Headteacher investigated after Worthing High School academy bid

Argus, Ben James, 28th September 2012

An investigation has been launched into the former headteacher at the centre of a controversial academy conversion.

Alison Beer resigned suddenly from Worthing High School on September 20 through ill health, having spearheaded the move.

Now The Argus can reveal that she is the subject of a West Sussex County Council investigation, although officials are refusing to say why.

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Where?

Why is Worthing High School the subject of an investigation by WSCC?

Press release of 25^th September 2012

WHAAG (Worthing High Academy Action Group) today challenges Tony Cohen, Chair of Governors at Worthing High to be straightforward and transparent about recent events at the school. WHAAG has only ever sought to ask challenging and relevant questions about the school’s academy conversion application and its consultation with parents and the community, most of which remain unanswered. We have done this, as a group of parents and prospective parents, because we care about the school and its staff. This consultation process, under Tony Cohen’s leadership, has been characterised by evasion, misinformation and silence.  

We now have to ask possibly the most serious question of all, which will concern parents and teachers, whether they are pro academy or not:  

Why is Worthing High School the subject of an investigation led by West Sussex County Council?  

An investigation so serious that Michael Gove will not decide on the academy conversion until its findings are reported.  In his letter to Tony Cohen of 6^th August, which was released by the school to WHAAG, following our request under Freedom of Information, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, writes,

“I understand that West Sussex County Council is currently conducting investigations at the school.  I will take the findings into account in deciding whether or not to enter into the Funding Agreement.”

This significant information was omitted from the school’s press release at the end of August, declaring that it had been awarded an Academy Order.

This is an extraordinary situation and one that needs urgent, transparent and full explanation by Tony Cohen.  He must recognise he has a duty to come clean about the situation at Worthing High and to withdraw the academy application, pending a full enquiry. As an academy, Worthing High would be independent from and unaccountable to West Sussex County Council. As the Department for Education Academy Order states:

“On the conversion date West Sussex County Council shall cease to maintain Worthing High School”.

It is therefore crucial that before academy status can be even contemplated, parents and the community have confidence that the leadership and Governing Body are the fit and proper people to take the school out of WSSC oversight.

Moreover, it is alarming and somewhat ironic that the very Local Authority that Tony Cohen seeks to cut ties from, by becoming an academy, is currently engaged in “investigations” at the school.

In recent days, a few individuals, and notably Tim Loughton MP, has suggested that the WHAAG campaign may be connected to Alison Beer’s resignation as Headteacher. In the light of these “investigations” we now respectfully request the full truth and insist that Tim Loughton retracts his allegations.

We now await full disclosure from Tony Cohen – the students, parents and teachers of Worthing High School deserve nothing less.

Sincerely

WHAAG Committee

Bizarre reply from Tim Loughton to WHS parent

In response to Linda McVeigh's email posted yesterday, Tim Loughton MP sent a rather strange reply, thanking her for "endorsing so graphically everything I have said and more".

Eh?!!

Message to Tim Loughton MP from WHS parent

Dear Mr Loughton,

You have described the Worthing High Academy Action Group as:
"a negative campaign by a small clique of anti academy activists, backed by militant trade unionists and others who are purely politically motivated with little or no direct interests in the school let alone the aspirations of its pupils."

Do you actually know who the individuals who make up this group are, or are you speaking from a position of blind prejudice?  I am a member of this group.  I have a daughter in Year 11 of the school and I am extremely concerned about the proposal to move it to Academy status, so that does indeed give me an "interest in the school and the aspirations of its pupils."  The last time I looked I was not being 'backed by militant trade unionists' either.  I know for a fact - and this is something which you could have found out for yourself, too - that many other WHAAG members are parents of current Worthing High pupils and have no particular political affiliation or bias.

Still, your disdain is clear and it's good to know how little you esteem your constituents. Your comments do you no credit at all.

Yours sincerely,
Linda McVeigh

Alison Beer resigns

BREAKING NEWS: Worthing High School Head resigns
Worthing Herald  on Thursday 20 September 2012 08:42

WORTHING High School has today (Thursday, September 20) announced it has accepted the resignation of Alison Beer, head teacher.

The school said Mrs Beer decided to resign after a period of ill health and has decided to step down from her post at the end of September

Tony Cohen, chairman of the governing body, said “We are obviously very disappointed to hear that Mrs Beer has decided to leave Worthing High School.

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Who is making the decisions?

More evidence of WHS shambolic 'consultation'

Here is a deeply worrying piece of correspondence between Alison Beer and a student at Worthing High, which occurred during the consultation period earlier this year.  We’ve left out the name of the student and have paraphrased their key questions in order to protect their anonymity.  Under each of Alison’s responses we’ve clarified what we believe to be the true position.

Questions sent to Alison Beer on 24^th April 2012 from a student:

1. On the basis of academy status’s main advantage being financial, the student asks why extra funding is needed by a ‘good’ school, what needs improvement at the school and what plans there are to use any extra funding.

2. On independence from the Local Authority, the student points out that the LA may have greater knowledge on educational affairs then the governors.

3. The student goes on to ask how teachers may be affected by the change in school status and asks about changes to their salary.

Response from Alison Beer 24^th April 2012

I am happy to clarify the following questions for you

1. Actually the school is struggling year on year to reach balanced budget and almost had to make teachers redundant this year like other schools in the area.  Therefore we can use the extra funding to stop this happening as well as other student improvements such as better computer facilities, wireless throughout, move to better mobile technologies such as Ipads etc plus give the departments more money. If I am honest the list of things we need to improve student learning is endless. 

WHAAG comments:  April 24th (the date of this email exchange) is in the financial year 2012-13.   This extract is taken from the School’s Report to the Governing Body Spring Term 2012. (Item 7 March 1^st 2012 Governors Meeting)

Karen Hayler – Business Development Manager:

“Our initial budget allocation for 2011-12 was £4.459m during the term additional grants from WSCC and the Government have increased the fund allocation to a current budget of £4.724m.  I am projecting achieving a balance budget for year end 31^st March 2012.

We were able to allocate £48,000 to buildings works this year which was mainly spent on our new Food Technology Classroom which opened in September 2011.  An additional £75000 has been invested in ICT including moving to a virtualised server environment, installing windows7, new PCs in T3, T1 and E13 plus installing WI-FI throughout the school.

Following guidance from WSCC we are expecting a budget of £4.742m for 2012-13 which includes a substantial uplift for the Pupil Premium Grant, which now includes students who have been registered for FSM anytime in the last 6 years.  In addition, several funding pots which had been previously held by WSCC are being delegated to schools – but are likely to have SLAs attached – so the funding will come in and go out again.

Leadership Team have been looking at budget models for next year, based on our expected £4.742m and a final budget will be presented to the Environment Committee for approval on 24^th April 2012 – we are not anticipating the need to make further redundancies.”

Clearly this was written before the final budget was finally closed but West Sussex accounts show the school recording a surplus for the year end 2011-12 of just under £100,000.

It is true that she school went through a cost saving exercise earlier in the 2011-12 as it was anticipating a deficit in the budget of £45,250 which was addressed based on a budget of £4.459m, although you will note from Karen’s commentary above that this was not the year end position and that funding increased by over £200k in the year.  The cost saving exercise, detailed in the minutes of the Governor’s Environment Committee 26^th April 20122 did result in “real” headcount savings of 1.56 fte achieved through a number of routes including redundancies of support staff.   

So what to make of Alison’ response to this student’s first question?

“Actually the school is struggling year on year to reach balanced budget and almost had to make teachers redundant this year like other schools in the area.”   

Remember this is taking place on the 24^th April 2012.  The school is predicting a balanced budget and not anticipating redundancies.  This feels like scaremongering.

Alison then states:

“Therefore we can use the extra funding to stop this happening as well as other student improvements such as better computer facilities, wireless throughout, move to better mobile technologies such as Ipads etc plus give the departments more money.”

Now let’s remind ourselves of what Karen Hayler reported to the Governors:

“We were able to allocate £48,000 to buildings works this year which was mainly spent on our new Food Technology Classroom which opened in September 2011.  An additional £75000 has been invested in ICT including moving to a virtualised server environment, installing windows7, new PCs in T3, T1 and E13 plus installing WI-FI throughout the school.”

There is a concerning chasm between what Alison Beer is telling this pupil and what Karen is reporting to the Governors has already happened. 

On to Alison’s next response to this student’s questions:

2. Unfortunately we have had no input from West Sussex County Council for a year or two now as they have no capacity to support good schools anymore.  We therefore have to find new support networks and The Academy school network is very strong where we would gain good support.

It’s difficult to know where to start with this. WSCC provide s number of services to WHS including Educational Psychology, Welfare, Sensory Support, EMAT etc. 

Indeed her own consultation document states “However, we will need to use this additional funding to pay for services that the school will no longer get

automatically from the LA including Insurance, Educational Psychology Support, Sensory Support, Outdoor Education Support, Legal Services and various group licenses.”

Alison’s answer to her student is very misleading and surprising.

And so to Alison’s final response 

3. I do not believe that Academy status would affect the teachers here in a negative way.  The only way it would affect things like salaries is if they improved as we would have more resources.  The unions, which protect the teachers, do not like the move to Academy status as currently, they have quite a lot of say in the local authority which they don’t have with the department of education so cannot influence local schools as strongly.  Also, some of the “Sponsored” have changed the teachers’ pay and conditions but “Converter” Academies (as we are proposing to move to) do not tend to as they are good schools which don’t need to change things.

This answer is a combination of political opinion, which suggests that unions have a negative impact on schools, and anecdote, on academy approaches to pay and conditions. We think this is inappropriate.

So to Alison’s final comment “I hope this helps” we say it clearly meets your agenda Alison but has misled one of Worthing High’s students, a student who posed some very intelligent questions.