us a building in time for September 2014.

We have been assured that the department will continue to search for a suitable site and remain committed to the opening of the academy in 2015, however this will be of little consolation for those Parents who have applied, seeing as your children are starting secondary school this year.

I am truly sorry we were not able to make it happen for this year but it was matters outside our control, namely in finding a site, which the Department for Education sets out to do for all free schools.

Your support for Gateway Academy has been overwhelming and humbling. We know the local community in Brent are very passionate and care very much about their children and their education.

You will need to make your choice of schools available through the local authority and their admissions team. We advised you to keep your place with the LA and that applications to us were in addition to the LA.

If there is any way that we can support then please do not hesitate to contact us. If you would like to come and meet me to express any further thoughts then please contact me at info@gatewayacademy.org.uk

Once again we are very sorry we will not be able to serve our local community this year and we wish you all the best.

Yours Faithfully

Johnny Kyriacou

Principal Designate

Gladstone Free School pupils advised to find places elsewhere for September

The Brent and Kilburn Times LINK is reporting that Paul Phillips, Principal designate,  is advising parents whose children were due to attend Gladstone Free School in September 2014 to find a place elsewhere. The school has not yet secured a site or a building. 120 Year 6 children currently in primary school are affected. Sara Williams, Director of Children and Families assured the BKT that places were available elsewhere. These are likely to be at Copland or Crest Academy. Brent Council has not control over free schools or their site arrangements but they do have overall responsibility for the well-being of Brent's children.

I raised the issue of Year 7 places in proposed free schools in my letter to the Brent and Kilburn Times on September 10th. There is no further news about a building for Gateway Academy which was also due to open to 100 or so Year 7 pupils in September.

We want OUR library back!

From the Friends of Preston Library
 

Elections to Brent Council are less than a month away. We are holding a public meeting at 7.30 on Wednesday May 7 in St Erconwald's Church Hall, Carlton Avenue East HA9 8NB (flyer attached).  We have invited all the local candidates. In three of the four wards served by Preston Library, seats changed hands at the last election. They need your votes, and this is your chance to tell them what you think.

It's over two years since Brent closed six of the borough's libraries, and much of what we said would happen has happened. Brent's libraries are now, on almost every measure in the official statistics, amongst the poorest performers in London. We know that many people in the Preston area have been deprived of their library service - only yesterday someone who lives a few hundred yards from Preston Library was telling me that her daughter now struggles to find study space in the new Civic Centre Library.

The Preston Library building is still in public hands, and will be vactated by Preston Park School next year. Please come to St Erconwald's next week, and tell the politicians that we want our library back!

Will breathing be allowed in Birbalsingh's primary school?

The editor cut my reference to"almost 'no breathing'  allowed"  in the letter published on April 10th  in the Kilburn Times (see below) about Katharine Birbalsingh's Michaela Free School. Maybe she was not familiar with Michael Rosen's wonderful poem.

I was trying to make a point about Birbalsingh's strictures on 'installing (sic) impeccable behaviour', children sitting in rows, traditional education and her rejection of any idea that teachers facilitated learning. She has a model of 'private education' which is very old fashioned and out of touch with the real private schools that I come across.

The comments were about her secondary school, which is yet to open, but this week she was on the front page of the Kilburn Times trying to gather support for her bid to open a primary school to feed into Michaela and again, getting the word right this time, of her determination to 'instil impeccable behaviour in pupils while offering a non nonsense approach to learning which will deliver a private standard of education'.

Birbalsingh was quoted as saying, 'We need to show the Department for Education that our primary school will be as popular as our secondary school'. In fact Michaela has been struggling to fill its Year 7 and resorted to advertising in local chicken shops. Its public meetings for potential parents were very poorly attended. As reported here some parents allocated the school by the Council have turned down the offer. Nationally 70% of free school have unfilled places after being open for two years.

As a former primary teacher I shiver at the thought of her 'strict' educational philosophy being imposed on primary aged children.

Birbalsingh says she is seeking parents 'with a professional background' to get involved in her bid. I hope that before doing so they thoroughly research Katharine Birbalsingh's controversial professional background. This includes losing her deputy headteacher job when she used photographs of children at her then school to castigate the comprehensive school system at a Tory Party fringe meetiing and her free school bid being opposed by two other London boroughs.

In the Wembley Ploan space has been earmarked for a new primary school  close to Arena House and North End Road in the Wembley Regeneration area on land which is currently occupied by small industrial and commercial units. Originally this would have been a local authority primary school funded by Section 106 funds as a result of Quintain's redevelopment of the area and the new housing planned.

Meanwhile plans have been approved for a new four form entry primary unit in the grounds of Wembley High School, a new primary unit has opened at Preston Manor High School and additional classes provided  at Preston Park Primary and Park Lane Primary. Ark Academy across the road from Arena House includes a primary department.

Cameron abandons Tories to stand for UKIP in election

Barry Cameron, the recently announced UKIP candidate for Queensbury ward is a former Tory and member of the Tory's Barnhill Action Team.

His choice of ward is interesting because several Brent Conservatives are unhappy with the current Conservative Action Team in Queensbury who have been actively trying to build up support in the local elections by actvely backing Narendra Modi in the current Indian election.

Details HERE

Housing inequality bus tour in Brent today

Every Brent voter will have a chance to vote Green on May 22nd

The full list of candidates for the May 22nd local elections has now been published. There is a Green candidate standing in every ward in Brent with two in Willesden Green.

Brent Green Party firmly believe that every voter should be given the chance to vote Green.  This is particularly important now that the public are disenchanted with the three main parties and when there is, in reality, little difference in their policies.

The full list of candidates for each Brent ward is available HERE

What's the WHIF over West Hampstead?

As free schools become an issue in Brent, Anne Clarke writes a Guest Blog on the West Hampstead International School on our borders

Campaigners for the West Hampstead International Free School (WHIFS), an all-through (ages 4-19) free school hoping to open in 2015 or 2016, say that West Hampstead is a black hole when it comes to secondary school provision and the available local schools are not good enough. According to Dr. Clare Craig, the group's lead petitioner:

There are no good schools just over the borough borders and children end up travelling a long way to attend Barnet grammar schools or church schools elsewhere. 

In fact, NW6 is home to St. Augustine's Cof E School which OFSTED deems to be "outstanding" and Queen's Park Community School which is a solidly "good" school. The local comprehensive, Hampstead School, in Camden and just outside the NW6 postcode is "good with some outstanding features" according to OFSTED and is now in the top 2% of the country for A-level results.

Dr. Craig repeatedly claims that there simply are not enough secondary places for an incoming population boom. She has all sorts of graphs and charts with data modelled herself based on GP birth records in Camden, Brent and the NW6 post code. Predicting student numbers is very difficult and the GLA and Camden spend a lot of time and money hiring people to do this work on their behalf.

Camden insist there will be sufficient secondary places until 2022/2023, their numbers can be found HERE. 

Schools are funded on a per head basis so undersubscribed schools suffer from funding shortfalls. To build schools 8 years before they are needed would be catastrophic for all local schools, including new ones.

 

The addition of the primary offer from WHIFS came after Camden identified Liddell Road as the site where they plan to expand Kingsgate School. Camden does face a current shortfall of primary places and they need to add more places urgently. Regulation from the current government means Camden cannot simply open a new community school but are restricted to free schools or academies. However, they can expand an "outstanding" school such as Kingsgate. Camden's plans to expand Kingsgate School on Liddell Road will provide an additional 420 primary places.

Camden's own plan is not without controversy as in order to pay for the new school, they will need to raise the money themselves as central government will not fund a community school expansion. They plan to build flats and the additional Kingsgate School building on Liddell Road which is currently an industrial estate. This will mean the loss of 250 jobs according to the Save Liddell Road campaign. 

If the free school builds on Liddell Road, they will also lose the same businesses and jobs because of the larger school buildings they would require. The total area of the Liddell Road site is just over 3 acres, by contrast, Hampstead School sits on just over 4. To put this in local perspective, WHIFS would like to squeeze the student population of Emmanuel and Hampstead schools onto a site only 3 times that of Beckford School. The facilities needed for both a primary and secondary are extensive. WHIFS has said they expect theirs will be a tall building in order to accommodate their needs.

It is hard to imagine that the WHIFS campaign is just about numbers as it would be Camden's legal obligation to address any shortfall of places. Dr. Craig is quoted in the Ham and High on 5/9/13 that Hampstead School is simply too big. "One of the problems people have with Hampstead School is that it is a massive school. It has 210 children in each year group.That is not much bigger than your average Camden school but a lot of people want a smaller, community school for their children. Part of going to school is being part of a community, but if your community is 1,500 people, it’s hard to feel like you belong.”

It is interesting that the school Dr. Craig now proposes is a two form primary (60 per year)  with a 6 form secondary (180 per year) plus a sixth form. WHIFS would be the largest school in Camden and her secondary would only be one form short of Hampstead School. Dr. Craig has her numbers wrong again, the actual number of pupils in Hampstead School is 1,280, WHIFS would total 1,570.

As Brent residents have seen, all 3 of the free secondary schools due to open in September 2014 are still advertising for applicants. Only one has a confirmed site which is not looking in good shape. In an unusual twist, the College of North West London building on Priory Park Road, Kilburn will host Marylebone Boys School for two years whilst they build their permanent site on their secret Marylebone location. 

Currently Camden has 170 unfilled Year 7 places and neighbouring Brent and Barnet have around 200 each. The addition of 3 new free schools in Brent and an academy in Barnet opening this September, on top of the free school added in Barnet in September 2013, add a total of over 700 additional secondary places per year group from September 2014.

The DfE final sign off on free schools is unpredictable. Many free schools have failed to open after being given initial funding to proceed, including the Institute of Education bid south of the Euston Road in Camden. Jeopardising the expansion of an outstanding primary school in order to make way for an all-through free school will deepen the primary place crisis.

Ultimately, the quality of education WHIFS would provide is unknown. What we do know is that Camden has an excellent record of running schools, with 95% rated as "good" or "outstanding" by OFSTED. The one school requiring improvement is nowhere near West Hampstead and Camden is working very hard to improve that school.

By contrast, one of WHIFS partner schools is an academy in Hertfordshire requiring improvement.