Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Forced Primary Academies - Haringey primary schools face threat of forced conversion to academies
Readers of Harringay Online may have seen the banner outside Downhills Primary School, Philip Lane (near West Green Common).
The issue is now more public with radio interviews and increasing press interest. It's contentious and – as HoL rules prevent party politicking – I’ll try to give a factual and non-partisan view.
For people who don’t know, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, strongly believes in schools becoming academies independent of their local authority. He is insisting that hundreds of English primary schools become academies. For Haringey, this means the Government plans to force, at minimum, four primary schools to be academies: Downhills; Nightingale; Noel Park and Coleraine Park.
(Originally the Department for Education (DfE) list was looking at some 19/20 twenty schools; a list later halved.)
Governing Bodies, which include elected parents, as well as Council nominated, and independent community governors, have been told to agree to academy status within the next couple of weeks. If they don’t, they will be replaced by an ‘Interim Executive Board’ appointed by Mr Gove. This will convert each school to an academy, along with its land and buildings leased for 125 years.
The argument is that these are “under-performing schools”. The benchmark used is the SATS results. This judgement has been challenged. Not least because the DfE retrospectively changed the criteria for assessing under-performance over the previous 5 years.
Though even using Mr Gove’s own criteria it’s clear that not one Haringey primary school is amongst the poorest performing 200 in England. As a school governor myself I am no defender of poor performance and low expectations. But nor do I ignore very real factors such as population mobility and pupil turnover; and the lower funding compared to Inner London boroughs.
Nor do I think anyone can seriously dispute that there’s a contradiction between the aim of “localism” and giving more power to parents, and to the professionals - heads and teachers- with a blanket refusal to listen to the stated views of each school.
So far, parents and governors at Downhills School have been highly critical of the forced academy plan. But clearly, full and proper consultation with all parents is essential at this and the other three schools.
Governors at Downhills are taking the first steps to seek a judicial review of the way Mr Gove has made his decision.
David Lammy MP has been very supportive to Downhills and has now secured a debate in Parliament for January 12. He is presenting a petition to Parliament and needs as many signatures as possible. These must be signed on paper. So if you feel strongly on this issue and are concerned about the implications for Haringey’s primaries please download it from his website here.
Governors, parents, and other local residents are taking part in a public campaign. There will be street stalls on Saturday 7 January. So please come along, to discuss the issues, get information and sign the petition if you agree.
There’s also a public meeting for Monday 9 January. Again, please come to hear first hand what’s happening. It’s at Downhills School, Philip Lane 7pm, Monday January 9.
To get more information online please click these links to the Haringey Campaign Against Academies, which has the flyer on it, the Anti-Academies Alliance and a Guardian article about Downhills.
Zena Brabazon
Councillor St. Ann's Ward, and School Governor (Seven Sisters Primary and Rowland HIll Nursery School and Children's Centre)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by dawnage on
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From your point of view and from the point of view of anyone who has the vaguest understanding of how to measure success in schools.
Absolutely, value added is the key thing: the best schools in this country are not the ones with the greatest number of A* grades, they are the schools which take their pupils the greatest difference, adding the most value.
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Dear Justin,
You need to check your facts. In 2011, 61% of students at Downhills achieved L4+ in En & M, up from 40% in 2009 with 100 score of value added, meaning that all students made expected progress regardless of their starting points. This is above the floor targets and I make 14 primaries in Harringay who achieved lower. There is no obvious reason for this happening in this school at this speed. Indeed there are 2400 primaries which are worse performers nationally.
Successful academies have the same formula as successful state schools (but with more money and better buildings) but they are unaccountable and are not sustainable long term models for school improvement. There are better and more cost effective ways of delivering this outcome.
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Well done to Downhills community for taking this stand. I wish you great success.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Report from the BBC about today's march and protest at civic centre here
Photo here via Twitter
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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1st April 2012: We expected the latest news, but it still comes as a terrible shock.Just after midnight, Secretary of State Michael Gove used his very wide statutory powers to pull the rug from under Haringey Council's leadership. He imposed an ICB (Interim Covering Board).The first three members are Sir Matt Underlay, Dame Ann Teake-Kilim, and Lord Harris of Axminster.Further members will be rolled out later today. We understand that Lady Durri has also been approached to serve on the new Board.
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Thanks for this Alan. I'm sure Sir Michael Wiltonshaw of Ofsted Stairrods Unlimited would have been glad to serve if only he had been invited. As a Catholic Academician, though, Palm Sunday may have found him busy.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan my sense is that sponsorship is not the ideal solution to the problems of some of Haringey's schools.
But thanks to your comments in a similar thread, I'm beginning to understand why the Government felt compelled to intervene (even if I remain unconvinced by their chosen model). I hope it works for the sake of the children and not for the sake of anyone's ideology.
If there's a political dimension to the solution ("closed-minded ideologues") then it could be because there's a political dimension to the problem (perhaps ideologues whose minds are not open).
I appreciate this is likely to be a minority viewpoint, but IMO the sooner that schooling is taken out of any and all local political control, the better.
Education in the borough is a matter of wide, genuine, legitimate public interest. It's not about any one person's lack of knowledge of education jargon. Answers have been provided to questions that I didn't ask - a politician tactic - and its surprised me that the opportunity hasn't been taken to better set out the case for the status quo.
There seems to be an inability to address squarely, or at all, the reasons that lie behind Special Measures. My guess is these reasons may be:
- Cronyism
- Complacency
- Low expectations
- Satisfaction with low standards
Was it wholly capricious of the Government to implement Special Measures and an Academy, as you suggest?
As far as I can tell, it is the Special Measures-history that led to the imposition of Academies.
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Permalink Reply by David Barry on
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People interested in this discussion may be interested in this one also;
http://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/the-oak-school-proposed...
Its about a proposal to set up a "Free School" -legally the same structure as an Academy, to be run by a for profit company, using land requisitioned from Islington.
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