And I’d love to know who will run the school when the shit hits the fan (sorry – but I don’t know how else to put it.) Who will own the land, the buildings, the fixtures and fittings when (presumably) the toxic mess is dumped on the doorstep of the LA?

Just one year ago Caistor Yarborough School in Lincolnshire was found to be a good school with outstanding features. Then in August last year it converted to academy status. Now, as Caistor Yarborough Academy, it has just been put on ‘notice to improve’. The academy is disputing OFSTED’s judgement – you can read the story here.

What I suspect we are seeing here is not the rapid decline of a good school following academy conversion, it is simply the next step in Michael Gove’s plan for privatising education; stand-alone converter academies will be handed over to the big academy chains. Chains like Harris or Ark. These chains present as ‘charities’ but they all have profit-making arms. Even without the go-ahead yet to run their schools for profit (this will be the next step), there are plenty of opportunities for these organisations to benefit from ‘efficiencies’ they make in their…

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Budget Day ‘Dole Queue’ Demo

Assembling in Victoria Square, Birmingham, outside the Council House with its Pre-Raphaelite frieze and classical columns from 4pm were a group of people coming together to demonstrate against public sector cuts. The idea, replicated across the country today, kicked off by the event adjacent to Downing Street, London, in the morning was to form up as a ‘dole queue’ to signify the public sector job losses already signed and sealed, and in anticipation of the continuing attack on health, fire, police, armed forces, civil service, education and local government leaked in advance of the budget of March 21.
In Birmingham, this is what we did.
We had support from the PCS union, who supplied placards and organising skills. Banners in support of Columbian trade unionists, Moseley Baths, Birmingham Against The Cuts and Birmingham Uni students were in evidence and with various chant-leaders we started to make some noise.
At 4pm we were about 50 strong. At maximum the numbers swelled to around 75. Not a torrent but ideally located to be noticed. The event drew a crowd, and provided a training ground for aspiring chant-meisters. Believe me, ranting into a loud-hailer is far more difficult than it appears. If you don’t believe me, you try it sometime!
By 5pm, our peaceful, very British demo dispersed.
As with the candlelit vigil outside the Birmingham Children’s Hospital on Monday (19/3/12) evening there was no visible police presence, no sub-machine guns, no kettling, no aggro and no arrests.

event FB page link

Midlands PCS FB link

Birmingham Against The Cuts link

Candlelit Vigil for NHS

Following a flurry of micro blogging over the weekend a candlelit vigil in protest against the NHS Reform Bill began to form in Steelhouse Lane in Birmingham, outside the Children’s Hospital (formerly the General) and opposite the police station.
At 7.45pm when I arrived there were about half a dozen of us. Numbers started to increase. At around 8pm candles were lit and a number of speakers shared their experiences. The mood was calm, dignified, good-natured yet concerned.
By 9pm, when our hour was passed, we started to disperse. The numbers had swollen to around 70, bathed in candlelight, from different walks of life. Health service employees, users, teachers, seasoned campaigners, people making the first protest of their lives, male, female, young and not-so-young, ambulatory and those mobile thanks to sticks or wheelchair. The usual suspects were there but so too those for whom the Health Reform Bill has pushed, shyly, into direct action. Their first experience of exercising the right to make their opinions known will be positive. New friends, new alliances, new perspectives.
For those politicians and trade unionists who didn’t come – you missed an opportunity to network with your electors, members and potential members. Your absence was noticed. If you miss opportunities like this do not be surprised when people of this century treat you as an irrelevance. If you are seen to decline the initiative too often, the new activists will stop giving you that option.
They are perfectly able to organise themselves. An evening of protest repeated all over the country passed off without vandalism, kettling, riot-police and lawlessness. It arose not through weeks of planning but by a weekend of social networking.

link to the FB event page

“He (Cllr Dawkins) was then at pains to say that with coming investment it (Sirchley Library) would re-open for five days several years into the future…”

At a time, presumably, when the decision is not only out of his hands but also out of the hands of the ‘flagship’ Coalition council.

Birmingham Against The Cuts

The Coalition that runs Birmingham City Council (or rather, is running it into the ground), has decided to slash the library service opening hours. One of the libraries affected is in Stirchley. It is now proposed to close it on Fridays as well as on Wednesdays.
So, Stirchley and Cotteridge against the Cuts turned up on Thursday evening to let the staff, library users and local people know that there are people around who do not think that nothing can be done to stop such “cultural vandalism” (to use Councillor Dawkin’s description of the decision to move the Bournville School of Art out of Bournville).
As usual, people were keen to sign the petition and passing motorists were keen to honk in support.

Then, lo and behold, who should turn up but Councillor Dawkins himself! He announced that the decision to close it for an extra day was his, and…

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Read and be angry.

“Academy status for primary schools is totally untried and untested, but there are now 29 Primary schools across the city being threatened with forced academy status. Parents and community at most of these schools do not even know they are on the list, and the chances are that they will neither be told nor consulted. This is wrong.”

Hands Off Our School

I am starting a new group to bring parents and community across the city together to campaign for proper consultation on educational change, and I would like to invite you to get involved. As you may already be aware, parents’ experience of academy consultation in Birmingham has been seriously flawed with consultation often taking place after the decision has been made. For a fairly typical example see this post about the experience at Kingswinford School. A few of us have been fortunate in being able to make our voices heard at last – including my school community at Bournville School & Sixth Form Centre, but things are set to get a lot worse for parents across Birmingham.

In the 2011 Education Act the Secretary of State for Education gave himself new powers to bypass governing bodies and impose a sponsor of his own choice on schools. Michael Gove is…

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Missed this so I’m reblogging now because it is worth a read. Recent events – Downhills, Montgomery Primary – evidence the forced conversion strategy cranking up. Gogwit recommends…

Hands Off Our School

And a new phase of forced Academy conversion begins

A comparison of the DfE’s latest publication list of schools applying for Academy status with the list published in August shows that since August only 4 Birmingham schools have submitted applications to become Academies. Furthermore the current list up until December 2011 shows that last month no schools in Birmingham submitted an application at all, not one Birmingham school opened as a new Academy and no applications from Birmingham schools were approved by the DfE.

If this Wikipedia list of Birmingham’s schools is correct, there are 400 state schools in Birmingham – 296 Primary schools, 76 Secondary Schools and 28 Special Schools. Of these, 24 are Academies (7 Sponsored and 17 Converters). According to the DfE’s latest publication there are a potential 12 more in the pipeline. Assuming all 12 convert (which is by no means certain), that will make a…

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Wonder if the Big Screen will be broadcasting budget analysis so that the assembled can learn what else is in the pipeline to swell their numbers (after all you – sorry, we – are all in it together) and what Osborne has in his box to make life just that little bit less bearable.

Birmingham Against The Cuts

2.67 million people are now unemployed in the UK. Austerity is not working. On Wednesday 21st March, George Osborne will unveil his next budget, which we already know will continue to follow a policy of austerity, a policy which is failing the people of the UK and Birmingham.
On Wednesday 21st March, we will join PCS, Unison and Right to Work to protest these policies and call for the alternatives to cuts. Come to Victoria Square at 4pm, to form a dole queue stretching out from the council house.

Perhaps you are one of the 31,000 NHS ringfenced staff who have lost their jobs in the past year, or one of the other 270,000 public sector workers. Maybe you are one of the million 16-24year olds who cannot find work, or a private sector worker whose company has closed due to the recessions caused first by the…

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‘Could these three Councillors be the same ones who voted for £212 million cuts to the Birmingham City Council budget last year and £100 million cuts for next, and are part of the ruling coalition which is trying to privatise all of its leisure services, close children’s homes and decimate the Connexions service for young people?’

I think we should be told!

Birmingham Against The Cuts

At lunchtime today there was a stall and petitioning session outside the Bournville School of Art, which is leased by the Birmingham City University from the Bournville Village Trust.

This was to protest against the privatisation of the education service there, and the extra course costs that are being imposed on top of tuition fees for students. The stall was supported by Stirchley and Cotteridge against the Cuts.
The plan, that is being carried out without consultation, is to transfer the BA (Hons) Art and Design course to a new location in Margaret Street and the Edexcel foundation course to a new building in Eastside in 2013, and the two buildings on the Bournville Green would be used as a training base for foreign students, as a precursor to taking degree courses at Birmingham University. This lease is being handed over to Navitas, an Australian-based, for-profit education company, and they…

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Birmingham Against The Cuts

A local group of residents, workers and claimants has formed around Kings Heath to oppose workfare on our high streets.

You can keep up to date with them directly on facebook by liking their page: www.facebook.com/kingsheathagainstworkfare.

The first event is on Saturday (17th March) – a walk of shame around Kings Heath high street exposing the workfare profiteers.

Gather outside Poundland, on the corner of High Street and Institute Road from 1pm, to set off around 1:30pm for a walk along the high street, stopping off to expose the businesses and charities that use forced labour in their stores.

The next planning meeting is scheduled for Thursday 21st March, from 7pm-8pm at All Saints Centre, Kings Heath high street.. we are waiting for final confirmation on the date but it should be correct – just please check back on our upcoming events page, or the Kings Heath Against…

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And a new phase of forced Academy conversion begins

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