Well, said Education Leeds, we got away with it before; we can do it again. Yes, it's called Let's advertise the headship of a new school/academy before our democratically elected councillors have voted on it. Disgraceful!
So, if you search for East Leeds Academy on the internet, you will find that there is an advertisement for a new principal/headteacher for East Leeds Academy, salary up to £100,000 plus benefits package [whatever those perks are.]
This academy presumes the closure of eminently successful Parklands Girls High School. So any prospective headteacher or principal needs to be clear in their mind. This is an unpopular, unjustified, unecessary, amoral, undemocratic, uneducational act.
One person, the new head, will go home with an excellent wage. Experienced teachers will leave the profession on principle; other teachers will stay on because they have mortgages; many teachers will stay on because of their commitment to the children they have taught for the last few years; But they are being used. Shamelessly.
Everybody knows, even Education Leeds knows this: that continuity is vital to the success and well-being of children's lives. Their school is their second family; and sometimes it is their first. Teachers are very torn when they make that decision whether to stay or go in these cases.
When they tore up Foxwood and Cross Green, I thought long and hard about my career move. I loved Seacroft and the kids of Seacroft and Gipton, but I didn't want to go to Copperfields [Cross Green with a few Foxwood kids in it], and I had seen openings for steel pans and Special Needs Music teaching in the Leeds Music Service. I was so tempted.
But the kids I taught didn't have that option, so when they asked, I said yes, I would come down with them. Fortunately, by the time it came to the head of my faculty's round of interviews they'd spent all their management money on other posts. They told Richard Harrison [Cross Green Music teacher]and myself that we weren't good enough, but actually they never even asked for our references and they cancelled the position of that Head of Expressive Arts that very evening.
Having seen first hand that amount of incompetence and duplicitousness, I no longer wanted to be associated with disaster that would be Copperfields College [college, academy, here we are with the pretentious names, already], so I took them to a tribunal with a very heavy heart. I needn't have worried. By 2 to 1 the governors voted not to re-interview us.
Four months later I took up my new job as steel pan development officer and teacher of Music to Children with Behaviour Problems for the Leeds Music Service. And, for the first year, I followed my GCSE Year 10 Music class down to Copperfields, and I also taught there as their steel pan peripatetic teacher.
Five years later, Copperfields ground to a halt. All in a day's work for Education Leeds. The rest should have been just history, and lessons learnt. Sadly they can't resist the lure of big business, and more cranes on the horizon [explanation for future blog]. Only Leeds City Councillors can now save this next disaster from happening.
Showing posts with label Parklands High School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parklands High School. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Parklands Girls High School
It's extreme gigging this weekend. Just off to play at Bradford Mela. In the meantime here's one I wrote earlier. It's my second letter of objection to the proposed closure of Parklands School.
Objection to the proposed closure of Parklands Girls High School
My objections are threefold:
A city the size of Leeds should have two single sex schools. We should have not have given up Braimwood so easily; we most certainly should not lose the girls’ school. At 700 it is a healthy size, and this despite repeated threats of closure from the very firm who should be protecting and championing it. Apart from the arguments that concern girls being able to achieve better without hormonal distractions [I’m simplifying the argument here], there should be a single-sex school for families from some different cultures to send their girls to. One Muslim parent at the consultation meeting told us that he choose Leeds over other towns when deciding what university he would work at because of Parklands – not just girls only, but a good school.
This brings me to the second point. Set the [National] challenge of 30%A-Cs, Parklands pulled itself together and achieved well over this. So, nothing wrong with the school. No reason to close it. The numbers are only down because of public criticisms and threats of closure.
Thirdly, there are arguments that a single sex school would be better placed in the city centre. This is just a distraction. Children are bussed and driven in cars all over this city to get to church schools, or specialist schools, or preferred schools.
There were also two other arguments put forward at the meeting from the representative from Education Leeds.
1. that the government would only fund the new building if it became an academy [whether or 700 present girls’ families liked it or not, and the same for the families of the future].
2. That there wasn’t enough provision in East Leeds for all the children of East Leeds.
This was said just months before they finally pulled down the old Foxwood building, and a few years after they closed Braimwood and Agnes Stewart [incredibly merging a single-sex state school with a mixed sex church school, and even more incredibly getting away with it].
My suggestion is that the council builds a single sex boys school on the old Foxwood site, and gets it designed by anybody other than the architectural criminals who put up Lawnswood, Swallow Hill, South Leeds and Primrose [and the rest!].
Victoria Jaquiss FRSA, teacher, parent, writer, school governor
Objection to the proposed closure of Parklands Girls High School
My objections are threefold:
A city the size of Leeds should have two single sex schools. We should have not have given up Braimwood so easily; we most certainly should not lose the girls’ school. At 700 it is a healthy size, and this despite repeated threats of closure from the very firm who should be protecting and championing it. Apart from the arguments that concern girls being able to achieve better without hormonal distractions [I’m simplifying the argument here], there should be a single-sex school for families from some different cultures to send their girls to. One Muslim parent at the consultation meeting told us that he choose Leeds over other towns when deciding what university he would work at because of Parklands – not just girls only, but a good school.
This brings me to the second point. Set the [National] challenge of 30%A-Cs, Parklands pulled itself together and achieved well over this. So, nothing wrong with the school. No reason to close it. The numbers are only down because of public criticisms and threats of closure.
Thirdly, there are arguments that a single sex school would be better placed in the city centre. This is just a distraction. Children are bussed and driven in cars all over this city to get to church schools, or specialist schools, or preferred schools.
There were also two other arguments put forward at the meeting from the representative from Education Leeds.
1. that the government would only fund the new building if it became an academy [whether or 700 present girls’ families liked it or not, and the same for the families of the future].
2. That there wasn’t enough provision in East Leeds for all the children of East Leeds.
This was said just months before they finally pulled down the old Foxwood building, and a few years after they closed Braimwood and Agnes Stewart [incredibly merging a single-sex state school with a mixed sex church school, and even more incredibly getting away with it].
My suggestion is that the council builds a single sex boys school on the old Foxwood site, and gets it designed by anybody other than the architectural criminals who put up Lawnswood, Swallow Hill, South Leeds and Primrose [and the rest!].
Victoria Jaquiss FRSA, teacher, parent, writer, school governor
Monday, 31 May 2010
The Wishes of the parents, One Law for the Rich, and the False Economy
This Saturday, I emailed Any Answers, offering them the benefit of my wisdom and experience. Fortunately they chose an eloquent phoner-inner. The caller was one Raymond Douglas from Northampton. He could have been describing South Leeds, Intake, or City of Leeds, or Primrose, or Parklands [add High Schhool to them all].
His story was sickening familiar. His school was threatened with closure/becoming an academy not for the first time. Overwhelmingly, parents voted against academisation; new headteacher doing well [does this sound famililar?]. These parents had no illusions about the local authority but like being part of what it had to offer.
And here one might observe the concept of one law for the rich, one law for the poor. These parents' wishes were ignored. Central governent was half-bribing/half-threatening the local education authority. "if you don't go for the academy, we won't give the money for the new building." And indeed, who could argue with that? Well, someone or some council with principles, integrity; somebody brave, or somebody now who has seen the future - the Better Schools for the Future [BSF], and found it wanting. Or as the Institute of Architects called it last year, "an opportunity missed".
By contrast, a few rich, powerful, "pushy" parents can set up their own school. And what have they got that the average parent doesn't have? Money, which seems to translate into power, and enough time on their hands to set up a school.
The academy movement was led by three men [Anthony Adonis, Tony Blair, Ed Balls], one of whom wasn't even elected, and none of whom have any background in education. But these three people were in a third-term government world. I think that they believed that whatever they thought was how it should be. Anything they thought up. Anything they wrote on the back of an envelope. [Tony Blair has no so few ideas about education that he just said the word three times]. It was absolutely power, and it was absolutely corrupting. You can imagine them saying, "These parents don't know what's good for them".
Let's consider the idea the parents' schools will have more money at their disposal. The money goes straight to the school, by-passes the local auhtority; by-passing the music service, the educational psychology service; the travellers' service; Gypsy-Roma service; translation services; equal opportunties; health and safety; mental health; there's less access to national iniatives, eg CPD [Continuing Professional Development], theatre in education. . .
When you want to buy them in, as one new local academy recently discovered, they now cost more. So this particular educational establishment is now contemplating which five of its eight peripatetic music teachers' hours of teaching it would be best to drop. Or, pay the new full price. After all, the academy receives more money. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at the false economy. Not only does the new establishment miss out on vital local council services; these services, with all their wealth of talent and experience are themselves put at risk
All over this country, it would appear, we have schools which aren't broken, and succession of politicians determined to mend them.
His story was sickening familiar. His school was threatened with closure/becoming an academy not for the first time. Overwhelmingly, parents voted against academisation; new headteacher doing well [does this sound famililar?]. These parents had no illusions about the local authority but like being part of what it had to offer.
And here one might observe the concept of one law for the rich, one law for the poor. These parents' wishes were ignored. Central governent was half-bribing/half-threatening the local education authority. "if you don't go for the academy, we won't give the money for the new building." And indeed, who could argue with that? Well, someone or some council with principles, integrity; somebody brave, or somebody now who has seen the future - the Better Schools for the Future [BSF], and found it wanting. Or as the Institute of Architects called it last year, "an opportunity missed".
By contrast, a few rich, powerful, "pushy" parents can set up their own school. And what have they got that the average parent doesn't have? Money, which seems to translate into power, and enough time on their hands to set up a school.
The academy movement was led by three men [Anthony Adonis, Tony Blair, Ed Balls], one of whom wasn't even elected, and none of whom have any background in education. But these three people were in a third-term government world. I think that they believed that whatever they thought was how it should be. Anything they thought up. Anything they wrote on the back of an envelope. [Tony Blair has no so few ideas about education that he just said the word three times]. It was absolutely power, and it was absolutely corrupting. You can imagine them saying, "These parents don't know what's good for them".
Let's consider the idea the parents' schools will have more money at their disposal. The money goes straight to the school, by-passes the local auhtority; by-passing the music service, the educational psychology service; the travellers' service; Gypsy-Roma service; translation services; equal opportunties; health and safety; mental health; there's less access to national iniatives, eg CPD [Continuing Professional Development], theatre in education. . .
When you want to buy them in, as one new local academy recently discovered, they now cost more. So this particular educational establishment is now contemplating which five of its eight peripatetic music teachers' hours of teaching it would be best to drop. Or, pay the new full price. After all, the academy receives more money. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at the false economy. Not only does the new establishment miss out on vital local council services; these services, with all their wealth of talent and experience are themselves put at risk
All over this country, it would appear, we have schools which aren't broken, and succession of politicians determined to mend them.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Power Corrupts
In my youth, I could never see the sense of the saying Power corrupts: absolute power corrupts absolutely. It seemed to have no logical basis. But, in the UK, our experience of "strong" third term governments with large majorities seems to make the point.
Obviously Thatcher was a bully from the off; and Blair compromised on so much that it was never strictly accurate to call it a "Labour" government.
But the absolute power that absolutely shocked me [putting aside the weapons of mass unlikelihood], was the amount of educational expert advice which was dismissed and ridiculed, and even left unread.
The Cambridge Primary Review [published October 2009], welcomed by most educationalists was sneered at Eddie and Vern. They misunderstood the most basic of reccommendations: that formal education shouldn't start till after children are six. They took this to mean no schooling till seven, and publicly dismissed the report almost as it was published.
Price Cooper Waterhouse concluded in their recent report [2008?] that academies per se made no difference to standards. But still Eddie and Vern continued in their quest to de-stabilise inner-cities communities by mashing up and smashing up the bog-standard schools in order to produce no overall improvement at all. Lives lost, careers in tatters, families and friends separated, demand for mental health health services at breaking point, really really rubbish building erected at some public expense, communities in chaos, and what for? Well, for no overall improvement in standards.
And power also appears to corrupt locally. Let's take our local council, and its relation to City of Leeds School, one of the three schools which essentially this blog was set up to defend.
We have written letters as part of the "consultation" on closure and academisation. But as we have to submit our objections to the very company who is demanding our closure, we naturally don't trust the system. And we usually send copies of our objections to our councillors as well.
Our Head of History sent his objections, as per, round the councillors with a demand of notification of recipient opening it [there's probably a technical term for this]. And yes, one Leeds councillor, who will, in time, vote on closing this school, did not even open the email setting out quite rational arguments why it should stay open.
Add that to the Lib Dem councillor who publicly described City Of Leeds School as "poor", and you have to question what good is power if those wielding it don't do so in an informed manner. I am rather thinking that these people will eventually be taught a lesson by History itself.
Obviously Thatcher was a bully from the off; and Blair compromised on so much that it was never strictly accurate to call it a "Labour" government.
But the absolute power that absolutely shocked me [putting aside the weapons of mass unlikelihood], was the amount of educational expert advice which was dismissed and ridiculed, and even left unread.
The Cambridge Primary Review [published October 2009], welcomed by most educationalists was sneered at Eddie and Vern. They misunderstood the most basic of reccommendations: that formal education shouldn't start till after children are six. They took this to mean no schooling till seven, and publicly dismissed the report almost as it was published.
Price Cooper Waterhouse concluded in their recent report [2008?] that academies per se made no difference to standards. But still Eddie and Vern continued in their quest to de-stabilise inner-cities communities by mashing up and smashing up the bog-standard schools in order to produce no overall improvement at all. Lives lost, careers in tatters, families and friends separated, demand for mental health health services at breaking point, really really rubbish building erected at some public expense, communities in chaos, and what for? Well, for no overall improvement in standards.
And power also appears to corrupt locally. Let's take our local council, and its relation to City of Leeds School, one of the three schools which essentially this blog was set up to defend.
We have written letters as part of the "consultation" on closure and academisation. But as we have to submit our objections to the very company who is demanding our closure, we naturally don't trust the system. And we usually send copies of our objections to our councillors as well.
Our Head of History sent his objections, as per, round the councillors with a demand of notification of recipient opening it [there's probably a technical term for this]. And yes, one Leeds councillor, who will, in time, vote on closing this school, did not even open the email setting out quite rational arguments why it should stay open.
Add that to the Lib Dem councillor who publicly described City Of Leeds School as "poor", and you have to question what good is power if those wielding it don't do so in an informed manner. I am rather thinking that these people will eventually be taught a lesson by History itself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)