PUBLIC MEETING ‘What do we want from our Schools? A Charter for Schools’

OCOS Public Meeting, Tuesday 21 October 2014

‘What do we want from our Schools? A Charter for Schools’

7.30pm, Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow

Speakers include Melissa Benn (education writer and author of School Wars: the battle for Britain's Education) with other speakers to be confirmed shortly…

After a summer break., Our Community Our Schools is back with a new public meeting. It’s almost exactly two years since our campaign was set up, prompted by the proposals to establish two Free Schools in the borough. We saw Free Schools, like Academies, as a dangerous way of fragmenting our school system, taking schools out of the hands of their communities and increasing social divisions of all kinds in our diverse borough.

Yet right from the start, we have tried hard to promote a positive vision of education and schooling as an alternative to the policies being pushed by the Coalition. Now, as Free Schools and academies come increasingly under the spotlight and their achievements are thrown into question, we want to start to build that alternative vision of education by starting a discussion in our borough about what people really want from their schools.

Our schools are answerable to national politicians, but shouldn't they also be organic parts of their communities?

What should our schools be trying to achieve? How should they be run? How should we be involved in our schools?

To help start this discussion off, we are hosting a new public meeting on 21^st October and we’re delighted that one of our main speakers will be Melissa Benn, education expert, writer and author of the excellent book ‘School Wars: The battle for Britain's Education’. Other great speakers will be announced shortly.

We’ll also be publishing a discussion document in the form of a draft Charter for our Schools to help kick off the debate.

More details very soon. Watch this space!

Can you help us leaflet and promote this meeting? If you’re prepared to help us by joining a leafleting team or leafleting your street to help promote this meeting, please email wfdefendstateschools@gmail.com and let us know.

An open letter to the governors of St Mary’s and St Saviour’s schools

Our Community, Our Schools is taking the step of publishing an open letter to you for two reasons. 

Firstly, we have been contacted by a number of concerned parents from St Mary’s school asking for our advice on the ramifications of Academy Conversion. We have now published this advice here.
 

Secondly, we are publishing this advice because we believe that the proposal to convert these schools to being part of a Multi-Academy Trust is one that affects all of us in Waltham Forest.

 

As you are well aware, the issue of the freedoms of Free Schools and Academy schools is very rarely out of the news at the moment. Their academic performance is being questioned, academy chains are coming under tremendous fire and academy and free school governing bodies are being scrutinised for mismanagement, high senior staff salaries and allegations of cronyism.

 

Our research leads us to believe that one of the most important reasons for this is the structural weaknesses of both Academies and Free Schools - legally the same thing.

 

If St Mary’s and St Saviour’s schools do decide to become academies we believe they will be taking a major gamble and the effects of failure will be felt not only by the school’s children, but by all the whole community and all our schools.

 

For these reasons, at the very least, we believe it is absolutely vital that the school governors consult widely and meaningfully with the whole range of stakeholders in the community and to reflect in an open transparent way on the responses they receive.

 

Please feel free to contact us if you want more information.

Our Community, Our Schools

Download our briefing here.

 

Four new Free Schools for Walthamstow…and no, nobody asked you

Last week it was confirmed that Walthamstow will have four new Free Schools. The Education Secretary Michael Gove, has been sufficiently reassured by the information provided to him by, er, the people proposing to open these schools, to give them the government’s seal of approval.

As we reported, the two proposals we knew about were the subject of precious little, if any, public debate and almost no scrutiny. Two other proposals were effectively secrets until they were approved. This is a travesty of democracy which is made even more unacceptable by the fact that we’re talking about children’s education here.

It cannot be right that people, organisations and companies who want to open schools can effectively conspire in secret to win government approval for their proposals, while shutting out the very people who will be paying for them.

If you get a chance to express your view of the specific proposals at all, it will only be now that the government has given them the go ahead.

Supporters of WFDSS made their views on this farcical and scandalous process known in the local press here. We’d like to know what you think, so feel free to comment by emailing us at wfdefendstateschools@gmail.com or using the comment box below.

“It’s consultation Jim, but not as we know it” – the inverted world of Free Schools

WFDSS has now received letters from both Oasis and Tauheedul Free Schools in response to our ‘democratic challenge’. Our letter to both organisations did three things:

• It sought details of what consultation had taken place with the community prior to both organisations submitting their proposals to the DfE
• It set out what we expected both organisations to do to show that they were consulting in a meaningful way with all the stakeholders in our community.
• It called on them to confirm how they were going to meet this expectation.

The basic point is that the minimum that citizens in a democratic society should be able to expect of anyone who intends to set up a school is that the people doing it can demonstrate that they have taken into account the impact their proposal on the community, on the other schools in the borough and the local area.

The responses are very revealing about the strange, inverted world of Free Schools.

Oasis’s reply asks us to post the letter in full for all our supporters to see, so here it is. It contains no details either of past or future intentions over consultation. Instead, the letter says,

“I am writing to advise you that a full response will be made after we have heard whether our application for the proposed new school has been approved by the Department for Education. We are expecting this announcement to be made in the next few weeks; it may be after the 10 May 2013 deadline stipulated in your letter.”

Tauheedul’s response, which you can read at the bottom, is similarly unenlightening. Vague claims are made about the past consultation and about intentions to consult in the future but without concrete details. Tauheedul claim they have been

“actively working with members of the local community for over 18 months. During this time, we have engaged in a regular dialogue and consultation with a whole range of individual and community stakeholders, including the Local Authority and local residents. We have taken on board their comments, aspirations and concerns in developing our proposal for the 'Waltham Forest Leadership Academy for Girls' that is currently being considered by the Department for Education. We are aware of our obligations regarding statutory consultation. Should we receive initial approval from the DfE, the current plans are to engage in a comprehensive consultation between June and July 2013. The detailed plans will be on our website www.tauheedulschools.com.”

In sum, both organisations are distinctly vague and evasive about their past consultation. Tauheedul’s statement, for example, talks about ‘a whole range of individual and community stakeholders’ but provides no details, nor does it mention schools. Neither organisation makes any effort to commit to meet our expectations. We will be pursuing the claims made in Tauheedul’s statement, in particular. This is not as easy as it might sound. Interestingly, a google search on Tauheedul's proposed 'Waltham Forest Leadership Academy for Girls' produces only the document at the DfE that lists applications received. There is no other information about the proposal available via the internet.

But the crux of the issue would appear to be this. The Department for Education is going to make a judgment about whether these school proposals should be approved without any publicly available evidence of any meaningful consultation or impact assessment.

If full details of the two applications are not made public until after the DfE gives approval, in what meaningful sense can the DfE decision be said to take account of informed local concerns? How can the DfE show that it is aware of any concerns raised by the community in deciding whether to approve the school or not?

Secondly, if comprehensive and consultation follows DfE approval, can any consultation launched fulfil the statutory obligation to consult on the question of ‘whether’ there will be a free school or not, or will it in effect be about how an already approved free school is set-up? How can consultation be said to be at a formative stage when the proposal has been approved by the DfE?

The government seems to have designed a profoundly anti-democratic system for setting up new schools. A government department makes decisions that will have a deep impact on our local schools without any evidence of any democratic process, either formal or informal and we cannot hold them accountable. Organisations wishing to set up a new school appear to feel under no obligation to hold any meaningful consultation, take account of the impact of their proposals or uphold the basic standards of transparency and accountability required of other public bodies.

If or when the Department sees fit to pronounce on the proposals they have in front of them from Oasis and Tauheedul, people in Waltham Forest who have concerns about Free Schools, academies, government education policies, increasing segregation or even just basic democracy will have to make their voices heard, because the system appears to have been designed not to listen.

***

 
Tauheedul’s response, dated 12 May 2013:

Dear Jonathan,

 

Thank you for your e-mail.

 

 

We appreciate the time that you have taken out in learning about our project.

As you may be aware we have been actively working with members of the local community for over 18 months. During this time, we have engaged in a regular dialogue and consultation with a whole range of individual and community stakeholders, including the Local Authority and local residents.

We have taken on board their comments, aspirations and concerns in developing our proposal for the 'Waltham Forest Leadership Academy for Girls' that is currently being considered by the Department for Education.

We are aware of our obligations regarding statutory consultation. Should we receive initial approval from the DfE, the current plans are to engage in a comprehensive consultation between June and July 2013. The detailed plans will be on our websitewww.tauheedulschools.com.

We have looked at your website and do share your aspirations for greater choice and a better standard of education in Waltham Forest. We hope that all members of the community can work together to address these challenges in the coming years.

Fiona McGrath

Waltham Forest Leadership Academy for Girls

A democratic challenge to Oasis and Tauheedul

WFDSS has today written to both Oasis Community Learning and Tauheedul Free Schools asking them to set out for the local community what steps they will be taking to hold a meaningful public consultation in the borough.

 

The questions we ask below relate to the normal expectations on any body that is expected to hold a consultation and are particularly relevant to those who are applying to run a public service in return for public funding.

 

This is even more important given the fact that as this website has shown, there are significant and substantial concerns about the impact of these proposals on the local community, from parents, teachers , local councillors and from the local MP. 

 

We believe that Oasis and Tauheedul must show that they take these concerns seriously by holding a public, transparent and meaningful consultation along the lines laid out below.

 

OPEN LETTER TO OASIS AND TAUHEEDUL FREE SCHOOLS:

 

We are writing and publishing this open letter to you further to your application to set up an additional ‘Free School’ in Waltham Forest.

We are an organisation of local parents, teachers and other residents of Waltham Forest called Waltham Forest Defend State Schools. We came together to defend and promote our community schools and to promote a better understanding in the borough of the issues around proposals to build new Free Schools and to convert community schools to Academies.

This letter asks you to set out for the people of Waltham Forest the steps you will be taking to undertake a wide and meaningful consultation to ensure that your proposal properly reflects the needs of the people of the borough.

Under section 10 of the Academies Act, you have a duty to consult such persons as you think appropriate. We are sure that you would agree with us that a list of the appropriate persons in the case of a new school in Waltham Forest would contain, as a minimum, the local authority, parents and teachers at all schools which might potentially be affected by your proposal, together with the general public in the borough.

As you will be aware, in order to be lawful, a consultation must comply with the following overarching obligations:

1. Consultation must take place at a time when the proposals are at a formative stage

2. The proposer must give sufficient reasons for its proposals to allow consultees to understand them and respond to them properly.

3. Consulters must give sufficient time for responses to be made and considered.

4. Responses must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising the decision.

In order to ensure that your proposals are subjected to appropriate democratic scrutiny, we are calling on you to set out for us how you intend to do this. Specifically, we are calling on you to provide the following information:

Prior to submitting your initial proposal to the DfE:

• what steps did you take to consult with the Local Authority in Waltham Forest and neighbouring boroughs that might be affected by your proposal?
• What steps did you take to consult the headteachers and teachers representative bodies in schools in Waltham Forest and neighbouring boroughs?
• What steps were taken to consult with parents in the borough?
• When will the results of these consultations be made public?

Subsequent to submitting your initial proposal to the DfE:

· What is your timetable for publishing your full proposal and consulting on it, prior to submitting a final proposal to the DfE?

• What are your plans for consulting with the following: the Local Authority, headteachers and the representative organisations of teachers in schools in Waltham Forest and neighbouring boroughs; parents at schools which might be affected by your proposal and the general public in the borough?
• What will be the timetable for the submission of responses to this consultation?
• What are your plans for publishing the results of the consultation and showing that you have given reasonable consideration of the variety of responses you receive, prior to submitting to the DfE?

We are sure that you would want to demonstrate both to the people of Waltham Forest and the Education Secretary, who must show that he has considered the impact of your proposal, that you have fully and transparently consulted in a manner that is appropriate to an organisation which intends to receive public funding.

We look forward to your response as soon as possible, and in any case not later than 10 May.

Jonathan White

Scarlet Harris

Mark Holding

Tom Davies

Waltham Forest Defend State Schools
Learn more about us here: http://defendwalthamforeststateschools.blogspot.co.uk/