Anyone else get harangued outside Northcote Library today?! Post Reply

[livegreen]

Laura in your Anti-schools GMB Press release dated 29th Nov you state
"We, and the majority of local people, want a proper assessment of school place needs and planned provision in local authority schools."
Can I ask when you were elected and how you can make the claim to represent the majority of local people ?

In post above you said 40 primaries are within 1.5 mile radius (is this correct ? How many pupils?) are around the proposed site....does this indicate that the location is therefore correct.
Further you go on to say that the school is bound to be over subscribed !! but continue to claim its not needed....you cannot have it both ways can you. So which is it ??

[doleofficedad]

Laura Brown - no one is slurring anyone, just stating the facts. By your own admission you are connected with Jane Eades who has close ties with the Socialist Workers Party, you hounded people outside the library, you are credited at the footer of the GMB press releases, you use the Evening Standard 'class war' article (lifted from the Mirror comic) to get signatures. The evidence is quite clear. Equally if you had any real interest in doing anything positive about education in the borough, then why do you not start your own Free School campaign in the part of the brough that you do feel is relevant? But you dont. You are just interested in waging left wing/class war nonsense. As your trade union ally stated above - "facts are stubborn things". And how do you think the Falconbrook teachers and governors like being dragged through the national press being portrayed by you and your union allies as some sort of 'sink school'? I am sure they are very grateful to you for that publicity.

[LauraBrown]

I would be very happy to send my kids to any of Ernest Bevin, Burntwood, Chestnut Grove, Southfields, Battersea Park etc. I am not saying the school should be at Springfield, that is just an example of an alternative site that has not been considered which could be more effective. I would be equally happy to see sites considered in other parts of Battersea. We don't know what would make most sense as no-one has carried out any cost/benefit analysis on the alternatives. I also will gain nothing personally from Falconbrook being included, which it clearly should be.

[LauraBrown]

As to slurring Falconbrook, I don't think it is a slur to state the facts regarding an area's level of deprivation. And, I'm sure Wandsworth secondary schools are equally pleased by this part of today's Observer article which is a quote from a local parent in support of the NSC which seems to be very damning (and actually untrue too):

"The academic output of many local schools is far below what aspirational parents would want to support, and who wants to use their child as an experiment?"

I'm campaigning alongside people from the GMB, with Jane Eades, with some Labour Councillors, with several bankers and with many, many other people who are concerned about this issue. I agree that we are likely to need extra school places in the coming years, the question is how to provide them in a way most likely to benefit all of those in our community.

[doleofficedad]

And what evidence do you have that alternative sites were not considered? Or indeed your view that £70 million of public money will be spent at two existing borough schools that will not add anywhere near as much additional pupil capacity as the 150 places per year at the new Bolingbroke Academy? For those who would like to see a traditional academic education, many of us do not consider the English bacc results for Chestnut Grove this week at 2% and Battersea Park school at 6% to be 'untrue'. You seek only to wage class war against local parents like you who want the best for their children but you ignore the facts - and into the bargain you also manage to drag Falconbrook through the mud in the national press. Others can see the disservice in that even if you cannot. You must be pleased with what you are doing? As I said above, keep it up.

[janee]

doleofficedad: What on earth makes you think that I have any connections with the Socialist Workers Party? It is rather pathetic that in order to pretend that you have a case you have to throw this sort of slur at me. I have contacts across the political spectrum, although hopefully not members of the EDL or National Front, etc. For the record, I am not a member of any political grouping. I do have views on specific issues but have no political affiliations.

If you need to try this sort of tactic, does that mean that you have lost the political and moral argument?

As I say, pathetic!

[doleofficedad]

Jane Eades - I am sorry you appear annoyed that I have pointed out that the AAA has close links with the SWP. You I believe were or are the national treasurer of the AAA.

[janee]

Just read some of the postings. Golly gosh! I see one comment is something on the lines of why can't Falconbrook students walk to their nearest school, Battersea Park? Why not indeed, just as those from Belleville and Honeywell could also walk to their nearest secondary school, Chestnut Grove.

The politicians argument (note this is not party political) has been about parents having choice. If choice is good enough for the latter, why doesn't it apply to the former? The figures quote for the applications to Chestnut Grove compared to the intake ignore the fact that the vaste majority of those applications come from out of the catchment area.

Please, can we apply the arguments fairly? Personally, I don't believe in the myth of parental choice - it exists for a few but, largely, it gives those schools, which are perceived to be good, the choice.

doleofficedad: I'm not annoyed by your statement about the SWP - just pointing out that you are wrong. Believe it or not the subject of the SWP has never come up at any meeting of the AAA. I don't even know what the SWP policies are or what they believe in. Sorry to disappoint.

[livegreen]

janee,

Not the argument that all the 660 puils leaving the primaries of Balham / Northcote can all get into Chestnut Grove (90 places available on distance) if they would only apply. It makes no sense and is impossible - I thought even you had moved on from that.

As Laura Brown acknowledges the new school will be over subscribed as there is clearly both need and demand.

Any new schools will be Academies which we all know you blindly oppose, however in Wandsworth and much of South West London new schools are needed - they will all be Academies. Thats just the way it is.
Your websites and GMBs state that you will continue to oppose all new academies (and any schools considering applying for academy status eg Chestnut Grove) even where they are needed.
Blindly oppossing all new schools in the country - its hard to take that kind of political positioning seriously.

[doleofficedad]

Janes Eades - so for the record you are saying that there are no members of the AAA or your affiliates that have any ties to the SWP?

[LauraBrown]

You clearly believe that Chestnut Grove and Battersea Park are below par which I do not e.g., Chestnut Grove is in the top 10 nationally for contextual value add and rated outstanding be Ofsted; BPS has seen vast improvements in 5 A*-C including Maths and English.

It would be great to know about alternative sites that have been considered. If ARK or NSC can make public their cost benefit analysis, that would enable us to judge for ourselves. As it is, I've seen nothing on this so can't judge.

[janee]

doleofficedad: I don't understand your point. To answer your question honestly, I don't know. I suspect there are members of the SWP involved - they certainly wouldn't tell me if they were. I suspect there are all shades of politics - that is presumably why it is called an Alliance.

Your comment is rather like suggesting that a member or members of the NSC are in the National Front. It is completely irrelevant to the intellectual and moral arguments. Please can we bring the argument above gutter politics.

[Virgil Tibbs]

Under the headline 'Free school pioneers 'bullied' by left' Jack Grimston wrote in the Sunday Times last week that 'the AAA, a union backed network with close links to the SWP, will also take a leading role'. Would you like to challenge Mr Grimston on that statement? In the light of your 'Class War' Daily Mirror article last Friday, I think it is a bit of a joke for you to talk about 'gutter politics'.

[doleofficedad]

My concern is that Laura Brown and Jane Eades will use their union connections to further initimidate local parents who would like to send their children to the new school. They both have track record here of hounding parents trying to go to the library and of showing no concern about dragging Falconbrook through the mud in the national press. You read it first here folks - watch this space!

[LauraBrown]

I think we all agree that bankers vs class warriors is a sideshow and is a function of the populist press that likes that sort of angle be it bankers in the Mirror of hard left bullies in the Times.

On the topic of what English Bacc results would be acceptable for aspirational parents, I think 'many local schools' would be assumed to refer to those which people in your area could get into and so I should also share that Ernest Bevin got 17% on the measure and Burntwood got 33% which are both above the national average of 15.6%. Clearly the national average is pretty low at the moment but we all know the reasons for that. As the schools' curricula were not designed towards this measure in the past, I expect we will see large increases in these scores across all 4 local schools in the coming years as options taken at GCSE shift towards the E Bacc core subjects.

And, in case anyone is thinking about applying... Girls got into Burntwood last year living up to 3.2 miles away so I would imagine those in Northcote should have a good chance of getting in as you are much closer.