The government uses workfare and other training schemes to reduce the headline unemployment figure (the Labour Force Survey) and increasing numbers of people who are sanctioned are not included in the lower claimant count number. The move to a 4 week minimum, 3 year maximum sanction regime from the 22nd October will further act to reduce the claimant count, by reducing people to destitution.

With unemployment rising in the West Midlands, can we expect to see an increased push to force people into unpaid workfare schemes to claim unemployment is falling? Will we see…

This comes alongside news from a survey by the Guardian Teacher Network that large numbers of pupils are coming into school hungry, with nearly a sixth of teachers saying they spend up to £25/month of their own money on basic foodstuffs for the students…

WEA students Cathy Thomas and Sarah Nichols spoke at the launch of the Independent Inquiry into Family Learning last Friday.  NIACE organised the event on the theme of Forgotten Families: How learning in families contributes to a range of policy agendas.

Their tutor, Tracey Martin, and WEA Organiser, Trish Hollies, accompanied them as they joined the Princess Royal, members of the House of Lords, family learning practitioners, government department representatives and other adult students. I was also invited to speak about Family learning and its role in widening participation in adultlearning.

There’s more information about the Inquiry at http://www.niace.org.uk/current-work/family-learning-inquiry.

Carol Taylor from NIACE interviewed Sarah, Cathy and Emily Fearn, another successful adult learner from Croydon, as part of the event. Their moving first hand accounts showed the impact of family learning.

Cathy and Sarah, who are both from Yorkshire, wrote their own pen portraits before the event:

Cathy in her own words

I’m a 33-year-old, married mother of…

If the Labour Council do not quickly provide the £120,000 to keep open the three Citizens Advice Bureaux in Northfield, Kingstanding and Tyseley, the CAB in Corporation St (Gazette Buildings), will be the only one left in Birmingham. And this one is only open on three days itself, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Having done very successful stalls in Cotteridge and Northfield, and already having handed in a 427 name petition to the Northfield Ward Committee, Communities Against the Cuts teamed up with Birmingham Against the Cuts to hold a stall close to the Corporation St CAB today, at the Old Square.

Despite the footfall being down in that area due to the roadworks and diversion of bus routes, over a hundred names were collected in less than two hours. It was once again remarkable how many people not only knew about the CAB, but how many had used their services…

Around 2,000-3,000 people gathered on the streets on Birmingham last weekend to demonstrate for an alternative economic strategy to austerity, as the 2012 Tory conference started in the ICC.

Birmingham Against The Cuts joined Birmingham NUT to meet on the High Street to march up to join the TUC, who had moved the start location to Victoria Square. We waited until 11am to pick up anyone who didn’t know about the change, and then marched up the High Street and New Street to Victoria Square, joined on the way by students from the local universities, making this an impromptu education feeder march of around 100 people. This was very lively with chanting and although it was a Sunday morning there were a fair number of people around whose attention we definitely drew.

At Victoria Square the TUC had formed up but waited for us to arrive, and we joined…

The following was published as part of the previous post about the parent victory at West Heath Primary, but it deserves its own post, so here it is again with a bit of added detail;

 

A recent Local Authority Fortnightly Academy Summary Sheet shows that 63 Primary Schools are in the process of converting. With the 19 that have already converted this represents a total of 27% of Primary Schools in Birmingham. The vast majority of these are being forced to convert and will have been acting in total secrecy from parents and the community. Only the DfE and the Local Authority know in advance which schools are being targeted for forced academy conversion, but this information is deemed confidential until the deal has been done. 34 schools in the process of converting are named, but 29 schools are unnamed because they are still negotiating with sponsors and…

Governors, Headteachers, and above all the new administration at Birmingham City Council take note – West Heath parents have shown there is everything to fight for.

On 26th September West Heath parents learned that they had won their campaign against forced academy. Sadly the Headteacher and Governors fell at the first post, caving in to pressure from the DfE, but parents simply refused to accept what was being imposed upon them and stood up to Gove. Congratulations to Edna Dawson and all the parents who have campaigned long and hard for their school.

Parents had been campaigning to save their community school since May 2012, but the good news came when they were least expecting it. The fortnight leading up to their victory had been a rollercoaster of emotions for parents.  On 13th September they were informed by  their Councillor Brett O’Reilly that the Head Teacher and Chair of Governors…

Here’s a guest blog by Mary Hunter. Mary has a voluntary role in our senior governance as the WEA’s Association Committee Representative from the West Midlands Region.

About Mary

I started teaching, after a career in banking, a few years after the publication of Gagne’s “Conditions of learning”. As a linguist I have been involved in the development of language courses, worked at the (then) Schools Council on the Normal and Further Level Proposals for a new Sixth form curriculum, so worked across the subject spectrum. Later I was heavily involved in developing with my colleagues courses  run under the aegis  of the City and Guilds, B/Tec , GNVQ s, CPVE – ie. working with Sixth formers on the more pre-vocational path. During two years work with the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative I worked extensively on the development of the relevant skills curriculum, providing courses for teachers .

I continued my involvement in these areas after my formal…

This government attacks disabled people on benefits, cutting support and declaring as many as possible to be fit for work and not entitled to any support at all. They say they are doing this to help people back into work but at the same time they close Remploy, which was set up after world war two to provide supported employment for returning soldiers disabled in the war.

In the West Midlands the factories in Birmingham and Coventry supply the automotive…