Schools shut as teachers walk out

By Emma Streatfield 

STRIKING Swindon teachers have refused to rule out further industrial action following their one day action yesterday.

NUT members ballot for strike action

Swindon Advertiser
By Avantika Bhargava

A THOUSAND teachers could walk out of the town’s schools if a proposed strike gets the go ahead.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) will ballot members to strike against the continued cutting of teachers’ living standards.

And teachers in Swindon are getting the worst deal, according to union leaders.

NUT members in all of Swindon’s primary and secondary schools will be balloted at the end of the month about a one-day strike on April 24.

The last time teachers in the town went ahead with major strike action was 22 years ago.

Andy Woolley, the NUT’s south west regional secretary, said: “This is the third year running that the pay rise for teachers has been below inflation and this amount is likely to be the same for the next two years.

“Swindon is the worst hit in the south west region because of the high cost of living and so young teachers are constantly finding it difficult to get onto the property ladder.”

Peter Smith, the NUT’s Swindon representative, feels teachers earn less than the average graduate after leaving university.

He said: “They spend four years at university with no pay, and also have a building student debt and when they start they earn just over £20,000 - that’s about £3,000 less than your average graduate. This gap widens over the next two years and within five years of joining the profession.

“Fifty per cent of young teachers leave because of heavy workload and pay conditions.

“The Government had promised us that if inflation continued to rise they would review our pay, but they have gone back on their word.”

According to figures from the NUT, junior doctors who earn a basic salary with a supplement would earn £32,087 with the amount increasing to over £39,000.

Police officers also earn a higher wage than teachers and are paid during training and don’t need to be graduates.

Academy Meeting

A brief report of a meeting in Penhill to discuss the Academy proposal.

I attended a meeting at Penhill called to discuss the proposal for an Academy to replace Headlands school. Councillor Garry Perkins Lead member for Children’s Services was invited along to speak in favour of the proposal. The meeting was organised by Penhill Councillor Andy Harrison as a means of giving local people the opportunity to hear the arguments and express their own view. The first thing to be said is that the Council did not give the opportunity to opponents of the scheme to present their case in the public meetings which they organised. On the other hand the presence of Garry did provide the audience with an indication of how little he seems to know about some of the issues!There was a great deal of anger over the seeming incompetence of the Council. Many people present had not received the consultation documents.

It would be true to say that most people present did not engage in the debate on the concept of Academies. The trades unionists present were opposed to Academies in principle and have examined what has happened around the country in those that have been set up. But unless you have an interest in education or you have children is school it is not an issue which you would necessarily have looked at. Garry Perkins did not argue with the teaching unions on this ground, he simply said this is the only way to get a new school so take it or leave it.

Many people were perturbed to know that he did not seem to have any idea about the ‘footprint’ of the proposed new school, or the potential traffic problems. He expressed a lack of interest on the question of which organisation is putting in how much money, even though the teachers present reported that the United Learning Trust had told them that Honda was putting in the majority of the £2 million whilst Honda had told them that ULT was putting in the majority!

There was concern expressed about how far some of the children would have to travel to the proposed site at the Pinehurst People’s Centre.

ULT are making all manner of promises (such as sticking to the Local Education Authority’s admissions policy), but the question was raised as to what mechanisms there were to hold them to these promises. Hilary Pitts from the LEA had to admit that once the Academy had been set up there was nothing to prevent the new company (for that’s what the Academy would be, a private business) changing it mind.

All in all Garry was given a hard time by the local people. The situation was well summed up by one member of the audience when he said we had been given the same ‘choice’ for the hospital, the University of Bath and now the Academy – this is what you are going to get or you will get nothing! This is the government’s ‘choice’ agenda, supported by the Tory Council.

Martin Wicks

Councillors unite against Academy

This is a press release from Penhill Councillors Andy Harrison (Independent Socialist) and David Glaholm (Labour) on the proposed Academy to replace Headlands school.

Penhill’s Ward councillors, Andy Harrison and David Glaholm are taking a united stance and urging all their constituents to vote NO in Swindon Councils consultation on Academy proposals.Speaking out against the academy Councillor Harrison said the whole academy concept leaves much to be desired. There are major issues with academy schools, from their higher exclusion rates and parental concerns regarding child religious indoctrination to academy selective admission practices and the total loss of any local accountability.Sponsors gaining unaccountable control of over £25 million pounds worth of public investment without any guarantees that even one child’s education will be significantly improved certainly doesn’t sound like the Value For Money that both the government and council insist upon even when investing much smaller amounts of taxpayer’s money.

Academies are still very much an educational experiment and the pupils, parents and whole community deserve better than to have their children’s education subjected to such a further hit and miss approach. We must remember that Headland pupils have already had to endure being failed by Swindon’s education department and they deserve better than to be used further as academy guinea pigs.

Councillor Glaholm said “I have asked many times for reassurance on how the children from Penhill would be able to safely access the new school but without success.
I feel the children will take the shortest route across fields and parents should seek reassurance their children will not be at risk before supporting the proposal.

Councillor Harrison has arranged a public meeting for 6:30pm on Monday 12th June at the John Moulton Hall, Penhill, so that Penhill ward residents can hear both sides of the arguments before making their minds up on such an important issue.

Both ward councillors are increasingly finding that the promised consultation by the council, which ends on the 16th June, is not only extremely one sided but believe that Penhill ward residents are being deliberately excluded from the consultation process.

END
For further information please contact:
Councillors
Andy Harrison 07720 484540
David Glaholm 07952 862929

Parents rebel at ‘Dickensian’ school run by millionaire evangelist friend of Blair

We reproduce a Guardian article on the situation at the Trinity Academy. Whilst the organisation running this Academy is different to the one seeking to launch an Academy in Swindon, the experience at Trinity raises issues which relate to the proposal for Swindon.

Backlash over emphasis on religion as suspensions soar in ‘covert’ selectionMatthew Taylor
Tuesday May 30, 2006
The Guardian Among the parents who had gathered in the back bar of the Moorends Hotel there were tales of curious expulsions and strange practices. One mother said her daughter had been removed from school after being accused of wearing the wrong trousers, another that her son had been permanently expelled for smoking.A father claimed his son had been sent home for walking the wrong way down the corridor, another that his 16-year-old daughter was kicked out after getting a kiss from her boyfriend at the school gates. And underlying it all was a feeling that Trinity, the third state funded secondary to be run by an evangelical Christian and friend of Tony Blair, Sir Peter Vardy, was pushing an aggressive religious agenda. Cindy Denise, whose two children are both at Trinity, claimed pupils were disciplined if they did not carry the Bible on certain days and summed up the mood at the meeting, describing the school as “a complete joke”. “They are kicking children out for nothing and won’t listen to anyone who wants to know what is going on.”Trinity opened last summer next to the chicken factory in the former mining town of Thorne, near Doncaster, and is the latest school in the government’s controversial academy schools programme. In its first six months 148 children have been suspended, leading many parents to claim that it was using excessive discipline to weed out children it does not want to teach.

The 1,250-pupil school strenuously denies the charges but the parents at the Moorends Hotel insist that the school is operating a system of covert selection to get rid of difficult to teach children. They say the problems surfaced before Christmas when their children began complaining of “Dickensian-style” discipline and parents noticed an “excessive” number of students being sent home. Pauline Wood, whose daughter was excluded after being accused of having bought her school trousers from the wrong shop, decided to call a public meeting. A few weeks, and several home-made posters later, more than 200 people turned up to air their concerns.
“We thought it was just one or two cases to start with but when we talked we realised the scale of what was happening,” said Mrs Wood. “We were really surprised at the strength of feeling at that first meeting and the stories that were coming out about what was happening in the school.

“The strong feeling locally is that the school is aiming to get rid of the pupils that have problems or are considered difficult, they’ve already got a waiting list with kids from outside the area and they want to get them in so the exam results go up and they can say the school is a success. But what happens to our kids - the kids they don’t want?

Under-achievers

“When all this started we thought they were trying to get rid of the under-achievers but now we think they are getting rid of any child, regardless of academic ability, who thinks for themselves, who challenges things … I don’t care what anyone says, it’s covert selection.”
Sarah French, a spokeswoman for Sir Peter’s Emmanuel Schools Foundation, which runs the school, denies the allegations. “The idea that we are selecting pupils is a complete red herring and really quite offensive. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that claim, in fact we give priority to children with special educational needs and although we have the right to select 10% of our children by aptitude as an academy we don’t because we aim to help each child achieve its potential.”

The school says more than 200 pupils were suspended in a similar period at the school Trinity replaced. “The vast majority of parents back what we are doing and see that the measures we have in place are helping change the ethos allowing the children to work in a stable, calm environment,” said Ms French.
But parents say the figures do not reflect what they are seeing on the ground. “There was a clampdown at the old school once they knew it was going to be an academy and it has just got worse,” said Mrs Wood. “I don’t know how they are measuring it but we are certainly seeing more and more children being sent home or kicked out.”

Although the allegations of tough discipline and covert selection are the parents’ main concerns, some are also uneasy about the religious ethos behind Trinity, citing the decision to give each child a bible as proof that religion pervades every aspect of the school. “They get into trouble if they don’t have it [the Bible] with them on certain days,” said Ms Denise. “It’s not what I want my kids to be doing in school, but I don’t have a choice because this is the only school round here and they won’t listen to us.”

These concerns reflect allegations at another of Sir Peter’s state schools - Emmanuel College in Gateshead, which has been repeatedly accused of teaching pupils creationism alongside science.

Tracey Morton, a mother who successfully campaigned against a proposed Vardy academy in nearby Conisbrough in 2004, agreed that the religious nature of Vardy’s schools was a real worry for many parents. “These schools peddle a hardcore Christian message and parents don’t have any choice about whether that is what they want for their children,” she said.

Protest

The parents’ group in Thorne say they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for before the school opened and they intend to step up their campaign with a march and a protest outside the school gates. Ms Wood said: “Of course we welcome a new school, but we need it to be run by a fair system. There was only a few weeks consultation here and we weren’t told anything about what the school would really be like. We want the local education authority to get back involved because at the moment the school is not accountable to anybody. We have no one to go to when things happen - not local councillors or the MP because there is nothing they can do. The school has 100% power over us and all we can do is try and highlight what is going on.”

The school denies the claim. Last night a DfES spokesman said academies were improving results. “Quite rightly academies are putting discipline first because it is vital to help children learn, and the early signs are that behaviour is improving and the number of exclusions falling,” said a spokesman.

The history: Schools founded on discipline

Sir Peter Vardy’s Emmanuel Schools Foundation runs three schools, two in the north-east, one of which was opened by Tony Blair, and the Trinity academy in Thorne, near Doncaster. Sir Peter is a millionaire car dealer and evangelical Christian whose beliefs pervade every aspect of his schools - they all have a reputation for discipline.

Although academically successful, the schools have been dogged by controversy. Emmanuel has been repeatedly linked to the teaching of creationism - most recently in a Channel 4 documentary - and Kings was criticised for having an exclusion rate 10 times the national average.

Last year, as part of a wider investigation, the Guardian revealed that the number of children eligible for free school meals at Kings, the standard indicator of deprivation, had dropped by more than 100 compared with the school it replaced, leading to renewed claims that it was cherry-picking pupils who were easier to teach.

The foundation says that all its lessons comply with the national curriculum, and that creationism is taught in RE rather than science lessons. But according to the head of the foundation, Nigel McQuoid, “schools should teach the creation theory as literally depicted in Genesis” because creation and evolution are “faith positions”.

Both Kings academy in Middlesbrough and Emmanuel college in Gateshead have improved their GCSE results. At Emmanuel 97% of students gained five or more GCSE passes at grade A*-C in 2004 (the national average is 52%). The first set of GCSE results at King’s showed that it has more than doubled the performance at its predecessor schools, with 43% of pupils now getting five or more good GCSEs.Matthew Taylor

Academies fail to improve results, study says

Research from Edinburgh University on exam results from Academies.
Matthew Taylor, education correspondent
Monday May 22, 2006
From the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk

Schools in the government’s £5bn academy programme, which aims to create 200 privately run state secondaries by 2010, have failed to improve results compared with the comprehensives they replaced, according to a report.

The study, by a senior academic at Edinburgh University, found the number of pupils getting five GCSE A*-C grades including English and maths has increased by 0.2% - equivalent to three pupils - across the first 11 academies.

Ministers have repeatedly defended the controversial programme, claiming that the schools have brought about a dramatic improvement in academic standards, particularly the number of children getting five or more good GCSEs.

But last night union leaders and opposition MPs said the government had misled the public. Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said: “This research pulls the rug out from under ministers who have made extravagant claims about the results academies are delivering. The truth is that their performance is much less impressive than the government has spun. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being poured into an unproven scheme.”

The government said that according to its figures, the number of youngsters reaching the benchmark five good GCSEs including English and maths at the first 11 academies had increased by just over 1%.

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills added that the academies’ GCSE results were “outstripping” those of their predecessor schools, adding that if English and maths were not included there had been an 8 percentage point rise in those getting five good GCSEs. “This is the true measure of academies’ success and the fact they are transforming lives for the better - that’s why they’re popular and oversubscribed.”

But last night the report’s author, Terry Wrigley, a senior lecturer at Edinburgh University and editor of the education journal Improving Schools, said that some academies were diverting children away from GCSEs to boost their standing in school league tables. The study found that many children had been switched from taking separate subjects at GCSE to the vocational GNVQ qualification, which counts as four GCSEs in government tables.

“There seems to be something important going on here,” he said. “Of course we should value vocational as well as academic learning, but false equivalents simply let down the most vulnerable young people. It may be in the school’s short term interests, and the government’s, to improve exam statistics in this way. However, as soon as an individual applies for a job or university place, they will face problems. How many employers regard a GNVQ in computing plus a C in art as equal to five good GCSEs in different subjects, especially if you include English and maths?”

According to Mr Wrigley the proportion of children taking GNVQ qualification has risen from 13% at the predecessor schools to around 52% at the academies.

He said the findings would raise concerns about the government’s plans for a new generation of trust schools - based on the academy model. “There are variations between academies; some are doing well and some have worse results than the schools they closed down,” he said. “So why is so much success being attributed to business sponsorship? This is poor evidence on which to base the entire government strategy of academies and trust schools. Government thinking appears to be based more on faith in business sponsors and privatisation than any educational evidence.”But a spokesman for the education department insisted the schools were reversing decades of educational failure in some of the country’s most deprived areas, adding that GNVQs allowed less academic children to leave school with a recognised qualification.

He said the schools were improving standards in English and maths for 14-year-olds, and that would feed through to GCSE scores in the future.

“A more reliable guide to their success in improving English and maths at GCSE in future is that there has been a 9.4 percentage point improvement rate for English and a 12.9 percentage point improvement rate for maths in tests for 14-year-olds. Achieving the required level at these key stage 3 tests is an important indicator of future success at GCSE.”

At a glance
There are 27 academy schools open and ministers hope that will rise to 200 by 2010. The schools cannot charge fees but they stand apart from the state system. Individual sponsors have a large degree of control, appointing managers and deciding the schools’ ethos and curriculum.

Sponsors were initially required to pay 20% of the school’s capital costs, but that changed to £2m, or less than 5%. The remaining capital costs (around £25m a school) are met by the taxpayer, along with subsequent running costs. So far few sponsors have handed over the full amount.
The government says academic standards are rising more quickly at academies than at the schools they replaced or at other comprehensive schools. Many of the schools have had good Ofsted reports.

Campaign against proposed Academy

More than 30 people attended an open meeting called by Swindon Trades Union Council to discuss the proposed Academy to replace Headlands school.

More than 30 people attended an open meeting organised by Swindon TUC on the issue of the Academy proposed to replace Headlands school. Phil Baker of the teaching union ATL, who spent many years teaching at Headlands spoke against the Academy. He pointed out that when the issue was discussed at the town’s Educational Partnership Board and everybody apart from Tory Councillor Gary Perkins voted against the idea. According to his information the United Learning Trust would be handed over the school for 125 years!Penhill Councillor Andy Harrison called for public investment rather than giving away public assets to an anti-union car company and a religious trust. The only people to profit from our schools should be our children.

NUT Assistant General Secretary Christine Blower talked about the national experience of Academies.

UNISON Secretary Bob Cretchley said:

“There is clearly a good cross section of people opposed to the Academy and it is all about ensuring that there is a big campaign to stop this from happening. We need to be working together because there is a good chance we can scupper this.”

The meeting agreed to set up a campaign to oppose the Academy which would involve education unions, school governors, parents and residents from the local area. Details of a meeting to organise a campaign will be circulated shortly.