The Littlehampton Academy teachers' strike

Teachers at the Littlehampton Academy will be on strike on Weds 17^th April. 

The strike has been called by both the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the NASUWT, unions that together represent the overwhelming majority of teachers.

In a ballot teachers in both unions voted by a big majority to start an ongoing campaign of strike action and protests against the oppressive management policies at the school which is part of the Woodard Academy chain.

Teachers say that The Littlehampton Academy management have refused to move an inch from its regime of bullying micro-management of teaching staff. If management refuse to listen to the majority of teachers at the school, the strike will be followed by a two day strike and then further strikes adding up to 6 days in total.

This is a sad and alarming situation for both the teachers and the students, who will be losing out on valuable school time. Unfortunately, we may see more of this kind of action, as the number of academies - out of Local Authority oversight - grow. 

An Academic Debate?

"Great documentary exposing the fault lines running through Coalition's flagship academies programme" - Anti Academies Alliance 

Nearly three thousand schools have taken up the government’s offer to become academies – but were they tempted by more than the simple promise of freedom? This documentary explores how financial equations have played their part in the success of the coalition’s flagship schools policy. As academy funding is overhauled, the programme estimates the final cost of a grant which should have meant academies got exactly the same budget after they converted as they did before – and asks why funding equality ended up costing hundreds of millions of pounds.

In a wide-ranging examination of the academies programme, reporter Paul Faulkner also talks to schools and local authorities about the changing education landscape. Are academy freedoms as significant as they are portrayed? And what future for the local authority as its traditional role in education is marginalised? One council leader has a tough message for Whitehall – “Leave us alone!”

Listen...http://www.britishpublicradio.com/2013/03/an-academic-debate/

Worthing High Governors must go petition - sign now

Current parents at Worthing High have set up a petition calling for the resignation of the Chair of Governors, Tony Cohen.

Read, sign and circulate to Worthing High parents.

Good luck with this.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/whs_gmg/

Our Statement of Purpose

West Sussex Academy Watch

Statement of Purpose

March 2013

West Sussex Academy Watch (WSAW) believes in a free and democratically accountable state education system which is responsive to all stakeholders.

We believe that investment in schools is often wasted on structural change according to the government policy of the day. Instead, investment in teaching in learning should take priority.

We accept that academies are now part of the educational landscape in West Sussex. The following five points will be the litmus test by which we hold to account existing academies; schools pursuing academy status; and West Sussex County Council, for its policy of ‘encouraging all schools to convert’.

1.     Once a school governing body has voted to pursue academy conversion they must commit to a consultation process which is built on democratic principles by being open, robust and meaningful, and which engages all stakeholders. Any consultation must take into account the wider impact on its local community as well as the stakeholders of their school.

2.     All consultations must include:

a.    A Public Meeting.

This must go beyond parents of children that currently attend the school and actively engage the wider community.

b.    A Parent and Staff Ballot.

c.     An Impact Assessment under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).

3.     Schools wishing to become academies must demonstrate the capacity to improve not only themselves but other local schools too, whether they are academies or not.

4.     Schools wishing to become academies and existing academies must demonstrate how they will use their additional ‘freedoms’ and money to improve educational outcomes for children.

5.     Governors of schools wishing to become academies must demonstrate their capability and capacity to run autonomous, financially demanding, large, complex and ever-changing organisations.

West Sussex Academy Watch does not believe that any school should be forced to become an academy. This objection extends to shifting Ofsted categorisation which forces more schools to ‘fail.’

'Not good': Ofsted gives a mixed verdict on free schools

'Not good': Ofsted gives a mixed verdict on education reforms in major setback for Michael Gove

Substantial improvements needed in three of the first nine free schools to be inspected, yet Government is pushing ahead with hundreds more

Indpendent, 17th March 2013, Brian Brady

Michael Gove's flagship education project has been dealt an embarrassing blow after inspectors demanded that three of the new wave of "free schools" must improve their teaching, leadership and pupil performance. In the first official verdict on the Education Secretary's free schools programme, Ofsted inspectors have ruled that three of the first nine institutions to be examined are "not good" schools.

The "requires improvements" judgement handed down to Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, Sandbach School in Cheshire and Kings Science Academy in Bradford is the third-lowest of the four possible grades that Ofsted can give – one above the "inadequate" rating. Each school now faces another full-scale inspection within the next two years.

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Gove must go demonstation today DfE

Big demonstration against Gove outside Department for Education today. Like.

Are the wheels coming off the Gove bus?

Has anyone got any grease and a spanner to give them a hand?

The real thinking is coming from professionals, not policymakers

As Michael Gove learns that hasty policymaking can come back to bite, some good ideas are now coming from the professionals who do the job, says Fiona Millar, Guardian, 11/3/13

Are the wheels coming off the Gove bus? The once-Teflon secretary of state seems to be more on the back rather than front foot these days, not helped by the well documented and thoroughly unpleasant activities of a few key advisers. Very bad politics on the part of someone who aspires to be a party leader, in my opinion.

But it is the progress of his substantive reforms that, on closer examination, provide a textbook example of how hasty, over-promoted, ill-thought-through policies usually come back to bite.

The short-term legacy of the Academies Act – not in the coalition agreement, pushed through parliament using a form of legislation previously reserved for combating terrorism, supported by the supine Liberal Democrats and supposedly a cure-all for the nation's education ills – is distinctly mixed. The original Labour academies mission is so diluted that the performance of academies is now no different from similar maintained schools and conversions have flattened out. The vast majority of schools in the country are still maintained but there is still understandable widespread concern about what sort of middle tier can hold schools to account in an increasingly fragmented landscape.

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