Peers Academy plans explained
Labour councillors reject call to put children’s interests first
Local New Labour politicians have welcomed plans to turn Peers Technology College into an Academy school, run by BMW, the Church of England, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford & Cherwell Valley College and the Beechcroft Trust, a property developer which specialises in retirement homes.
When asked why the school has to be privatised, apologists for the Labour government such as county councillor Val Smith point towards the £25 million investment Peers will receive as a result. Who wouldn’t welcome this?
However, Cllr Smith has nothing to say on the question of why her government is insisting that the school should be removed from democratic control and handed over to a consortium of private, unaccountable organisations just to receive the investment that it badly needs and deserves.
A more immediate concern for Blackbird Leys parents is the fear that poorer performing kids from the estate will be weeded out in order to artificially improve results and make it look like standards have improved. Evidence from existing Academies suggests these schools tend to reduce their intake of working class children.
Supporters of the Academy plans have argued that the new school would not select pupils on ability but there are unofficial as well as official ways for a school to choose the pupils it wants and keep out others.
Children currently at Peers have been promised that there would be a place for them in a new Academy. However, nothing has been said about what will happen in one or two years’ time. Some existing Academies have exclusion rates three or four times those of normal schools—a key way of keeping working class kids out.
Despite paying lip service to ‘consultation’ with local parents, Labour politicians have routinely refused to debate these issues.
Amongst the list of the Academy’s cheerleaders from New Labour, who bottled it when faced with a public debate on the issue are Lord Adonis (the government’s ‘expert’ on the issue), Councillors Barbara Gatehouse, Val Smith and Antonia Bance.
Only Littlemore councillor John Tanner—who initially opposed academies but has now fallen in line with the rest of his party—agreed to participate in a televised ‘debate’ with the Anti-Academy Alliance. But instead of attempting to engage with the issues, Tanner typically used the opportunity of ‘summing up’ to dispense a number of half-truths and misinformation about academies, leaving viewers more confused than ever.
In case anyone thinks that this is all just about getting new investment for Peers—something the IWCA had been been calling for before Academies were even mentioned—it’s worth mentioning that Labour councillors actually opposed a city council motion, put forward by the Greens on 25 June and seconded by the IWCA, to persuade the government to fund investment in Peers whether it becomes an Academy or not.
It is also worth remembering that Cllr Val Smith, as a governor of the school, had nothing to say about Peers’ sore need of investment when it was going from bad to worse.
Presumably this was all part of New Labour’s tactic of blackmailing parents and teachers into accepting its academy agenda as a condition of funding—money the school should be entitled to anyway.
Apathy result of years of neglect
After the poor response to a public consultation on the proposed Academy at Peers the Oxford Mail was quick to brand local residents ‘apathetic’ (‘Academy of apathy’, 4 September).
Consultants working for the county council apparently distributed 4,000 information brochures to homes in the Peers’ catchment area but only 22 responses were returned.
However, a number of Leys residents said they never received the brochures. Others told the Oxford Mail that they hadn’t been told enough about the Academy plans. Many also felt it was already a done deal—the sponsors had appointed a new headteacher for the Academy before the consultation had even started—so there was little point in responding.
Unfortunately, the record of both central and local government on public consultation leaves a lot to be desired. Residents are often left feeling disenfranchised after the views of a tiny unrepresentative sample are taken to represent those of the majority, or the views of the public are ignored altogether.
The last time Oxfordshire County Council carried out a ‘consultation’—on charges for residents’ parking—the results were binned and the council carried out its original plans in the face of overwhelming opposition from Oxford residents.
It’s hard not to feel that those pushing the Academy—principally local New Labour politicians and the Tory-run county council—have been careful to create the impression from the start that the proposals will go ahead regardless, thereby discouraging parents and other local residents from taking an interest.
Land to be sold off after sponsors ‘forget’ disabled children
The Leys Independent has learned that the sponsors of the new Peers Academy apparently forgot to make provisions in their budget for keeping the current arrangements with the Mabel Pritchard Special School.
Under these arrangements kids from Mabel Pritchard are taught academic subjects at Peers separately, to cater for their special needs, but are then included in mainstream activities like crafts and other subjects.
Because the sponsors—and this includes the Church of England—didn’t take the severely disabled children at Mabel Pritchard into account when drawing up their plans there is now a shortfall in funding that will have to be made up by the county council.
The Academy sponsors originally decided to sell off part of the school playing fields but to avoid embarrassment the county has agreed to sell other land it owns—public land owned by the taxpayer—to property developers to fund the inclusion of Mabel Pritchard.
Fight for Leys kids’ education continues
While it looks increasingly as if the Academy at Peers is a done deal regardless of what parents want, a group of those concerned about the future of the school, including parents, teachers and the IWCA, has agreed to start an ongoing campaign to ensure the school fulfils its responsibilities towards Blackbird Leys children.
A list of issues is being drawn up to put to the Academy sponsors, including questions on class sizes, exclusion policies, curriculum, social make-up and guarantees that the school is not going to be a training ground for newly-qualified teachers at the expense of pupils.
It is encouraging to see so many Peers teachers on board with this. After all who would you trust with your kids’ schooling? Teachers who have dedicated their working lives to education and are opposed to the Academy agenda, or self-interested politicians who have so far been unwilling or unable to publicly explain why the academy is such a good idea?
Leys Independent, issue 37, October 2007
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