Another packed public meeting as parents and teachers unite for our community schools

Well over 100 people crowded into the excellent venue at Harmony Hall off the High Street on 21st October for another packed OCOS public meeting. Kiri Tunks from Our Community Our Schools introduced the meeting as a contribution to public discussion about OCOS’s proposed Charter in the borough, explaining that it was intended to be something that could be amended, developed and used by parents, teachers and everyone who cares about progressive education. She then introduced the first speaker Melissa Benn who spoke about the original vision of comprehensive education and why it matters who owns our schools.

Melissa pointed to the widespread, political and media representation of comprehensive schools as associated with ‘failure’ and argued that this orchestrated campaign masked their huge successes. Prior to comprehensive movement, children had been socially divided and told they were failures by 11, supported by disgraced eugenic theories of educational ability. From mid 1960s the tripartite system that segregated people into secondary modern, grammar and public schools was challenged by the comprehensive movement and by new academic theories of educational psychology. This movement, she argued, was a tremendous success of our society and we should celebrate it.

‘All our children should go to schools together’ she urged, arguing that all the ways of dividing our children fundamentally arise on the basis of class division. Private schools, Melissa argued  ‘have everything they want, except they turn out some very strange citizens.’ She called for a government that was strong enough to challenge increasingly entrenched social privilege and would fight for all schools to have fair admissions. Melissa argued that it was government policy and not failures of the comprehensive model that created divisions and fuelled parental anxiety. The best school systems in the world, she argued, send all their children to school together and even the  OECD says it’s good for society and for children too. She finished by reiterating that it really matters who runs schools. We are being pushed back to a 19^th century patchwork of provision – we need to restore local schools to local communities.

The next speaker was Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers who said he was delighted to be at a meeting organised by parents and hoped there would be hundreds more like it across the country. Kevin focused on the problems created in the school system by teachers’ heavy workloads. ‘We are losing thousands of good teachers. It will become a problem in schools and lead to staff shortages and fatigue’. But the fundamental problem, he urged was less the volume of work than the composition of the workload. Teachers, he said, have to be increasingly focused on data, tests, league tables and evidence: ‘measurement is driving the whole child out of the picture. We need children to be happy, rounded human beings – creativity and enjoyment are lost. This is accountability gone mad. There is a lack of trust in the system for teachers’.

Kevin pointed to the US, where children are tested all the time and teachers pay is tied to children’s  performance. “It’s like doing a full day’s work and then going home and spending hours explaining that you’ve done it”.

Kevin finished by pointing to NUT’s manifesto for the elections and in particular the demand to tackle child poverty. ‘Politicians attack schools for not being ambitious enough for working class children. Every teacher knows this is their job but we also know that child poverty makes a big difference. We’re in one of the richest and most unequal societies in the world. We need politicians to focus on making society more equal and freeing teachers to teach.’

The meeting was then addressed by Jenny Smith, headteacher at Frederick Bremer school, featured on ‘Educating the East End’. Jenny opened by saying it was fantastic for a head to be invited to speak in a meeting where we’re not having to defend our schools from attacks and academisation. Jenny echoed Melissa Benn in condemning the attacks on community schools and pointed to her own family which had been divided by the pre-comprehensive education system. Being able to go to a comprehensive school, she said, made a huge difference. Jenny talked about what London schools can achieve, pointing to the investment that came through London Challenge and which led to such coordinated improvement in standards. But she condemned the Coalition’s attack since 2010 and its ‘chaotic’ policies: ‘We’re now being judged by our GCSEs alone, while the Free School initiative destabilises school system locally and creates a perception that there is something wrong with our existing schools’.

Jenny argued that ‘we have to retain the principles and models of community education. Waltham Forest is unusual in its diversity and our community schools represent our local community and still dominate the educational offer’.

She also recounted how when applying for a headteachership, she deliberately chose a community school and argued that at her school ‘tolerance respect and compassion are integral to our school. There is no labelling, bullying is rare, every child is known, nourished and nurtured in our school. Our community schools sustain community cohesion.’ ‘It’s difficult to hate’ she said ‘when the label is a friend at school’.

She finished by calling on the media to stop attacking community schools and promote their achievements. She argued that we need to improve pay for teachers in Waltham Forest, noting that we are only paid outer London weighting, and she called on teaching unions to ‘work with us to build a new relationship’. Jenny finished with a simple call for politicians to ‘make the madness stop’ and for parents to continue to support their community schools.

The last speaker was the local MP for Leyton and Wanstead John Cryer, who opened by reiterating the points made by earlier speakers about the iniquities of the pre-comprehensive era and told the meeting about how his mother had been written off by the school system and left a year below the national minimum. John also repeated his now notorious description of Free Schools as a ‘barking mad’ experiment which put people like ‘that screaming egotist Toby Young’ and ‘the Chuckle Brothers in Rotherham’ in charge of schools. He also warned that the recent scandals were, in his view, ‘just the thin end of the wedge’. John pointed to the scandalous waste involved in the Free Schools experiment, citing the example of the Suffolk Free School which had £2 million spent on it and has 36 pupils. ‘Imagine what Jenny Smith’s school could do with £2 million?’, he said.

Academisation and Free Schools he said were fragmenting the school system and reinforcing class divisions and finished, like Kevin, with an impassioned plea to tackle poverty: children from poor, working class families, living in cramped conditions, with parents who work every hour that God sends to make ends meet, they’re struggling from day one at school. Address that and you will change society for the better.’

Discussion opened with an inspiring contribution from pupils from Frederick Bremer school: ‘We want to learn in a dynamic place, we want to learn more life skills that prepare us for the modern era, especially the technology; and we’re not robots, we want to be creative and dynamic. We need more funding and more resources.’

Other speakers urged parents to become governors to ensure that their schools were community places, while many speakers made clear that they wanted all children educated together and not segregated on sex, faith or class lines. There were calls to include more on sex education in the Charter and for initiatives which made it clear that Waltham Forest is a great place to go to school precisely because of its diversity.

It was another inspiring meeting which affirmed the value of the Charter, added some valuable new elements and came up with some excellent concrete ideas for the future. Thanks to everyone who came and watch this space for more soon.

Launching our draft Charter for Education in Waltham Forest

Our Community, Our Schools is a parent-led campaign, set up to defend our community schools against attempts to set up Free Schools and to convert our community schools to academies. But we weren’t defending community schools for the sake of it.

We believe that our community schools are a historic achievement. It was not so very long ago that the idea that everyone was entitled to a common, shared education, regardless of their background and their wealth, was considered dangerous and radical.

However, successive governments have failed to support our community schools and now the Coalition government actively attacks them at every turn. Whoever forms the next government will inherit a fragmented, divided and partially privatised school system. They will need to work hard to restore parents’ faith and teachers’ confidence.

Yet in spite of the attacks on them, our schools continue to perform heroically. And in spite of the fear-mongering, people continue to believe in the ideas that motivated the great education reforms of the past because they are basic, common-sense, powerful and democratic ideas.

Every great advance in education was won by people standing up to fight for it. We believe that it’s time to start uniting people and campaigning positively around a vision of education. It’s time to start a debate and a discussion in our communities about the kind of education system and the kind of schools we want.

That’s why we have launched our draft Charter for education in Waltham Forest.

This is not a finished document. It’s a starting point for a wide-ranging discussion in our community and we want that discussion to take many different forms. We will be proposing meetings, articles, discussion, and opening up the document to you to comment on and discuss online.

But what we want to do is play our part in building a local movement that can be a powerful force in the community, helping all our schools to meet the highest standards we should expect and that can help build pressure on local and national policy-makers and decision-makers to listen to us. 

We want to know what you think, so please join the discussion.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE DRAFT CHARTER

‘What do we want from our Schools? Building a Charter for Education - New speakers announced and how to book your place

What do we want from our Schools? Building a Charter for Education

Tuesday 21 October 2014
7.30pm, Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow

• Melissa Benn, education writer and author of School Wars: the battle for Britain's Education
• John Cryer, MP for Leyton and Wanstead
• Jenny Smith, Headteacher, Frederick Bremer School, stars of ‘Educating the East End'
• Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary, National Union of Teachers.

We believe that it’s time to start a discussion about how we build a new, positive and progressive vision for our education system.

We’re delighted to have a stellar line up of speakers to start that debate at our public meeting, including education expert and writer Melissa Benn, Kevin Courtney, the Deputy General Secretary of the NUT, John Cryer, local MP for Leyton and Wanstead and Jenny Smith, headteacher of our own Frederick Bremer School, currently starring in ‘Educating the East End’.

We'll be asking:

• How should we measure success in schools?
• Are our kids being ‘measured’ and tested too much?
• How should schools be run?
• Who should our schools be accountable to?
• How do we ensure that all kids get the same chances?
• Should we, as parents, be more involved in our schools?

Come and join the discussion. Help us to shape a Charter for education in our borough.

Reserve your place at this FREE event now by booking tickets online here. Make sure to bring your tickets with you on the day.

Great new speakers announced for our public meeting on 21st October

‘What do we want from our Schools? Building a Charter for Education’

  

Tuesday 21 October 2014

7.30pm, Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow  

• Melissa Benn, education writer and author of School Wars: the battle for Britain's Education)
•  John Cryer MP for Leyton and Wanstead
•  Jenny Smith, Headteacher, Frederick Bremer School, stars of ‘Educating the East End’
• Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary, National Union of Teachers

We believe that it’s time to start a discussion about how we build a new, positive and progressive vision for our education system.

We’re delighted to have a stellar line up of speakers to start that debate at our public meeting, including education expert and writer Melissa Benn, Kevin Courtney, the Deputy General Secretary of the NUT, John Cryer, local MP for Leyton and Wanstead and Jenny Smith, headteacher of our own Frederick Bremer School, currently starring in ‘Educating the East End’.  

We'll be asking: 

• How should we measure success in schools?
• Are our kids being ‘measured’ and tested too much?
• How should schools be run?
• Who should our schools be accountable to?
• How do we ensure that all kids get the same chances?
• Should we, as parents, be more involved in our schools? 
  

Come and join the discussion. Help us to shape a Charter for education in our borough.

 

 

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.

Packed house hears devastating attack on proposed Free Schools in Waltham Forest

It surpassed all our expectations. More than 150 people packed out the Vestry House Museum meeting room on Tuesday night. The room was filled, with people sitting on the floors and standing at least two-deep outside the doors listening to the proceedings inside.

Guardian columnist and campaigner Zoe Williams kicked off by pointing to the press reports about the Free School in Derby that was closed recently. She read from an extraordinary letter that education minister Lord Nash had had to write to the school asking a series of basic questions about their procedures, their policies and practices for employing staff, ensuring their qualification, conducting CRB checks and so on. Her point was that you would never have had to do this with a community school because they are transparent and accountable. The government and the supporters of Free Schools are creating a system that will fail and we will have to reinvent community schools all over again. "There is no way for the people who use Free Schools to hold them to account” she said. The question for parents and teachers who wanted good community schools was "how to mobilise to get a system in which you are heard" and she urged parents and teachers to make links with each other's campaigns across boroughs and across the country.

Christine Blower, the General Secretary of the NUT stressed that her union regarded Michael Gove's Free Schools policy as undermining basic democratic rights by creating a chaotic system of unaccountable schools that are inefficient and expensive. She pointed out that 1 in 10 teachers in existing Free Schools are unqualified and that a third of the total government budget for new school places was being used to promote building new Free Schools, often in areas where they are not needed or where they can't answer the need for more places. She also pointed to the perversity of a situation in which Local Authorities have the responsibility to provide a place for every child but cannot build more community schools or coordinate provision. She pointed to NUT research which showed that 91% of Local Authorities thought they needed the power to establish new community schools and she praised the London Challenge initiative which showed that collaboration among schools could actually meet the need for more places. Channelling public money toward Free Schools, paid for by us but accountable to no one but themselves was "basically robbery", she said.

Councillor Clare Coghill followed this with a robust defence of Waltham Forest Schools. She argued that it was vital to break down the idea that there is a problem with community schools in the borough. “Waltham Forest schools are fantastic" she said, "and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.” Like Christine, she stressed the perversity of a system where Local Authorities are responsible for providing places but can’t build new community school. Sending a message to the Education Secretary, she said, “I’ve got the duty to provide places, now give me the right to build a new community school”.

Patrick Edwards, a school governor at Norlington school in Leyton, gave a barnstorming performance in which he talked about how active parents, involved in their community schools could have a positive impact on their schools, driving up standards by collaborating and supporting each other, not through destructive competition. He derided the future system envisaged by the government and the supporters of Free Schools in which competition would drive schools out of business and he urged people to get behind their community schools:. “They want us to feel so threatened that we only want to look after our own kids but that would be like cutting our own throats” he said.

In the discussion that followed several teachers explained why they were so angry, why they were striking on the 17^th and why they were campaigning for education, making the point that they were being attacked every day by the government and appealed for parents to support them. Several parents spoke movingly about the anxiety they experienced at the shortage of places in the borough and as a result of widespread misconceptions about Waltham Forest’s community schools. Representatives of the East London Humanist society talked about the divisiveness of faith schools, noting that the majority of Free School sponsors are religious organisations. There were lots of ideas about things that could be done in the future but there was a general agreement on the need to build the campaign against the proposed Free Schools and to make links across London and England with other local campaigns and start to build a movement for a more democratic education system that looks after all its children.

This was an absolutely inspirational meeting at which we heard voices from across our borough expressing their anger and frustration, but also their determination to fight for better schools and for community schools. Sign up to get involved here and watch this space for more soon.

Postscript: Zoe Williams mentioned our meeting in a coruscating attack in the Guardian on Michael Gove’s attempt to denigrate systematically our community school system.  You must read this article!

Public Meeting - Our Community, Our Schools, 7-9pm, Tuesday 8 October, Vestry House Museum meeting room

Speakers: Zoe Williams, writer, journalist and Guardian columnist, Christine Blower, General Secretary, National Union of Teachers

Our Community, Our Schools is hosting a second public meeting in Waltham Forest on Tuesday 8th October and we’re proud to have two brilliant speakers: Guardian columnist Zoe Williams, and Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. This will be a great opportunity to discuss the issues thrown up by the attempt to open ‘Free’ Schools in Waltham Forest in their national context. We’ll be discussing the crisis in our education system, the threats to our community schools and the attack on democracy. It looks like being a really good evening, so make sure you’re there.

Speeches from our public meeting (1)

This is a slightly edited version of the speech given by Jonathan White opening the public meeting on 1 March. We hope to publish the others shortly:

***

We called this meeting 'Education Crisis?' Partly to question what was being said about an education crisis in Waltham Forest – we wanted to question some of the propaganda that was circulated by proponents of the new Free School.

 

But also to start a debate about what was happening to our school system in the borough – perhaps there is an education crisis in Waltham Forest – but if so, what is it?

 

1. Demographic timebomb:

When WFDSS was set up it was response to a proposal to set up a Free School, run by Oasis and WSSI. One of the things that was claimed in their propaganda was the statement ‘there is a demographic timebomb in the borough’ and the familiar refrain – ‘there is no alternative, we must have this new school’.

Yet it was quickly apparent to us that there were serious problems with their propaganda.

Firstly, Oasis and WSSI were using different figures to illustrate demand in the borough and not even the most authoritative. We suspected fearmongering.

 

One of the things we wanted to do when we set up the campaign was to have a proper look at that and start a proper debate about whether there is a demographic timebomb – to get beneath their propaganda and get a more nuanced debate in the borough.

So we looked at only figures available and they showed something quite interesting.

They showed a very large bulge in reception age children, peaking in 2014/15 and 2015/16 and then falling year on year. Demand drops substantially and is not projected to be a permanent feature.

These probably aren’t the latest figures and the Council will know better, but the fact is that these figures are more comprehensive and authoritative than any used by Oasis and WSSI, they have never been challenged by Oasis/WSSI nor have they been acknowledged or any other data used. So we think there is more than a bit of fearmongering going on here.

 

These figures are also important for another reason, and I’ll come back to that...

 

2. Second, we wanted to raise the issue of the Free Schools in the borough:

It seemed to us, for example, that not everyone who signed up to Oasis’s consultation knew what they were signing up for, and they certainly weren’t told in the consultation document – the website, for example, only asks you if you want a new school.

 

We wanted to try to make sure that people who signed up for a new school knew what they would be getting.

 

Here are some facts about Free Schools.

 

This is something that is sold as being about local people getting up and doing it for themselves, addressing problems of the demand for school places in deprived areas.

 

But that’s not what’s happening.

What’s happening is that the proposals for Free Schools are disproportionately from religious organisations – 39 out of 102 proposals identified last year, for example. People like Oasis.


Oasis, for example, like to claim that they are not really a religious school and that it’s particular to their ethos that no one will be discriminated against. Yet at the same time the Oasis ethos is described as being Christianity in action, it is said to pervade everything that goes on in their schools, Christian materials are openly promoted amongst the teaching staff and staff are expected to demonstrate their understanding of Oasis’s ethos. Confused?

 

Oasis are also a growing education chain like Ark, E-Act and Harris, the same chains that are dominating private academy sponsorship.

 

Free Schools are disproportionately being set up in more affluent, middle class areas – only 2% of Free school pupils in Tower Hamlets claim Free School meals, compared with a borough average of 48%.

 

Some Free Schools are operating covert selection criteria, like setting their catchment areas around certain more affluent postcodes or application forms that weed out certain kinds of applicants.

The fact is that these schools fuel religious and social segregation.

 

In both Sweden and the US, where large-scale experiments with this kind of school have been conducted, research indicates that there has been little or no educational benefit to these schools, but that segregation has definitely increased.

 

And they are more expensive. It is more expensive to start and maintain a new small school than it is to expand an existing school. The start up costs of new Free schools have used up large amounts of capital carved out for them by the government out of existing schools’ capital budgets. And contrary to the myth that small is best, analysis suggests that results overall are better in larger than in smaller schools.

So these schools increase social and religious segregation and they are inefficient.

 

But they are also the wrong solution to the real problem – which is how do we effectively and fairly cater for growing, and possibly later falling, demand?

 

Because they are outside local authority control, even more than academies, they can set their own catchment areas and operate covert selection criteria, they can avoid paying national pay scales for and qualification requirements for teachers, and most importantly of all, they have to maintain a surplus, regardless of what the level of demand in the local area.

 

If the demand for places does fall in the way shown in the Council projections, then the Free School will start to operate parasitically within the borough, sucking resources from our existing local authority schools.

 

And there is nothing that you or I or our elected representatives in the Local Authority can do about it because the school is outside democratic control.

 

For all the pious guff about being part of a ‘family’ of schools, or a ‘hub’, these are unaccountable schools, operating parasitically in our communities.

 

Local authorities do lots of things wrong and they are desperately under-resourced at the moment. But they can still play a critical role in coordinating school provision. They did this last year, for example, dealing with the bulge in demand for primary school places in London through collaboration and coordination within and across boroughs.

With Free Schools that’s impossible. And there are already areas where they are sucking resources from local authority schools. It’s true of academies too, but it’s even more true with Free Schools.

 

All this is hardly a surprise of course.

 

They are the brainchild of a government that believes that competition is a creatively destructive force.

 

It’s not ‘unfortunate’ if a school goes to the wall, for Michael Gove and his cronies. It’s an example of the discipline of the market working.

 

It’s a policy that is part of a plan to roll back all the democratic achievements of the post-war period, at one and the same time, sending us back to the period of church schools, grammar schools and elementary schools for the poor, but with a 21^st century twist of allowing US based education businesses to work them for profit.

 

That’s not scaremongering. It’s happened in the US, where the Charter Schools movement, originally sold as solutions based on parent power, are now  dominated by for-profit Education Management Organisations, companies who are very close to and have had publicly documented discussions with Michael Gove and David Willetts about how they can break into the UK market.

 

3. There is an alternative

 

There’s always an alternative. It’s not easy and the government doesn’t want this but there is a different way of doing this. And it could be done, with sufficient political pressure.

 

Last year, the Local Authorities in London catered to the demand for primary school places through a coordinated response, working collaboratively with their schools to expand capacity. They had support from the Mayor’s office.

 

It could be done again. It would take a lot of work, but it could be done again, if there was sufficient political pressure.

 

One of the reasons we set up our petition was to give people the opportunity to get behind a local authority led solution and create some of that political pressure.

 

We wanted to give support to our Local Authority in making the case that it could cater to expansion without a new Free School, a rogue, parasitic element in the borough.

 

I don’t want to go on much longer, but I want to say a few words about where next.

 

In terms of the specific campaign against Free Schools – at least one, Oasis, have their preapproval and now consultation. We will aim to apply the maximum democratic pressure possible on this consultation and to make sure that the proposal gets as hard a time as possible and as much publicity as possible.

 

But, we have to be hard-nosed and think about what next. And this, I think goes for academies too.

 

We may win, or we may not. At a very practical level, there has to be life after a failed fight. We can’t just become demoralised

 

But that requires people to have a shared common sense of the direction of travel.

 

I think the basis for this exists.

 

Most people don’t want a Free School. Most people don’t want an academy. They DO want a good community school.

Most people believe that everyone has the right to the same level of access they have and only resort to climbing over others’ heads when that feels scarce.

 
Most people understand that local authorities and democratically accountable bodies would be better at coordinating a fair system of provision in the borough than a chaotic struggle among competing schools.

 

Most educationalists agree that the best way to raise the quality of schools is to invest in teaching and teachers, not to attack their pay, terms and conditions and pensions and pitch schools in a race to the bottom.

What’s being done to our education system in Waltham Forest and nationally, raises profound questions about choice – supposedly the heart of the government’s programme – and democracy.

 

Personally, I think the basis exists for those who believe in a broadly progressive, fair and equal education to unite, not just around campaigns to defend schools where they are still under democratic control, but to take the fight to those which are outside it.

 

I think we need to start to build mass democratic local pressure on academies and free schools where they exist.

 

To bring themselves closer into line with democratic ideas of a good quality school,

To work with the local authority,

 

To pay their teachers properly,

 

To be transparent and publicly accountable and to open up their access policies.

 

All this is fair and democratic and it would also send a clear message to those people looking in the near future to making a profit out of our schools that we won’t let them.

To conclude:

I think there is a crisis of Education in Waltham Forest. But it’s not really a crisis of demand or supply – it’s a democratic crisis. It’s a crisis engendered by government and exploited by opportunistic carpet baggers who want to colonise our school system and turn it to their own ends and roll back the seismic achievements of the post-war period.

The only response is for local and national bodies of progressive people to come together around long-sighted campaigns that defend what we still have but which ultimately aim to return education to being a democratic right, a democratic tool and a democratic system.

 

I hope that WFDSS will be part of that process in our borough.

 

 

First public meeting a big success

More than 50 people gave up part of their valuable Friday night on 1 March to attend the first of our public meetings, titled ‘Education Crisis in Waltham Forest?’ Jonathan White introduced the meeting as the planned first of a possible series of meetings designed to raise the profile of the issue of Free Schools, Academies and the provision of education in the borough. The audience was a mix of parents and teachers with a range of views, including some supporters of WSSI, the parents’ group who secured Oasis’s backing for their proposed Free School.

Kicking off the meeting, Jonathan White charted the origins of Waltham Forest Defend State Schools as a response to the proposal for a Free School in the borough. He explained that the group initially saw itself as combatting some of the propaganda about the demographic crisis in the borough, raising consciousness about what kind of school a Free School is and explaining what its impact on the borough’s other schools is likely to be. He argued that existing evidence showed that Free Schools increase social segregation, increase damaging competition, sucking resources from other schools, and represent a decisive move toward breaking up local community school provision in preparation for privatisation. Most of all, unlike local authority schools they are unaccountable to the democratic public in the borough.

Jonathan finished by suggesting that campaigns coordinate their work better, not just around defensive campaigns to protect local authority schools from new Free Schools or forced academisation, but also around democratic ideas of education which can force schools outside of local authority control to take account of their local communities.

Mark Holding, a governor at Thomas Gamuel school, gave a moving account of how his school had been targeted by Ofsted and the Department of Education for academy conversion, in spite of the fact that it was a good school, initially on the basis of an administrative error. Ofsted and the DFE argued that TGP ought to become an academy sponsored by Barclay Academy, in spite of the fact that Barclay itself had only been converted recently, meaning that any benefits it brought as a sponsor were based on its achievements as a local authority school.

The main thrust of Mark’s talk was to highlight the widening gap between the idea of parental choice and the profoundly anti-democratic nature of academy conversion. At Thomas Gamuel, he explained, the governors, teachers and local parents had built a broad-based campaign which resulted in the governors voting to reject academy status, the parents voting by 95% on a 57% turnout to reject academy status and a mass petition from the community Yet in spite of the clear preferences of the entire school community, academy status is now being forced on Thomas Gamuel by an interim executive board and the DFE.

Mark finished by echoing the first speaker’s view that the real agenda here was about breaking up all structures of local democratic accountability to place community resources and assets in the hands of private companies and echoed the call for the building of broad-based, borough wide campaigns for a more equal, accountable and democratic system.

Kiri Tunks, a local parent, teacher and NUT activist finished the panel speeches by speaking about her veiw of Free Schools and Academies from these three perspectives. She stressed how Free Schools were taking resources from other schools by drawing money from the funds reserved to provide Central services for Local Authority schools, directly financially damaging our community schools. As a parent, she pointed to the experience of academies: academies do not raise standards, they have higher exclusion rates than community schools, they are poorer at providing for special needs pupils and, to echo the first two speakers, she re-emphasised, they are unaccountable. As a parent, she said, you have a democratic avenue for redress of your grievances with local authoriy schools – a right of appeal and a vote. With academies and free schools, there is no democratic route and no such democratic right.

Speaking as a teacher, she recounted how colleagues have experienced conversion to Academy status: attacks on terms and conditions, increased workloads, greater use of unqualified staff, higher staff turnover rates and less experienced headteachers. Kiri finished by stressing that coordination and planning of schools provision works, as shown by the success of London Challenge and the only beneficiaries of a competitive market in schools would be private education chains and companies who will look to profit from the system. She, like the earlier speakers stressed the need for campaigning that emphasised the need for a decent education for all children across all our schools.

In the discussion that followed several teachers gave their experience of academy conversion, echoing points made by Kiri. Speakers from WSSI argued that Oasis had been misrepresented and that there is a problem of schools provision in the borough. Speakers from the Anti-Academies Alliance called for support for the petition for the removal of Michael Gove (which can be found here). The chair finished by noting that the number of people who had wanted to speak was clear evidence of the demand for more meetings of this kind around education in the borough and saying that WFDSS would look to organise more soon.

Watch this space!