Education policy was clearly short-sighted

YEP Letters: September 12

Published on the 12 September 2013

Shock, horror! Leeds needs 4,000 new school places. To start off with, I think a few I-told-you-sos are in order.

Summer or winter, campaigners with local knowledge and educational expertise attended endless meetings after their days at work. And they opined that Educational Leeds’s car-crash of a school building policy was short-sighted.
I well remember the midwife at the West Leeds High School meeting who told the consultation meeting that the birth rate was going up, not down in Armley. And, on the other side of Leeds we noted that growing immigration trends was more likely to need Leopold expanded rather than closed down.
We argued the case time and time again against a smug and well-paid Education Leeds, whose representatives did not hail from Leeds, and who had no local knowledge; we pointed to Africa as we would now point to Eastern Europe. But they were on a mission to make a difference, and they closed down and/or merged approximately 40 Leeds primary schools.
Today we have to put things right, but there are mistakes we should avoid. We must:
1. Listen to the unions and other campaigners. They are not in it for the money or power – there being none for this type of work. They are in it for the children and their education.
2. Understand that first generation immigrants tend to have bigger families than any subsequent generation.
3. Large schools for little children are not a good idea.
4. Children should not have to go to school in building sites
So, as the remote Gove spirals out of control, and has decreed that all new schools should be academies, play the game. Restore Royal Park, for example (a building much in need of occupants), call it Royal Park, Brudenell Annexe.
Give Miles Hill its heart back. But remember stuff happens and things change, so build in flexibility and community use provision for when the refugees go back and the families get smaller again.

Victoria Jaquiss FRSA, Education campaigner

Gove in York, a Bridge too Far, Yudda yudda [!]

I staggered home from the Music Expo in London to find that someone had put Michael Gove on Questiontime without telling me.

Michael acts as if he was a regular nice guy, and he must have paid the BBC a tidy sum to lobotomise the audience as, at one point, they even applaud him. Maybe it was just York. And I noticed the audience was on the small side. Maybe they had to filter a load of people out to be on the [his] safe side. Whatever. Let him come to Leeds, and he can answer for his crimes at Prince Henry's and Primrose, and all the rest. [thought it must be said he picked up the baton that Adonis and Balls handed on to him].

The panel was asked if creativity in schools was being stifled, and if the development of critical thinking was being hindered [by Gove's latest random thoughts {aka proposals}]. I would say it is difficult to be creative in this reign of terror. And primary school children are not immune to the terror. Here's a story from when my youngest were in Yr 6.

Royal Park closing, and in perfect condition

 Georgia took her SATs in 1999. Just before she took them, she asked me, rather anxiously, "If I do badly in my exams will get put in the wrong sets at high school?" Well, I was a high school teacher myself: "No, high schools don't take any notice of SATs results." I told her, " They're never accurate enough".

Morgan took his SATs in 2000. Just before he took them he asked me, rather anxiously, "If I do badly in my SATS, will They close the school? 

Well, we had just fought off the first closure proposal. Morgan and Georgia sent Tony Blair Stand up for Royal Park badges. [He commended their enthusiasm but sent them back]. Morgan did well, but They closed the school anyway. Seven years later this striking Victorian beauty stands untenanted at the junction of Royal Park and Queens Road, while the council builds onto the other local primaries to try and cope with the population explosion. 

Last ever Royal Park Steel Pandas

The private company that closed Royal Park, Leopold, Asket Hill, Miles Hill and either closed or merged the 26 other Leeds primary schools was closed down itself in the end, but the damage they did, educationally, socially and psychologically endures still. 

Gove asks schools to instil a body of knowledge and skills in our young people and then he thinks that they will be set up for life. Even if I agreed with the same knowledge and skills, young people are not empty vessels to pour anyone's, let alone a central government's agreed info into. The are already human beings, with minds of their own, and learning styles of their own, and educational and personal needs of their own. These enquiring minds need listening to, and their needs met, not society's needs, not industry's needs.

And Gove had a Govite on the same panel: The Horowitz person thought our children should have a "reservoir of facts". .  dreary things" to set them up. So the answer is yes:

Creativity is being stifled.

A few things you didn't know about school governors.

They lie in wait for you, you know - headteachers, and school secretaries; they've got wind that you work in education; and they think they can reel you in. Which they did.

After 4 years or however long the term of office was, I tried to escape. But guilt: there's no-one else; how did I feel where the chair tried to step down again? I stayed for another term; and another . .

I was a governor at Royal Park School from the early nineties till it closed in 2006; till it was hounded to death by a stupid,  uncaring and unimaginative CEO from a private education company - just thought I'd get that in. Our governors' meetings lasted two hours, starting at 7pm, so, if I was planning any lessons for the following day, that didn't happen.

Early on in my career as a serial school governor, I went to a massive school governors' meeting at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and listened, amongst other things, to Joan Sallis talk. Joan was a pioneer parent-governor in the UK, and she talked about the philosophy of governance and the role of governor, as that of a "critical friend".  I bought into this; I recognised that we would not have decision-making powers, and didn't really have any responsibilities but we would listen as the headteacher thought aloud about her day to day decisions.

Rita the Head did allow us to challenge her; on one occasion we came to a 7:8 vote about not publishing our SATS results. But she was the supremo; it was her school and we were her critical friends. We listened; we discussed and then she decided.

So, when a head tells a member of staff that the governors are worried about x, or y or z.  .. what's that about ? That's the head or the Finance Officer shifting the blame in order to get the result.

Then, as Foxwood School was being closed I became a school governor there. A few years with Royal Park had taught me to believe in myself; an immense injustice for a member of Foxwood staff on top of the injustice of closing Foxwood itself made me give up more 7 till 9pms on a week night, and this time in Seacroft, not down the road Hyde Park.

I didn't volunteer any more of the 7 till 9s until I found them laying in wait for me at reception at City of Leeds School.  And actually achieved very little, even as a "critical friend" until I was able to join with the various campaigns to save the school, mostly, it would seem, from becoming nice near town centre premises for Education Leeds. And, I'm glad to say that that particular company doesn't need premises anywhere anymore. Shame.

And also, you're generally safe from being kidnapped into a governing body once your youngest child is past school age. It's parent-governors in the inner-city that are in short supply.