Why would any children of no faith in Moortown be directed to a faith primary school in Chapeltown?

I wrote this letter to the YEP before the tragic Tory success in the latest UK general election. Sadly this "success" will mean that the Conservatives think they have a mandate for dismantling our public education system:

 

This debacle over the allocation of places to the Khalsa Science Academy throws up a number of uncomfortable issues.

1. It is a free school/academy. As such it doesn't need to conform to national or even local educational standards, such as employing qualified teachers or providing healthy meals. Despite Gove and Cameron defending this "freedom", no one else in the country is buying this is as a good thing.

2. It is a Sikh school. Are the parents religious? Sikh even? Well, for me this begs the other question of why are Christian schools bursting with Muslim children? And one answer is that church schools only survive because they include children from other faiths. Is this a good thing? Debate. But when my Muslim friend was in 6th form at a Catholic college she had to attend masses in order to qualify for EMA - the allowance that sixth-formers used to get to help them finance staying on in education.

 
3. Fir Tree School in Moortown was one of those schools which the late unlamented Education Leeds took an axe to. Unlike the much missed Royal Park, this building is still standing and long since should have refurbished as an authority school, as this crisis clearly shows we in Leeds need.

Instead, this government, whose days I pray, in what ever religion is available, are numbered, has ordered Leeds Council to give a publicly owned asset to a private company. Unbelievably Cameron's take on this (YEP 2 May) was "free schools don't take money away from other schools. They're separately funded." and he suggests that "where a free school is built elsewhere it demonstrates that parents aren't happy with the education provision". I think we were generally happy until he told us that satisfactory wasn't satisfactory anymore.

And, Dave, your government decreed in 2011 that any and all new schools had to be free schools or academies, and that local authorities were not allowed to open new schools, even in a town where a private company has willfully and wrongly destroyed so many. This has nothing to do with parental choice as your paper's front page clearly shows.

4. By its name this new school seems to be a Science specialist institution. At primary age! Research clearly show the value of the Arts in education. This title does not bode well for them.

 

5. This local school isn't actually yet in Moortown, but presently housed in Chapeltown, not, I think "local" at all!

 

So, it's up to Leeds to sort this out, because this will be being replicated around the country and making us the world's laughing stock

City of Leeds School takes a stand on EAL, then gives the school away

This is my letter in the Yorkshire Evening Post April 2014 re the latest sad school-giveaway, and below is the text of letter

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/letters/yep-letters-april-24-1-6577189

playground at City of Leeds School

I support City of Leeds School's brave stand in in declaring so publicly that its students need extra lessons in English as an Additional Language. Head teacher, Georgie Sale points out correctly that even four years in the UK is not long enough to have acquired enough academic English to get the exam grades that reflect any child's natural ability.

However, as a previous long-serving and ultimately ousted governor, I know that this is a long held view; that attention has always been given to EAL, and that, despite our children not getting the grades that would keep Balls and now Gove off our backs, we went on passing inspections, with the EAL dept always getting an honourable mention in the dispatches.

Two years ago we gained School of Sanctuary status - first UK high school to do so. What an honour! And how would anyone like to be remembered as the teacher, the support assistant, the school that supported you in your darkest hours as well as your best, or the robot following orders in the exam factory?

Sadly, I see that the IEB (interim executive board) has applied for academy status. This will not, in any way, improve the overall average grades. The school will continue to languish quite unfairly in the eyes of the government, the media and the local public. Worse, all the emphasis on EAL will inevitably be directed to improving average grades; and inevitably away from offering the individual children the sanctuary and personal support that any school should be offering as well.

However, until we a government that has an education secretary who genuinely gets Blunkett's old slogan that Every Child Matters, children will be forced down inappropriate routes that only serve in the pointless competition that is one country's educational system against another.

And we won't get this government unless we as citizens stand up for ourselves and we as teachers, stand up for our charges.

Victoria Jaquiss FRSA [teacher, writer, ex-governor, local resident]

City of Leeds Public Consultation not quite Public Enough

When is a public consultation not a public consultation? Answer, when the public don't know about it. 

This is best done by private academy consultation company, Artelia, who used similar methods at Heath Hayes Primary School, in Staffordshire, as they are trying it on at City of Leeds School.

The only piece of advertising for this public consultation in public was in the North Leeds News, a local newspaper with intentionally a small circulation. Sadly, the date given of the public meeting was inaccurate, so the very few who were readers weren't given a chance to attend. 

City of Leeds School has, for decades, attracted its students from all round Leeds, in particular, but by no means exclusively, from those areas at the other end of the No 1 bus route: Beeston and Holbeck, and also, Harehills, Chapeltown and East End Park. Were their local papers not considered worth contacting?

At the school Reception there was a little display of the academy proposal fliers, but this is a high school. Students are either dropped off in cars or make their own way.

The only  parents waiting in reception tend to be the Polish speaking, Polish reading parents, waiting to enrol their children (yes increase the numbers on roll, and in all different school years). Not only Polish, of course, but you get the point -  new parents, whose interest in and understanding of the intricacies of UK education system will necessarily be restricted to - can my children come here?

In my opinion, if, as it said on the natty little green and white document, our "views are important to us", if this true, and if you have the money to employ this private firm, with its Sevenoaks' office address, then you have money to take an advert out in the Yorkshire Evening Post. Or even do a press release to the local tv and radio stations, as well as the local papers.

If you do get hold of the document, the middle section is turquoise green, most writing in black, fairly hard to read. At least the important contact details were on a different colour! Sadly that colour is red. Now that is unreadable. As are the words: Consultation ends at 9a.m. On 30th January 2014. 9 a.m!

At the most recent Anti-Acadmies Alliance AGM, we found out that Artelia used the same tactics at Heath Hayes - lack of proper publicity, same hard to read colour scheme etc. All a bit shabby, all a bit can't really be bothered. 

This fight is for City of Leeds to lose. And, if Artelia loses it, well, there's plenty more schools in deprived areas, and the more traumatised immigrants [I'm simplifying here!] they get, the worse the academic results, and hey presto - it's the school that under-performing! And, all the good teachers must have left! 

Three years ago, City of Leeds School became the first UK School of Sanctuary. No mention of this anymore; and the sign outside the gates, long since taken down.