Month: Apr 2012

Scrap Workfare!
Create Real Jobs!
Restore EMA!
Save Connexions!
Stop the Privatisation of Leisure Centres!

Now that’s what I call an agenda.
Are any candidates standing on that manifesto?

Birmingham Against The Cuts

Local group Stockland Green Against the Cuts, supported by Youth Fight For Jobs are organising a Youth Jobs March on Saturday 19th May, assembling 11am outside the Co-op on Erdington High Street.

  • Scrap Workfare!
  • Create Real Jobs!
  • Restore EMA!
  • Save Connexions!
  • Stop the Privatisation of Leisure Centres

    • No education, no jobs, no homes, no services. This is the bleak future that young people face. We are expected to pay for a crisis caused by the rotten system we live under.

    There are currently 1 million 18-14 year olds out of work. This joblessness is a result of the ConDem austerity yet the government tries to punish the unemployed by forcing them to work for their dole. This gives their big business mates the opportunity to get some work done on the cheap.

    The cap on tuition fees has been raised to £9,000 a year, pricing many working…

    View original post 207 more words

    Ask Parents First

    Birmingham local elections 2012

    A report by APF parent Mohammed Ashraf

    In the Sparkbrook ward of Birmingham, local election candidates were invited to participate in hustings so that voters could ask them questions. It was disappointing that the Labour and Green party candidates were the only ones to show up and this kind of summed up for me how much they care about this election.  A question was put forward with reference to the fact that there are currently 3 schools in Sparkbrook that have been forced to become Academies;

    ‘Firstly what are your views on academies, and if elected would you support parents and the community if they opposed a forced academy?’

    Both candidates were swift to pledge their support if the community felt they didn’t want their schools to become academies and said that they would do their best to challenge an undemocratic decision. They also each gave…

    View original post 90 more words

    The clear point that is often missed in current popular debate on education is that our system has lost its way. The existing state system has been failing since the early 1980s and the current process of opting out of the state system involves moving to ad hoc provision with no direction. Some form of alternative manifesto is required.

    Ask Parents First

    We are very excited to have been invited to contribute our thoughts and ideas to an innovative project called Edchange2012. The project aims to develop a dialogue in creating an alternative view and manifesto for education in England.

    The Edchange2012 group intends to canvas as widely as they can over the next few months to develop, change and add to their ideas. Phil Wood and Joan Smith, both academics at the University of Leicester, will be visiting the Ask Parents First group in June to run a workshop with the APF parents to gather their views on educational futures.

    Edchange2012’s initial ideas cover a diverse range of issues including;

    • Learning Approaches
    • Curriculum and Assessment
    • School structures and systems
    • Teachers as learners, collaborators and researchers
    • Centrality on development for all
    • Equal Access
    • Inclusion
    • Faith
    • Community
    • Schools as socially just places
    • Social change

    You can read more and comment on the ‘undigested’…

    View original post 7 more words

    Though a pale shadow of the old May Day march from Chamberlain Square to the rally in the TU Resource Centre (as was) in Digbeth, still got to be worth a look in.

    Birmingham Against The Cuts

    Birmingham Trades Union Council invites you to celebrate May Day 2012, with events on Saturday 5th May. Please join and invite friends to the facebook event

    Stalls & live music on Birmingham city centre High Street (in front of Waterstones near the Bullring), 12pm – 2pm.

    Evening social at the Bright House, Hill Street, B5 4AN, 4pm – 11pm.

    Speakers on anti-fascism, traveller solidarity, UK Uncut direct action, DPAC, pensioner activism, the Battle of Saltley Gate, struggles in Greece, council cuts & more.

    Special guests: GMB strikers from Swindon hospital (invited) & blacklisted rank ‘n’ file construction activist Dave Smith.

    Films from Reel News, stalls & food throughout the evening.

    Music from Redbeard (Birmingham rap), Broken Dialect (Wolves hiphop)
    & The Dementors (skiffle).

    FREE ENTRY

    View original post

    Birmingham Against The Cuts

    In advance of the forthcoming Birmingham City Council Elections on the 3rd May Birmingham Against the Cuts wrote to all candidates for their position of 5 pledges:
    • To support the campaign to oppose the privatisation of our leisure services (as advertised in the European Journal), and to work to ensure that no other public services are privatised, outsourced, or mutualised.
    • To support the campaign to oppose any reduction in local library services (including opening hours)
    • To support the campaign to oppose any closures in our Children Homes, Nurseries and Sure Start centres
    • To support the campaign to oppose the reduction in Connexions and Youth Services by working to re-open offices for young people in the areas of highest unemployment and arguing to reinstate pre 2008 funding levels as youth unemployment reaches record levels.
    • To support the campaign against public service job cuts and to ensure quality public services are…

    View original post 748 more words

    Support, if you are able. I hope to get there, commitments allowing.

    Birmingham Against The Cuts

    Communities Against The Cuts, who are standing candidates in the Kings Norton and Bournville wards for the council elections on May 3rd, are holding a rally and march, followed by a social event on Friday 27th April.

    The rally, demonstrating against cuts in the wards concerned and to raise the profile of their candidates, meets at 5:30pm outside Kings Norton Leisure Centre, where speakers will talk about the effect of cuts on local services, before proceeding along the Pershore Road to the Cotteridge Neighbourhood Office, where Stirchley and Cotteridge Against The Cuts began their campaign, and then to the Stirchley Community School to hear about the privatisation of our education services.
    The march will finish opposite Stirchley Library, at the group’s campaign offices.

    After the rally, they will go across the road to the British Oak for a social event with music and comedy from No More…

    View original post 37 more words

    Cannot be there in person but share your distaste and happy to retweet, reblog and take the digital…

    StopMfE

    The ‘March for England’ will return to Brighton on Sunday 22nd April. We, as Brighton & Hove residents, are calling for all locals to oppose the march and the racist, fascist ideals it promotes under the guise of patriotism. We want people to harangue, mock and disrupt the march – together we will drown out their racist message.

    View original post

    %d bloggers like this: