Further anti-academisation strike at St Andrews and St Francis Primary tomorrow

Teachers at St Andrews and St Francis School C of E Primary in Belton Road, Willesden, in Brent will be taking strike action on Wednesday, 18th March.

Lesley Gouldbourne, Brent NUT secretary, who represents the majority of the teaching staff at the school, said,

“Staff at the school deeply regret that it has come to this. Strike action is a last resort, but the school is not a failing school. This government is increasingly forcing schools to become academies, whether the parents like it or not. What happened to parental choice? Despite our and parents objections no proper information was given to parents and no secret ballot allowed despite our offering to cover the cost. Parents and teachers have had enough of education by dictatorship.”

Hank Roberts, ATL Secretary, who also represents staff at the school said,

“Academisation is part of this Government’s plan to privatise state education just the same as it plans to privatise the NHS. The so-called consultation was a farce. Only reasons why the school should become an academy were sent to parents with no information allowed to be sent to them with arguments against becoming an academy. This despite the chair of the IEB John Galligan saying, “Everyone should hear both sides”. John Major, the previous Conservative Prime Minister, insisted on ballots for schools regarding the change of status. Why haven’t they done this under David Cameron? Because they know the vast majority of parents, when they are given the facts, are against. Parents and staff are standing firm to defend their children’s education.”

The parents have organised a petition and continue to collect signatures against the academy proposal.

The school has also been notified of a further two days of strike action next week in a campaign of escalating strike action.

Barry Gardiner MP joins parents and residents in opposing Bryron Court expansion but Cabinet gives approval anyway

The Cabinet this afternoon approved the expansion of Byron Court Primary School to five forms of entry. This would create a school with 1,050 4-11 year olds.

The expansion was overwhelmingly opposed by local residents and many of the school's parents LINK:

Informal consultation:

Formal consultation:

Opposition centred on the inappropriateness of such a large, secondary sized, school for young children; doubts about the demand in the immediate area for school places, and traffic congestion which is already a problem at the school.

Local MP Barry Gardiner MP wrote a letter to Councillor Butt on behalf of his constituents opposing the expansion. Cllr Butt refused residents permission to read out the letter stating that the Cabinet had already read it.

The expansion will now go to the Planning Committee.

The full report that went to Cabinet is HERE

Hampstead & Kilburn Hustings at the Tricycle March 24th

Hampstead & Kilburn Hustings at the Tricycle Theatre
hosted by the Tricycle and Age UK (Brent & Camden)

Tuesday 24 March 2015, 7.30pm

Parliamentary candidates for the Hampstead & Kilburn constituency debate issues and policy affecting children, young people and older people in the area and answer questions from constituents.

Questions must be submitted in advance to creativelearning@tricycle.co.uk, or in person on arrival at the event.

Chair: Geoff Martin, Editor in Chief, Ham & High

Confirmed candidates: Dr Rebecca Johnson (Green), Simon Marcus (Cons), Maajid Nawaz (Lib Dem), Tulip Siddiq (Lab)

This hustings is free to attend, and it is primarily intended for residents in Hampstead & Kilburn constituency.

Click to book FREE tickets. Tickets required to attend (one the site click on the calendar date).

Half Marathon runners impress the Kingsbury locals

The runners in Fryemt Way, Kingsbury    Photo: Philip Grant

It was a cold Spring morning but possibly ideal weather for running a half marathon.  I was in time this mormning to see the runners emerge from The Paddocks to stream off down Salmon Street  with only a few locals, including whole families, lining the route to cheer them on.  However the few did manage to make plenty of supportive noise which the runners seemed to appreciate.

One Salmon Street resident told me that she enjoyed watching the runners. "They are all ages, all shapes and sizes, all types,  just normal people," she said, waving to a young Somalian  woman in hijab and track suit  who was trotting by.

A neighbour, who was unable to drive out of Pilgrim's Way to go and see her mum for Mothers' Day because of the road closures, was patiently waiting at the roundabout, but said that despite her frustration she admired what the runners were doing.

Celebrate St Patrick's Day Monday afternoon at Preston Library Hub

Natalie Bennett: 'TTIP is a huge threat'

 John Hilary of War on Want explains TTIP at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation

As the General Election nears more people are asking about TTIP when we are leafleting although it is still shrouded in mystery for many. John Hilary of War on Want  tries to explain the issues in 10 minutes in the video above.

Speaking at the Green Party’s Spring Conference, Natalie Bennett attacked the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its supporters for promoting a corporate agenda over the rights and interests of EU citizens. 

The controversial proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and United States, which could be agreed by the end of the year, aims to gradually remove all regulatory differences between the US and the EU. The European Commission has called it “the biggest trade deal in the world”. Yet many people are not aware of the proposals and the secretive decision making process behind them has been criticised as being wholly undemocratic. 

Bennett said:

“TTIP is a huge threat to hard-fought-standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy and our privacy and risks undoing decades worth of EU progress on issues like worker’s rights.”

Bennett stated that the proposed deal threatened to “blow apart the power of our democratic decision making.” She raised the spectre of the Edward Snowden revelations to demonstrate that the US state was “profoundly untrustworthy”.

This is Natalie's full speech

It’s not surprising, really, when we hear Lib Dems trumpeting the proposed US-EU free trade deal as some kind of economic saviour. The Lib Dems are the lapdogs of corporate Europe, while the Tories are its war horses. In their support for the trade deal, the Lib Dems are reiterating the propaganda of multinational companies interested only in swallowing up new markets, consuming new societies whole. 

Let’s make no mistake, the proposed free trade deal is a huge threat to hard-fought-for standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy, workers’ rights and our privacy. One of the great contributions of the EU is to set a foundation of these standards – not good enough, not high enough – but a start. The proposed free trade deal is a supertanker of dynamite that would blow those foundations apart.

And more, it would blow apart the power of our democratic decision making. The deal provides corporations with new rights to sue the Government for legislating in the public interest – that’s definitely not acting for the common good. 

The banking lobby is so happy with the financial services proposals it has said that the text could have come straight from its own brochure – that’s acting in the interests of the 1%, not the common good.

And there’s more. It’s a deal being proposed with a state that the bravery of Edward Snowden demonstrated is profoundly untrustworthy. Yet there’s no openness – no democracy – about the negotiations: the mandate that the EU Council gave to the Commission is still classified as ‘secret’.

A Global Day of Action Against TTIP is being planned for April 18th. LINK

Rebecca Johnson's policies for Hampstead and Kilburn in 3 minutes flat!

Rebecca Johnson - Green Candidate for H&K - An introduction. from GreenRebJohnson on Vimeo.

Half Marathon road closures on Sunday in Wembley and Kingsbury

These are the road closures in Wembley and Kingsbury on Sunday March 15th  for the half-marathon