Author Archives: spuddybike

Childeric school under threat of academisation

Governors at Childeric Primary School, New Cross are exploring becoming an Academy as part of a Multi Academy Trust with three schools in Southwark. With no evidence to suggest academies improve educational attainment, plenty of horror stories of financial impropriety and worse conditions for staff, why would Childeric governors want to go ahead? Why would parents and the local community want to lose their say in how Childeric is run? Why would John Donne in Southwark want to take over a Lewisham primary? What’s in it for them?

Come and hear the case against academies. Once a school goes, there’s no going back so come and hear.

Tuesday 30 January 2018

7:00 PM – 8:30 PM GMT

New Cross Learning 283-285 New Cross Road SE14 6AS

Speakers include: Vicky Foxcroft MP and speakers from education unions and the local community

Please register through Eventbrite at : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/childeric-the-case-against-academisation-tickets-42097597046

 

 

Write to your councillor

Opposition is growing. The Lewisham Deptford Labour Party passed a resolution in opposition to academisation and free schools. But at the end of the day, the decision will be made by the councillors. So writing to them is very important.

The list of councillors is available on on website at https://stopacademiesinlewisham.org/who-to-write-to/

Below is a suggested wording, feel free to edit, copy or make your own points!


Dear Councillor ____________,

I am writing to you as a parent of children who go to ____________ school in your ward because I am very concerned about the proposals in the Education Commission’s report to the Mayor and cabinet. As you are probably aware the report encourages schools to consider becoming part of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs).

If a school becomes an academy all democratic control is lost. Academies do not have to have parent governors or indeed any governors except those they choose to appoint and they are not controllable by the council. They are answerable only to themselves and Ofsted. I want to have a say in our school, I want to be able to contact you about our school and for you to be able to have influence over what happens at the school.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Education found, there is no evidence that academies raise educational outcomes and indeed Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted recently criticised the value for money that seven of the top MATs provide.

When schools become academies, our public property is transferred to a private organisation, they pay nothing for it. It is not only a privatisation but a privatisation with no financial gain for the public.

Finally, no matter how seemingly benign the academy or MAT, once a school is an academy it can change control quickly and easily to another academy, less friendly and less benign. Once a school is removed from LEA control it is impossible to return it.

Every school we lose to being an academy makes it harder to sustain the LEA and puts more pressure on other schools to consider academisation.

Given all of the above I would ask you to do everything in your power to oppose the Commission’s report and further academisation in Lewisham.

Thank you for your consideration of these points.

Yours sincerely,

Public Meeting – No more Academies in Lewisham

june_meeting

Lewisham Council is discussing the prospect of council supported Multi-Academy Trusts and Free Schools.

We are determined that this will not be the future for our children’s education or for our schools autonomy. We want locally accountable, creative & fully inclusive schools with qualified teachers for ALL our children.

We do not want our schools run by MATs – even if the MAT is encouraged or chosen by some local Councillors.

We see risks in this proposal that include schools becoming academies without a democratic decision by all parents and staff involved with each school and a tacit acceptance of the ideological narrative by government, that wholesale privatisation of education is neither desirable or acceptable.

The NUT will be taking strike action on 5th July over changes to their pay and conditions, we believe this will have a serious effect on recruitment and retention of high quality teachers, be they in local authority or academy schools.

The leaflet is available to download, please share

 

Get writing – defend our schools!

The Council is currently proposing to embrace academies and support the setting up of free schools across Lewisham (available on the Lewisham Council website).

We are determined that this will not be the future for our children’s education or for our schools autonomy. We want locally accountable, creative & fully inclusive schools with qualified teachers for ALL our children.

We do not want our schools run by MATs – even if the MAT is encouraged or chosen by some local Councillors. We see risks in this proposal that include schools becoming academies without a democratic decision by all parents and staff involved with each school and a tacit acceptance of the ideological narrative by government, that wholesale privatisation of education is neither desirable or acceptable. Our response to the proposals is on our website.

The Council Education Select committee met on Wednesday 8th June to discuss the Lewisham Education Commission Report, after only 90 minutes of ‘scrutiny’ it will now go to the Mayor and then full council on 20 July, so there is not much time

There are a number of steps you can take to ensure YOUR voice is heard.
Join us to protect & defend our schools, our teachers and our children’s education.
  • Write to your local Councillor or to the leader of the Council to protest. The list is available on our website).  A number of Councils elsewhere in the country have already expressed their total opposition to any plans for forced academisation; there is no reason why Lewisham Council cannot do the same.
  • Raise awareness of this issue with other parents/carers at your child’s school .
  • If you’re a teacher, talk to your colleagues. The NUT have made their opposition to academisation plans clear and are currently balloting members for strike action.      
  • Ask your Governing Body to make it clear they will not join a trust before proper consultation of and with the wholesale agreement of parents and staff.

Martin Powell-Davies has provided an excellent top ten reasons why academies should be opposed

Response to Lewisham Education Commission Report

The Lewisham Education Commission have deliberated and concluded that the council should encourage schools to become academies, shore up the rising demand for scholl places by trying to set up free schools and set up a Lewisham Secondary challenge to co-ordinate good practice.

As we have already noted, the composition of the Commissioners meant that there was hardly going to be any other conclusion. Made up as it is, of advocates for (transparent) academisation and school leadership as the mechanism for school improvement.

Education in Lewisham

For some years there has seemed to be a cloud of despair hanging over councillors involved in overseeing education. No good answers have been provided by the officers for the comparatively poor results in the borough. the council rode the wave of investment in school infrastructure in the Blair / Brown years, schools were pushed together in soft federations then hard federations and most recently we have had the heavy handed intervention at Sedgehill and dabbling with academies, firstly at Haberdashers with very unsatisfactory outcomes and then yes/no/ok debacle over the Prendergast schools.

Primary and Secondary Discrepancies

Many councillors saw the main purpose of the Commission was to attempt to resolve the conundrum of the steady rise in primary performance coupled with the relative decline in secondary performance, and the prospect of trying to cope with a rapidly expanding requirement for pupil provision over the next few years whilst having no power to open new, maintained schools.

Lewisham is the 48 / 326 most deprived local authorities in the UK, but that masks a deeper contradiction.  Lewisham has on average, higher levels of employment than both London and the wider UK, but in positions that are on the average less well paid. A higher percentage of the workforce are employed in managerial and professional job, but conversely a higher number are working in low paid caring, leisure and customer services jobs. The proportion of 18 to 24 year-olds claiming Jobseekers Allowance is the highest of any Inner London borough, and is double the UK average, which is likely a reflection of the poorer grades obtained, certainly of those young people educated in Lewisham.

One of the key weaknesses of the Commission Report is its limited focus and refusal to grapple with these wider, underlying economic, social and demographic factors. On page 5, the report acknowledges concerns about the impact of poverty and deprivation in the borough on results, but then (on the back of a comparison of FSM data) dismisses these concerns in one sentence, without any attempt to consider the complexities of other related factors that might be worthy of investigation e.g. cultural and social issues unique to Lewisham, housing issues, the impact of grammar schools in neighbouring borough of Kent etc :

So, although the challenges of poverty are great in Lewisham, they are no harder than for most other Inner London boroughs. Poverty therefore cannot be offered as a reason for Lewisham’s poor average performance in the secondary sector.”

Not surprisingly for a Commission made up entirely of education experts and chaired by an ex-head of OFSTED, it falls into the trap of swiftly focusing on the performance of schools as indicated solely by government-prescribed data as the sole measure of successful schools. Once in that trap, the Commission makes a series of uninformed assumptions that lead it to it’s bizarre conclusion that more of the same school-led, management-focused collaboration, in an increasingly fragmented and competitive education system, will somehow miraculously result in a positive change in outcomes in Lewisham.

There is no mention in the report of the other key issue for all schools in the country: the worsening crisis in teacher recruitment and retention (nor the changes to teacher training proposed by the recent White Paper). Does this mean that the Commission do not regard classroom teachers as pivotal to good outcomes and performance measures in Lewisham schools? We would beg to differ.

Other notable omissions in the report include:

 

  • the failure to consider and explore the opinions, mindset and attitudes of the secondary pupils who are not managing to come out of the school system with the results the government expects. Why is that? How can these pupils be engaged in a way to help their experience at school and maybe impact on their measured results? It seems that this would be a good place to start in a community with such strong values and sense of community (as noted by the report).
  • no comment or analysis of the context of the Department for Education’s proposed changes to the whole system of education in England, and the widespread oppositions to those changes that forced a retreat from the original Educational Excellence Everywhere White Paper.
  • no consideration of how the narrowing of the curriculum might be affecting secondary school results in Lewisham
  • no consideration of the volatile political situation within which these far-reaching changes are being proposed.
  • no consideration of the various reports and research that have recently been published highlighting the flaws in the MAT system including increased fragmentation, erosion of teachers terms and conditions, increased risk of funds being spent on consultants etc rather than in the classroom, the standardisation of education with reduced local involvement and accountability, the failure of MATs to support disadvantaged children and SEND children as well as LA maintained schools and the essentially competitive nature of the whole system.

 

The bottom line is that children are coming out of primary school with on average better results than elsewhere in Inner London and the UK (the main exception to this is those with special education needs), but after 5 years of secondary education the results are (relatively speaking) reversed.

The report fails to explore the reasons for this and leaps straight to the conclusion that more of the same will somehow make a difference in the future.

This is a conundrum that the Commission fails to consider in a broad and inspired way. The situation is not analysed beyond providing tabulations of comparison to other boroughs, the only new departure is an ‘analysis’ of Ofsted reports, which just looks at the final scoring, rather than trying to identify any underlying or common issues. The only attempt to look at things differently seems to be the proposal to bid for a research project with the Education Endowment Foundation to try to get under the skin of what is happening.

After hundreds of millions of pounds have been sunk into rebuilding and refurbishing BOTH primary and secondary schools in Lewisham (a large proportion of which is now PFI debt which will remain with the borough if schools convert to MAT status), Measured secondary school outcomes have shown a decline, rather than improvement. In relation to this is a question (unaddressed in the Report), of whether paying off the debt has been a serious drain on resourcing front line teaching. The Commission does not contemplate the impact of this diversion of resources from front-line teaching and learning support on the educational outcomes of such schools.

The much vaunted London effect, primarily driven by the London challenge which has injected money to foster collaboration and support amongst schools has barely touched Lewisham. The Report’s conclusion to reverse this situation is to call for a Lewisham’s results. Secondary challenge to provide better leadership through a school-led model of improvement and better continuing education for teachers in Lewisham through teaching schools alliances. These are helpful conclusions but one wonders why if this has been successfully deployed across London why is Lewisham so ‘late to the game’? Will more of the same really make a difference here, particularly now under the current government?

Teachers as agents of change

One statistic which is mentioned, then passed by, is that “of Lewisham’s cohort of disadvantaged pupils, 51 per cent attend a school or college sixth form compared with 36 per cent nationally”.This would seem to suggest that students from less advantaged backgrounds are being encouraged and inspired to continue education. Had the Commission broadened it’s viewpoint, it might haveperhaps seen this as an indication that the ethos of Lewisham schools and the role played by the teachers is apparently underplayed in the Report.

In fact the Report has little if anything to say about the role of teachers in any of this. Evidence to the Parliamentary Education Select Committee that genuine collaboration with the involvement of teachers improves outcome, seems to have eluded their ‘desk research’. The Commission also fails to acknowledge that OFSTED have criticised MAT chains and the Education Select Committee is currently conducting an investigation into them.

There are some very Lewisham specific issues highlighted by not properly explored in the report, for instance, the proportion of pupils in special schools assessed as having Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is 50% higher than Inner London and more than twice that of England, a fact that clearly merits broader consideration than the proposed investigation into how diagnoses are given.

.Academisation

The lack of evidence for academisation has been well documented, by SAIL in our response to the Prendergast proposals, and over the last year, a week rarely passes in the mainstream media, without a damning document being written about how it is local authority schools which are improving and academies which are failing.

In particular, academies have been shown to serve disadvantaged children and those with SEND needs less favourably than maintained schools.

The pressure on schools to game admissions and massage results is huge in this competitive system and is only worse in MATs who have been accused of selection by stealth in many areas across the country. For the Commission to think that a power-less Local Authority can somehow get inherently competitive, market-driven MATs to collaborate with other schools for the good of all, seems terribly naïve.

The academies system is based on a centralised, market-view of education (with all the competitiveness and risk that includes) and this is at odds with the collaborative, comprehensive, local vision for Lewisham schools which the Report puts forward. Community and local authority experiences of MAT chains is at odds with the values of public service, collaboration and integration of the Lewisham communities that the Report describes.

The Commission failed to consider any downsides of MATs and academies, a rather huge omission given that it recommends that schools embrace MAT status.

The headline from the Report, and the one that will have the most profound and long term effect on young people, teachers and other staff in Lewisham schools is the recommendation to embrace academisation and free schools:

“A number of heads and governors are actively planning to establish MATs. We think the council should support these ‘home-grown MATs’ and use them as potential academy sponsors for schools in difficulties and even as promoters of free schools, which is the only way new schools can now be opened.”

Such a conclusion, is not surprise. But, it is somewhat ironic that when the government’s White Paper proposals have taken such a battering, and are widely disbelieved even byConservative Local Authorities , that the Labour Council are considering endorsing the view that they should just roll with the changes albeit a ‘home-grown solution’. The Commission does not seem to realise that ‘home grown’ MATs are vulnerable to take over (particularly if they underperform or coast) and are most likely to be subsumed into large, remote chains driven by economies of scale if they cannot continue to compete as their funding declines.

Even more foolish and short-sighted to take such a stance, in a volatile political climate where the Labour Party leadership is firmly in opposition to academies and free schools, and other Labour councils such as Birmingham and Islington have clearly stated their opposition.

The Commission Report tries to make the case that these won’t be Multi-Academy Trusts (MATS) like other MATS, they will be local MATS, home grown and free from the problems that exist elsewhere. The reality is though that academies are a model of education that is at its heart undemocratic and regressive.

The Report carefully does not begin to address the organisational and financial issues that such a plan would entail, particularly when one considers that Lewisham schools have upwards of £300 million of debts incurred as part of Building For Schools, which would need to be disentangled, with the debt remaining with Lewisham, if they were to be transferred to MATs.

It seems that the Report is also unaware of the land transfer issues related to conversion to MATs. This poses a risk to valuable green spaces in the borough, which would be liable to re-development against the best interests of the community, following the transfer of this public land to private hands which happens as part of the academisation process.

Teaching School Alliances

The proposal to go all in on Teaching School Alliances is fraught with danger. Policies such as Teach First which underpin what is in effect PGCE-lite in schools, have failed to stem the crisis in teacher recruitment, resulted in a high turnover of (in)experienced teachers and consequently served young people in schools poorly in both primary and secondary sectors. The Commission fails to consider the national crisis in classroom teacher recruitment and retention, let alone local staff turnover figures, let alone to acknowledge the crucial role that professional teachers and staff play in educational success stories.

School Led Improvement

The report highlights that a tipping point in education has been reached in a school-led model of improvement. The reality is that in Lewisham, as far as GCSE results are concerned, is that this has not happened. Resources being put into developing better networks and mechanisms to release human capital to improve in Lewisham are to be welcomed, though we would have serious concerns about the current top-down ‘managerialist’ model of leadership being advocated., In practice, this has resulted in increased pressure on teaching and other staff to breaking point is not a route that should be encouraged nor advocated.

The Report is silent on how teachers (in particular) can be part of a democratic discussion and be part of a plan to radically address this perceived crisis in education in Lewisham. This is a fundamental flaw, as without good teachers who can inspire and encourage, there will be no improvement in results for the children and young people of Lewisham.

Absent too, are the voices of both parents and the local community. The Report is quite dismissive of the parents who did manage to find out about and contribute to their public sessions, and suggests (without evidence) that their voices of dissent are in the minority.

Conclusion

The campaigns against academisation at both Sedgehill and Prendergast have shown that there is widespread opposition to going down this route in Lewisham. For the Council to proceed with such an narrowly-thought-through proposal would be a betrayal of the electorate and the children and families of Lewisham who rely on public services to build a better future for themselves.

We urge the councillors who oppose these proposals or have doubts to work with the SAIL campaign, Lewisham NUT and other education unions and the local community to help build a local campaign to find a more broad-thinking, positive alternative to the Commission’s proposals which the local community can supportThe residents of Lewisham have elected a Labour Council and would like to see them oppose the government’s ill-conceived, undemocratic White Paper, defend our schools, support education workers and fight for fully public, well-funded, democratic and comprehensive education.

Academies – the low down

The review of the academy program, Academies: autonomy, accountability, quality and evidence published by the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and authored by Warwick Mansell sums ups in a concise and readable way the failings and (un)intended consequence of what aims to be the biggest change in schooling provision in England since the Second World War. 

The evidence is damning and whilst a government can attempt to push this through, it’s long term effect is such that it is now incumbent on decision makers at local level to resist in every way they can. 

The full report and a very readable summary is available on the CPRT website

Lobby Lewisham Council

NO MORE ACADEMIES IN LEWISHAM

  • Date: Wednesday 8th June
  • Time: 6:30pm
  • Venue: Catford Town Hall

The Lewisham Education Commission Report, due on June 1st is likely to be proposing, council supported Multi-Academy Trusts and Free Schools.

The shambolic handling of Sedgehill does not bode well for either students, teachers or staff at other Lewisham schools. Prendergast schools, defeated in their attempts to academise this time last year are clearly lining up to take advantage of new legislation.

But, there is no appetite for academies in the borough, teachers, students and other staff are determinedly against. Alongside this are the massive PFI costs any incoming academy would have to bear.

At a time when the Tories are on the back foot and when the national Labour Party are firmly opposed to academies this is not the time to roll over without a fight.

Support the Lobby of the Children and Young People Select Committee

Download the Leaflet for Lobby of Council

The Lewisham Education Commission Membership

A little digging into the composition of the Education Commission ….

Christine Gilbert is chair of the Lewisham Education Commission formerly led The Academies Commission, whose main output was the report, ‘Unleashing Greatness: Getting the best from an academised system’.

Robert Hill, is an educational consultant, on his blog he writes extensively on Academies, he has recently finalised a series of blogs to which “The intention is to build up a comprehensive guide on leading and running academy chains“.

David Woods is a visiting professor at Warwick University and chair of the London Leadership Strategy. Formerly, David was a senior education adviser at the Department for Education and chief adviser for London Schools and the London Challenge.

Michael Pain is Director of Forum Education. His most recent blog summing up the May 2016 ‘U-Turn’ was “it is Multi Academy Trusts – as well as a handful of innovative Teaching School Alliances (many of which are aligned with MATs) – that are best placed to provide the school-led improvement envisaged in the white paper.

Why recinding all the Academy Orders mattered

As we have posted on Facebook and Twitter, the Academy Orders for ALL three schools have been rescinded.

A victory is important, but a proper victory is not only satisfying but it also sends an unequivocal message that at every turn both the Federation and the Secretary of State have to account for their every action and every word.

The attempt to change the law, partly in response to the legal challenges made to the Federation’s Academy Order process are designed to remove the last vestiges of democratic accountability for education.

This time last year, many of us had no idea about the way the schools our children are educated in are managed and governed, certainly in Lewisham that is no longer the case, We now understand that the Governors have enormous power. But we also now understand that a community campaign where students, parents, and staff at the school are united can win, and will not just walk away and let the education system be decoupled from the needs of our community.

If the law is changed as envisaged it will make it easier to create an Academy, but the Governors can be in no doubt that, it is not something that the local community want, it is (as the evidence is now showing) a high risk strategy for improving pupils outcomes, and they DO NOT have to do this.

When the Governors meet in the autumn, they should be under no illusions that if they thought 2013/14 was bruising, then 2014/15 will be even more so.

Have a great summer

The Legal Challenge explained

For the record, our legal team explain how the challenge was mounted resulting in the rescinding of all three Academy Orders. There will be a further post on why it was important to follow through to the end.

The challenge

In May 2015 a formal letter of claim was written under the judicial review pre-action protocol threatening Judicial Review proceedings against the Federation and the Secretary of State for Education. The potential claimant was a parent of a child at Prendergast School. The basis of the challenge was that the 3 academy orders for Prendergast School, Prendergast Vale and Prendergast Ladywell Fields had been made unlawfully by the Secretary of State, as the Governing Board of the Federation had acted in breach of the regulations which govern the procedure Federations must follow when applying for an academy order. The regulations set out which classes of governor must apply for an academy order. One of the classes of governor stipulated under the regulations is the staff governor. The staff governor did not vote in favour and so there appeared to be a clear breach of the regulations.

Halting the Academisation Process

The result of this was that on 22 May 2015 the Federation and the Secretary of State accepted that because the staff governor did not vote in favour of applying or the academy order, the order for Prendergast School had been made unlawfully and, so, was rescinded.

However, the Secretary of State and the Federation argued that it was only the order for Prendergast School which had been made unlawfully, as governors, despite being on the Governing Board of a Federation were actually school specific under the regulations. As the staff governor was employed at Prendergast School it was only the order for Prendergast School which had been obtained unlawfully.

Despite the Claimant’s solicitors having some doubts as to whether the Secretary of State was correct in her interpretation of the regulations, the point of the challenge was to halt the Academisation of the three schools and not to argue the point as her interpretation as it still allowed us to come back at some later time that the other 2 orders had also been made unlawfully.

Challenging the Orders for Vale & Ladywell Fields

The wording of the Regulations meant there were three classes of governor required to vote in favour this included staff, parent and head teachers.

In the case of Prendergast (Ladywell Fields) the parent governor did not attend the meeting when the decision was taken to apply for an order, despite being in office.

Further, our assumption had been that when the regulations referred to “head teacher” we had assumed that meant head teacher of the Federation. However, if the Secretary of State was right and governors had to be school specific, then head teacher must mean the head teacher of each individual school. Although the head teachers attend Governing Board meetings they are not members and so do not vote. Therefore the order for Prendergast Vale had also been made unlawfully, as the head teacher did not vote for it.

This argument also applied to the other 2 schools but there were other classes of governor who did not vote in favour so we did not have to rely on the head teacher point..

There then was extensive correspondence between instructing solicitors and Secretary of State.

The original Claimant had was a parent of a Prendergast (Hilly Fields) student so there was a strong argument that he did not have “locus” in respect of the other 2 schools – in other words he had no direct interest in them and so had no right to bring proceedings against the granting of the orders in respect of Vale and Ladywell Fields. Another Claimant was identified (with hours to spare) who was the parent of a child at Vale.

In the end after numerous letters another formal letter of claim was written on 16 July, threatening legal proceedings in 14 days unless the other 2 orders were rescinded. On 28 July we were written to by Secretary of State, who informed us that the Chair of Governors had written to the Secretary of State requesting that the other 2 orders be rescinded and the Secretary of State agreed to that request.