I was greeted at the door by someone trying to thrust a Socialist Worker in my face. I told him I had come to hear about children's education, not party politics... Not a great start but I was happy to stay and hear what folk had to say.
The speakers, as shown left to right in this picture were:Anna Thorne (a parent of 2 year 7 boys at Oxford School)
Larry Sanders (Green Party County Councillor for East Oxford and current Governor of Oxford School)
Liz Brighouse (Labour County Councillor for Barton & Churchill)
Chris Blakey (a member of the NUT national executive)
Gawain Little (NUT Oxford, President)
M Altaf Khan (LibDem Councillor for Headington and Marston)
Chris Blakey chaired the meeting and it started with statements from each of the speakers which I'll attempt to summarise:
Anna
Has 2 kids in year 7 at Oxford School. Feels passionately that children's education should take place in a setting that reflects the local community.
Worried that an academy would reduce the amount of say the community has in the the running of the school and makes the school far less accountable to the community.
ULT is a Christian organisation and although the academy would not be a faith school it would be run with a Christian ethos and Anne belives this would mean there was no choice other than Christian Schools in this area and that would be inappropriate given the large diversity of culture and faith in East Oxford.
Consultation has been almost non-existent so far and shows a total lack of democracy. The official consutlation period is too late (not even started yet) and too short.
Parents, governors and teachers are not getting access to the information they need to form a proper view about the proposals.
Land is also an important issue as it involves giving some of Cowley Marsh park over to the proposed academy and loses the current buildings which do not need replacing. This is environmentally questionable at best. Traffic access to a super-academy on the Oxford School site would also be dangerous and problematic.
Gawain
There is no evidence that academies raise standards or improve attainment. The only thing that can be shown to increase this is extra resources, including funding, for schools.
New legislation has removed the need for sponsoring bodies to pay any money for taking on academies and the Government has also cut the money available to the academies programme, while not decreasing the proposed number of academies.
These factors can only mean less resource for schools and poorer education for our children.
Oxford School is improving already, with excellent improvement in GCSE results this year.
A 3-19 academy is not necessarily a good idea and it's probably about the Local Authority just getting free land rather than necessarily in the best interests of the local children.
Evidence nationally shows that schools succeed best when they are full integrated into, and are part of, the local community.
With an academy there is no obligation to have community governors and there only has to be one parent governor.
The NUT supports the principle of a good local school for every child.
Larry
There are lots of factors working against Oxford School including local poverty and the fact that many local people don't have English as a first language. Despite this Oxford School has leapt forward in performance recently. Exam results have improved and the school as enthusiasm, vibrancy, ambition and positive multiculturalism. Why is the Local Authority putting this at risk?
The ULT is failing.
It is true that the LA needs a new primary school but the only motivation for putting it on the Oxford School site seems to be to get free land. The academy proposal also enables the LA to sell off some of the existing school site (including the perfectly good 1930's buildings) for money to a property developer.
Altaf
The process for the expression of interest has been terrible. There was confusion in a meeting of the full County Council about exactly which EOI was being considered. Consultation with elected members of the LA representing the catchment areas was non-existent.
The Governors have been kept in the dark by the LA. It has been unclear and evasive about information.
Questions asked about the proposals in County Cabinet meetings have not received clear and unequivocal answers.
Different options for Oxford School need to be considered, not just the ULT academy proposal.
Children have one chance in life for decent schooling and the LA needs to take this on board.
About 50% of the current Oxford School governors have resigned.
The feasibility study will be discussed at a County Scrutiny meeting on Monday 5th October at 3pm. It is a public meeting but if members of the public wish to speak they need to apply to do so by 9am on Friday 2nd October. This is even then only at the discretion of the (Tory) chair of the committee. The expression of interest, and the report to the County Cabinet are available online.
Liz
Has been a supporter of academies but doesn't think it's a good proposal for Oxford School.
Oxford School and Cheney School are at the top of the "Building Schools for the Future" programme list (I'm afraid I can't make much sense of the BSF website).
Liz said that GCSE results were much lower in 1979 (odd - I thought the first GCSEs were in 1988). I don't think I understood the point.
Liz has emailed me a useful clarification: "I have been involved in Education in this City since 1977 and know exactly when the GCSE came in I was comparing results from 1993 until last year. I also know in a fair amount of detail the choices of school made at transfer by the parents of children living in the City and reported that to the meeting and challenged the community too support the school, I went on to say that Andrew Smith was supporting the setting up of a Co-operative Trust School and had already written to the Sec of State, this was confirmed by a member of the audience who had received a letter from the DCSF saying that Andrew had been involved."
Cheney and St. Gregory's are always over-subscribed but Oxford School is normally on open enrolment. Liz suspects the academy proposal is so that the LA can siphon BSF money for other areas of the County. Liz would be getting Andrew Smith MP to lobby DCSF about this proposal.
Others
There was then general discussion in support of the campaign. The thing that I noted with most worry is the statement of ULT's charitable objectives on the Charities Commission website. I quote: "THE TRUST'S OBJECT ("THE OBJECTS") ARE TO ADVANCE FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, IN PARTICULAR BUT WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING BY ESTABLISHING MAINTAINING CARRYING ON, MANAGING AND DEVELOPING SCHOOLS OFFERING A BROAD CURRICULUM WITH A STRONG EMPHASIS ON, BUT IN NO WAY LIMITED TO EITHER ONE, OR A COMBINATION OF THE SPECIALISMS SPECIFIED IN THE RELEVANT FUNDING AGREEMENT, IN ALL CASES TO INCLUDE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE DOCTRINE AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY PRINCIPALLY AS THE SAME ARE TAUGHT BY THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BUT ALSO SENSITIVE TO THE TEACHINGS ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF OTHER CHRISTIAN COMMUNIONS AND DENOMINATIONS"
What worries me is that this says nothing about those of faiths other than Christianity and there are many families and Children of other faiths in East Oxford. How will ULT deal with that?
The thing that I think is most important is that the local community be mobilised to stand alongside the school and support it in all the good work it is doing. I think Gawain's point about schools thriving when they are actively and meaningfully integrated with the local community is absolutely key.
The group has an excellent website at http://www.saveoxfordschool.com/ and it has some extremely useful documents including:
- Things you can do to help
- Some Common Questions and Answers
- Petition to print and get friends, neighbours etc. to sign
Many other people spoke and the evening ended with a roundup by members of the panel. Comments welcome and if you are a speaker I have misrepresented please let me know without delay and I'll change this post.
3 comments:
Thanks for this, Tony: it's a lucid account of what I thought was an excellent meeting. It's pretty clear that there's a groundswell of support for Oxford School, which I hope the local community can capitalise on to mutual advantage - and an active campaign is the only way to make sure the County Council listens, which it's so far shown little inclination to do. It's good that people aren't letting the victory over St Christopher's lull them into a false sense of security!
As the guy who was selling Socialist Worker, I don't recall shoving the newspaper in anyone's face. Lets have some honesty and less sectarian sniping. In my opinion anyone who claims that public policy towards education is "non political" is either lying or stupid or both.
Giles Ji Ungpakorn (socialist and parent at SS Mary & John)
Socialist worker man had clearly not read what I posted. I said I was not at the meeting for PARTY POLITICS, not that I was not interested in politics. Of course education is a political matter. I was just disgusted to see someone try to hijack an important meeting about the future of our local kids for his own party political purposes.
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