Academies

A hundred people attended Heartsease High School in Norwich to launch a campaign against proposals to turn the school into Norwich’s first City Academy. The meeting was chaired by local Labour MP Ian Gibson, who has come out firmly against the Academy. The Division Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the region’s NUT Executive member were there, along with local teachers, parents (and some students), councillors and governors. Two members of the Anti-Academies Alliance spoke about the chaos caused by the switch from being a community school to becoming an Academy. The meeting...

By a teacher The Anti-Academies Alliance Conference was held at the Institute of Education on Saturday 25th November. Over 200 teachers, headteachers and young people attended the event to discuss the ongoing and escalating fight against the recently voted Education and Inspections Bill which allows private institutions to run state funded schools. The flagship policy is encapsulated by the City Academy, which allows wealthy backers to set the ethos and "adapt" the National curriculum to their prejudices. Stephen Ball, a Professor of Sociology at the Institute, spoke at the conference calling...

This union notes 1. The recent visit by Tony Blair to Quintin Kynaston school in North London in the midst of speculation over his leadership of the Labour Party and future as Prime Minister. 2. The growing opposition to government policy on trust schools, privatisation and war in Iraq and Lebanon. 3. That Mr Blair was met by a demonstration supported by the local NUT, Unison and School Students Against the War. 4. That Robin Sivapalan, a teaching assistant at Quintin Kynaston, has been suspended from work as a result of his participation in the demonstration. This union believes 1. That the...

Thursday September 7 2006 Many of you will be aware that Prime Minister Tony Blair and Education Secretary Alan Johnson are visiting our school today. They are here to celebrate their new agenda for education in England. QK school will be at the forefront of the first wave of 20 or 30 schools to be removed from local democratic control and handed over to big business and religious organisations as "Trust Schools" - as outlined in the recently passed Education and Inspections Bill 2006. On hearing of this visit, I thought about the many issues at stake and took the decision to inform the wider...

By Tom Unterrainer The Department for Education and Skills has pulled off an astonishing act. They've managed to convince Nottingham City Local Education Authority (LEA) to effectively write itself out of responsibility for secondary education in the city - and all by promising "record" investment. The story of how this has happened and the impact it will have on teachers and students reads like farce turned into tragedy, but in fact it's little more than the bitter fruits of a very deliberate policy. In 2004/2005 the government instructed LEAs to assess education provision and need with a...

by Janine Booth Hackney desperately needs more secondary school places. Around 40% of youngsters go out of the borough to secondary school. This is a totally unacceptable situation which causes stress to our kids and our families. The shortage of places left 83 Hackney 11-year-olds with no secondary school place at the start of this term. Mossbourne Here in central Hackney, we have a new school - Mossbourne (pictured). But lots of local kids are finding that they can’t get places there. The school has refused places to applicants who live just a stone’s throw away, and even to those whose...

A national campaign has been launched against City Academy schools. These are (usually new) schools which are, in return for minimal financial sponsorship are managed entirely by businesses or religious groups outside of any local community control. The campaign wants to press the TUC, the NUT and other teaching unions to launch a national conference and demo as agreed at last month’s TUC conference. Contact the campaign via Birmingham NUT at banut@btclick.com The Abortion Rights Campaign is organising a meeting on “Defend a woman’s right to choose!” on Wednesday 26 October, 7-9pm, Committee...