Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey schools to get a substantial increase in funding from 2013/14
The government today announced that Haringey will be treated as an inner London borough for the purposes of mandatory teachers pay, which will bring it in line with neighbours such as Camden, Hackney and Islington. Haringey has been legally required to pay its teachers inner London salaries even though it receives outer London funding. Our schools are now set to benefit from substantial additional funding from 2013/14. In Hackney, they receive £1500 more per pupil per year, than we do in Haringey.
More on the story from The Journal, here.
Tags for Forum Posts: fair_funding_for_haringey, schools
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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If my terminology is wrong Alan I'd appreciate it if you could correct and enlighten me (and possibly others as ignorant as me) from the benefit of your experience as both a councillor and a former school governor.
Often those posting on HoL are willing to share the benefit of their experience for the general good. It's a similar principle to your (sensible) recommendation that those making FoIs should do so via the What Do They Know website, in order that the information can be widely shared.
You're not normally so reticent about matters that concern the community. Am I wrong to think you're in a good position to describe what Special Measures is about?
(to this outside observer, the legal action over Downhills & the Secretary of State for Education looks like a wrestle)
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, you've already had lots of information and advice; plus suggestions for people you can speak to.
When it comes to getting basic facts right you have a responsibility to do some of the work and thinking for yourself. Then you can be like the cab driver described by Stewart Lee.
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Alan I can only guess at why you're telling me to go away and do my homework and attempting to bury my questions.
That's well and good but these are not trivial questions to be dismissed. The questions aren't my private interest as you imply, but asked in the full knowledge that we're talking about the education of children in this Borough and about the spending of large amounts of public funds and about the system failing some pupils.
These are matters of genuine public interest.
With commendable candour, you said that you were a governor at a school that had gone/taken/been wrested into Special Measures. That doesn't sound like a recommendation, but I would have thought that nonetheless, you'd have valuable experience to share.
I would also have thought that my "responsibility" as a private citizen in this subject was rather less than a councillor and former school governor.
And that these matters have aroused controversy. If some of your colleagues are trying to improve education in the Borough, then I wish them luck.
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No guesswork, Clive. And I'm not telling you to "go away". Nor trying "to bury" your questions. You're asking very basic factual questions.
I gave you some answers. So did David Barry. David answered in detail, sharing his personal knowledge and views.
Clive, you are an intelligent, well-educated (I assume) active citizen. Don't you think there's a point when you have to stop saying you're from New Zealand and don't know about all this? And do some work yourself to find things out?
I made several suggestions about websites where you can learn more about these issues. I've urged you to talk to your fellow LibDem party members about the school governing bodies they sit on. I suggested you arrange to watch a governing body meeting at your nearest school.
Here's another suggestion. The London Review of Books has a good article by Ross McKibbin: "Call that a Coalition" which describes - among other things - how:
"The right to determine the relationship between schools and society (or employment services and society, or prisons and society) is being removed from elected institutions, gathered up by Whitehall and parcelled out to friends and supporters of the ruling party. It is a fundamental attack on democratic politics, and one carried out as much by New Labour as by the Tories."
Or perhaps like Stewart Lee's taxi driver, you aren't really interested in facts because you find they tend to cloud your judgement?
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Permalink Reply by David Barry on
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I make no claim to be an expert in the field of education; I do know about a few bits of the system by virtue of having been a school governor for a number of years. That in itself should carry a health warning as I have only been a governor at one school, and that in one particular borough. I have also been a chair of governors for a while which has involved a lot of "learning by doing"... So what I can say in response to your questions is going to be a mixture of statements that I believe to be true, but I may be relying on memory, and of course, opinions. These last may be more or less well informed. So this is an open invitation to contest what I am about to write.
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I was a bit depressed when I saw this posting, as I thought it implied that what I was writing was not being read or understood. Happens on occasion... But anyway I then realised that we have two sets of postings here -these and the "Ode to Michael Gove" ones. responding to email prompts I have been putting posts HERE when perhaps they should have been THERE. But in brief.
Schools are mainly run by Heads
Heads are accountable to the Governing Body. No one else.
The Governing Body is independent of, and not controlled by the Local Authority.
The Local Authority gets to appoint a minority of Governors as being democratically elected; it has a role in being a stakeholder for the community at large. (But as they are only a minority they do not control the GB)
When a school is put into special measures(by OFSTED) and the decision is then made to replace the Governors they are normally people appointed by the LEA. So "Control" is "wrested" from the Governors and transferred to the Local Authority.
In the Downhills case, unusually, control has been taken from the Governors and transferred to the Secretary of State.
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Your example of the Grieg City Academy is interesting; I have just had a look at there Governing Body and I suspect the composition is little changed from when it was a Church of England Voluntary Aided(?) school. The Church of England sponsors this Academy and has its own internal structures of accountability through the Deanery Synod. Representatives chosen by observant members of the Church of England by secret ballot and the Single Transferable Vote. And so forth. So there is an "elected institution" involved.
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by the way when you say that "
'Greig City Academy has a far better spread of governors in my opinion and is not political "
can I ask better spread of governors than what?
Regarding being political, I can only say that the Governing Body I chair has not ever, in my experience, been political.
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Billy, others will groan at me mentioning Ally Pally again, but your point about a supposed mandate is well taken with regards to the governance of our Charitable Trust.
Since LBH assumed the Trusteeship in 1980, this giant building and park has been in the direct control and domination of a single political party. Charities aren't supposed to work like this.
Things became so politicised at our charitable trust, that most residents could be forgiven for thinking that it was a council department, because that's how it was run.
In the 2006-07 term, a former Council Leader (disgraced Cllr. Charles Adje) acting as Chairman, was able to gather power around him so tightly, that he caused a disastrous Licence (to a developer) to be produced.
Fairly directly, that led to the burning of millions of tax payers' money. The 15-year policy of sale of AP (after exhaustive due dligence, to a former slum landlord) was one party's policy and that had already led to the burning of many more millions.
There's been significant improvements since the darkest days of 2007 and the Occupation by Firoka but even today, four years later, there is still not a single independent member on the council committee known as the Trust Board.
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The Trust Board meets at AP this evening at 19:30 and part of it is open to the public (before they go into private/EXEMPT period, where press and public are excluded). I'm pleased to say that frequently, meetings are in the re-named Transmitter Hall.
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Clive you give me a good example.
I would take it that if the AP trustees was constituted like a school governing body; 17 persons consisting of the AP manager 6 people chosen by regular users of Ally Pally, 3 chosen by the staff, four coopted, and four appointed by the council (three labour and one lib dem) you would experience it as a rather different body?
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First Special Measures.
This is an OFSTED thing. OfSted inspects schools at intervals. These days schools get just two days notice and a team of Inspectors comes in. They go through all the paperwork, observe lessons, talk to staff and pupils. A questionnaire is sent out to parents. if they have time they may talk to the chair of governors, if they are available. They do two things:-
1.They make a judgement which involves putting schools in a category. The highest category is outstanding, the lowest is special measures, with various gradations in between. A combination of an external audit and an examination result with both degrees of pass and fail.
2. They make recommendations regarding what needs to be improved, acting like an external consultant. This second function is the most constructive bit. (The two Ofsted inspections I have experienced since Ashmount School was formed from an Infants' and a Juniors' school were very useful in this respect. They effectively wrote the School Improvement Plan for the governing body; in the case of the first inspection which took place when there was no Head the Ofsted report was the brief for the new Head. This positive experience made up for a previous encounter with Ofsted when they inspected Ashmount Infants' and produced a draft report that contained some nonsense inspired it would seem by the peculiar religious beliefs of the Lead Inspector.)
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David many thanks for taking the time and trouble to make detailed comments, based on your experience as a School Governor and which I think will be helpful to many readers.
Can I bother you with a couple more questions:
How great is the influence of the National Union of Teachers and does this influence constitute an informal political influence? Does this influence sometimes serve to protect poor teachers?
What is the difference that Governors make or can make? (I'm really trying to understand how significant they are in the scheme of things).
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