Thursday, 30 November 2006

Who To Contact And How

You can email people, or send a letter to them at the following address:

c/o Kings House, Grand Avenue, Hove, BN3 2LS

Members of the Children, Families and Schools Committee (CFS): they are responsible for the final decision on the proposals put forward by the Working Group.

The letter that Coombe Road School provided for you to use, or to use to help you write your own letter, is on the blog here. You can just copy and paste it into your wordprocessor, add your address at the top, and sign it at the bottom.

Ken Norman
ken.norman@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Juliet McCaffery
juliet.mccaffery@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Richard Mallender
richard.mallender@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Ted Kemble
ted.kemble@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Sue John
sue.john@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Lynda Hyde
lynda.hyde@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Jack Hazelgrove
jack.hazelgrove@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Vanessa Brown
vanessa.brown@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Jayne Bennett
jayne.bennett@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Pat Hawkes (Chair)
pat.hawkes@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Council Officers
Alan McCarthy, Chief Executive, Brighton & Hove
alan.mccarthy@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Gil Sweetenham, Assistant Director of Education
gil.sweetenham@brighton-hove.gov.uk

David Hawker, Director of Education
david.hawker@brighton-hove.gov.uk


Local Councillors
Anne Meadows, Labour Member for Moulsecoomb and Bevendean
anne.meadows@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Jack Hazelgrove, Labour Member for Moulsecoomb and Bevendean
jack.hazelgrove@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Jeane Lepper, Labour Member for Hollingbury and Stanmer
jeane.lepper@brighton-hove.gov.uk


Member of Parliament for the area
Dr Desmond Turner MP
179, Preston Road
Brighton
BN1 6AG
Telephone: 01273 330610
Fax: 01273 500966
turnerd@parliament.uk

Write to the Argus
Letters to the Editor
Argus House
Crowhurst Road
Hollingbury
Brighton
BN1 8AR
editor@theargus.co.uk

News: Outraged Parents at Balfour School Meeting

The turnout for the Balfour School Meeting was high: at least 200 parents were there concerned for their childrens future from a variety of schools. I heard questions for Patcham, Westdene, Downs, Balfour, and Coombe Road. Others of you there may have heard a few more.

They were addressed by three speakers, Gil Sweetenham, the Assistant Director for Schools, Martin Powell, who is the representative for Preston Park Ward on the Parent Stakeholder Group and is also on the Working Group, and Robert Eastwood, a parent of a child at Balfour School. Tony Jones, the Headmaster of Balfour School, chaired the meeting.

The meeting was incredibly valuable, and I left feeling hopeful that an alternative solution might be reached as it seems we are not the only ones dismayed by the proposals. Parents were in fighting mood, and the general opinion was that fixed catchments were a bad idea. Only one parent openly supported them, asking Gil to be allowed to say something positive. Every other point raised seemed to try to undermine the proposed fixed catchments. Among the concerns raised were:
  • the distances pupils will still have to travel,
  • the possibility that their children might end up at Falmer - one woman was prepared to break the bank and send her child to private school instead,
  • a sense that the fixed catchment idea was designed to placate a few parents from Queen's Park and the Hanovers,
  • the feeling that parents had not been consulted properly throughout the process: that they knew little of it until the proposals were already put forward,
  • and a strong sense that a duty to social justice - good schools for all, not just the richer families - was not possible under these proposals.
One parent summed it up at the end when they said that no system would be fair until every school in Brighton was a good school.

Robert Eastwood argued that a fairer means to allocate places would include sharing the deprived children across the city's schools by means of a system called "FSM banding", or "Free School Meals Banding". This had never been examined in depth by the Working Group as an option. It would be a way of ensuring all schools have a comprehensive, or socially broad, intake.

It was especially pleasing at the end of the meeting to hear Martin Powell say that he would request that this system be modelled properly by the Working Group. Gil Sweetenham looked surprised at this turnaround. For me, this was a hopeful end to a tempestuous and sometimes bitter meeting.

The results of the Secondary Admissions Review will only benefit the whole city if the whole city is included. Under the current proposals for fixed catchments, it seems that the children from areas less likely to complain, from areas already disenfranchised (left out), have their needs for a good education sacrificed. Thankfully, this issue is not just ours; we are not alone in our outrage at these proposals; there are others fighting for a fairer system.

More Detail

Gil spoke at length in support of the fixed catchments, adding a few extra reasons to the selection he presented Coombe Road parents with on Monday. It appeared that he was responding to queries he'd received from Balfour parents by email and trying to close down some of the objections in advance. These included:
  • Why not build another school in East Brighton? Because funding would not be given as pupil numbers are staying the same;
  • Why not add an extra class to over-subscribed schools? Perhaps they would, if there was a call for it, but that would have to be widespread.
He also tried to placate us with some snippets of information:
  • The news that Learning Skills Council (LSC) is planning a new system, whereby pupils would be registered at a school, but able to take classes anywhere across the city. (However, this isn't due for 5 years, and looking at the LSC website, they deal with education for over 16s);
  • He added that the review sought to redress the imbalance for families in the Wards along the seafront from Whitehawk and Queen's Park who, under the current system, were highly unlikely to get their first choice of schools. These parents have complained hard about their situation to the Council over the past few years;
  • And of course the proposed Academy at Falmer.
Martin Powell stood up and tried to placate parents concerned about the choice between Dorothy Stringer and Varndean, as Varndean is seen as the "poor kids' school". He added that if it came to a ballot in the dual catchment, then all people would be treated equally.

There seemed to be a lot of fire-fighting going on, with Martin and Gil both attempting to douse the blaze before it got out of control. It became evident why when Robert Eastwood spoke. He went through some figures, and exposed the fact that it is unlikely that "the catchment will catch". In other words, there will be too many children in the catchment for Dorothy Stringer and Varndean, and those children will have to go out of the catchment to other schools. This would be decided by the ballot, and parents and children would be living in a great deal of uncertainty until the results were known. Ultimately, some of those children might well be sent to Falmer.

Mr Eastwood argued that "FSM banding" might be a better model, FSM meaning "Free School Meals". This was an option that the Working Group never examined, and may result in a more comprehensive, or socially broad, intake of children in the schools across Brighton. Under this system, all schools will have a spread of children from poor to rich backgrounds. No schools would just take the poorer children, or just take the richer children.

You can read more about "FSM banding" this on his website:

http://www.schools4communities.co.uk/

Let us know what you think of the FSM banding idea and of all schools having to take some of the children from economically deprived backgrounds.

Wednesday, 29 November 2006

Finding your way around this blog

In case you haven't seen a blog before, I thought you might like a few tips to find your way around.

On the homepage you'll see the articles listed down the page, and you can read them from here. You can also click on the header for the article and just view that article on its own.

On the top right of the blog homepage, under the title, you have the "Blog Archive". You can see the headlines here in puple, and if you click on the month, you can see past articles. This is great if you want to check out when the next event is going on as you won't have to scroll down the page to find it. All events will start with "Notice:..." so they can be seen easily.

At the end of each post, or article, there is a pale blue link called "Comments". If you are looking at the article on the blog homepage instead of clicking on the article headline and looking at the article page, you will not be able to see the comments, but you should be able to see how many there are. Wherever you are, you can see the comments, and add one yourself, by clicking on the "Comments" link.

Please comment, even if it is only a brief expression of support. We want the Council to know that there are lots of us who are unhappy with this fixed catchment solution. You can always do it anonymously.

Letter for Coombe Road parents to send out to Councillors etc...

To make your lives easy, here's the letter that Coombe Road School sent to you to use as a for your own complaints. You could also use it to help you to write your own personal letter.

Copy and paste the following letter into a document on your wordprocessor, add your address at the top and a signature at the bottom, and you can send it to one of the people on the "Who to Contact" sheet - the same list is found here on the blog.


The Letter

Dear

As a parent of a child at Coombe Road School, I would like to express my total opposition to the proposed new secondary admissions procedures. By placing our area in the catchment area for Falmer and Patcham schools, we are effectively being denied a choice. This lack of choice will be diminished still further if the amendment tabled by the Patcham parents leads to Falmer becoming a single catchment area.

The working group appears to have failed in all of the criteria it set itself:

  • We have no access to our preferred school unless it happens to be Falmer (or maybe Patcham), currently two of the worst performing schools in Brighton & Hove;
  • Our travelling distances will not be improved, as neither Falmer or Patcham schools are nearer to our area;
  • Coombe Road currently fosters, and would want to continue to foster, links to many schools, but this will be cut down to two, or even one;
  • Parental preference will only be met if we prefer to send our children to the least well-performing school(s). Any preference to send them to a successful secondary would only be considered in the virtually unheard of event of Dorothy Stringer or Varndean being undersubscribed;
  • Year Six children will not have increased opportunities to transfer with friends from primary school. On the contrary, any families who are able will begin the process of moving to 'a better catchment area' not only splitting friends, but leading to the breakdown of the local community, and negative impact on the primary schools within the Falmer catchment area;
  • The final point that this proposal will lead to a better balance in the spread of children from deprived wards would be laughable if it were not so offensive. The two successful Brighton secondaries have not only been incomprehensibly put in the same catchment area, but will be served by a carefully drawn catchment consisting of virtually all the affluent and middle-class areas of Brighton. On the other hand, Falmer will be served by only the less affluent areas of the city. A sprinkling of children on free school meals have been added all round, in a superficial attempt to make this seem fair.
All children should have the right to be educated at a good secondary school, and parents should have the right to choose where their children are educated. These new proposals deny any meaningful choice to large areas of the city and will increase the social divisions of the current admissions system. Children living in the BN2 4 area of the city will be severely disadvantaged by these proposals, and for this reason, we urge you to reconsider them.

Yours sincerely,




Angry parents from Coombe Road confront Assistant Director for Schools

On the evening of Monday 27th November some Coombe Road School parents joined Mrs Dykes and Mr O'Sullivan at the School to discuss the proposals on fixed catchment areas put forward by the Secondary Admissions Review (SAR). Gil Sweetenham, who is Chair of the Working Group that has put forward these proposals, was present to talk about the SAR and answer parents' questions.

Gil explained that Secondary admissions were never to be about "choice" for parents, but instead that parents were allowed to state a "preference". This is still the case with the fixed catchment areas, and parents will still be able to get their child into a school outside the fixed catchment, if there are not enough applications for that school. And what is the likelihood of Dorothy Stringer and Varndean being undersubscribed.

The reasons behind fixed catchments included:
  • Making the admissions process simple and transparent;
  • Maintaining community ties, so that as many children as possible go to a local school;
  • Using current bus routes to avoid disruption of the transport services.
Of course, most of us found this baffling, as Falmer is further away than Varndean or Dorothy Stringer for many parents in the Coombe Road area. At the same time, the reason for some of the bizarre results is perhaps down to the fact that East Brighton has fewer schools to serve it than the West of the City, hence their "local" school is further away: in particular, the south of the city along the seafront to the Queen's Park Ward - the Wards that campaigned for a different system originally as they found their children falling outside the Varndean and Stringer distance measurements and ending up at Falmer.

When I spoke to Colin Race, Gil Sweetenham's assistant, on Monday afternoon, he stated that transport was a main consideration - although he then qualified that with "maybe". Social deprivation, on the other hand, was important, but not as important as the three reasons Gil gave above.

Gil explained that a great deal of thought and effort had gone into this process, and pulled out a colourful map most could not see as it was A4 and too far away. No number of colourful maps, however, could convince us that the situation is fair for our children.

When they got their chance, the parents were vocal in objecting on the grounds of:

  • the lack of representation for our Ward in the meetings of the Parent Stakeholder Group and the parent focus groups of our area;
  • a lack of representation and consultation that was down to shamefully bad communication with parents in our area by the Council;
  • the boundaries of the catchment area all-too-conveniently sectioned off the poorer areas of Brighton to the worst schools - particularly if those of us in Bevendean and Moulsecoomb are only left with Falmer in our catchment area.
  • a fixed catchment for Falmer/Patcham - now possibly only Falmer - would discourage people from moving to the area and lead to people moving away, a fall in house prices in our Ward. This would also result in a less diverse community and a growing and unbalanced student population.
The bottom line is that the SAR does not look fair - and quite literally when you look at the map. The dual catchment for Varndean and Dorothy Stringer appears to have little to worry about. Meanwhile, we have been offered Patcham and Falmer, two of the worst performing schools in the city. What's more, we may only end up with Falmer school, as Patcham residents attempt to annex the school.

The Varndean/Dorothy Stringer catchment also excludes most of Whitehawk, not to mention Hollingbury and Coldean. So, quite frankly, the Working Group's proposals for the SAR look hugely unfair and biased no matter what way they try to sell it to us.

Gil Sweetenham shrugged his shoulders much of the time, and at points he didn't seem to know what to say.

It is vital we get active and do everything we can to promote a fairer system. We need all the help and support we can get, so, if you can, please join us and help out. I'll be posting articles on the blog about how to take part in the campaign, and the progress we are making.

Notice: Meeting tonight at Balfour Junior School

There will be a meeting at 7pm tonight, Wednesday 29th November, at Balfour Junior School.

The Balfour Parents have invited parents from Stanford Junior and the Patcham area, but also welcome any other parents concerned about the new proposals on secondary school admissions.

We hope some of you will be able to come.

Tuesday, 28 November 2006

Unannounced Visit to the Parent Stakeholders Group

Two parents, paid a surprise visit to the Parent Stakeholders Group (PSG) meeting this evening, Tuesday 28th November.

They met our representative, Claire Jackson, a long-term resident of Coombe Road, and passionate about the area. She pledged her commitment to represent the Ward on the PSG.

They then asked if they might speak to the Group on behalf of the parents of Coombe Road School. Gil Sweetenham requested they leave the room while the members of the PSG made a decision. The Stakeholders Group was kind enough to give them the opportunity to present their views.

This is the speech they gave:




"This message is from the parents and children of Coombe Road School. Our parents come from a wide catchment that includes Bevendean and Moulsecoomb.

"You have spent the last eight months or so dedicating your time to this Secondary Admissions Review and have worked hard to put together the proposals that were made by the Working Group at the beginning of November. You acted as representatives for your Wards in a system which should encourage debate and negotiation in order to achieve a solution. We respect your efforts on behalf of the City.

"However, throughout the process our School received no information from the SAR; our school received no request for a member to join the Stakeholders Group; our school was not included in the public meetings held during the second half of the summer term; no representative from our Ward was present at any meeting throughout the process; and no parent received any correspondence direct from the LEA or the Council regarding focus groups or the Parent Stakeholder Group. Had we been aware of our lack of representation, we would have made every effort to rectify it.

"Our lack of representation is dismaying on its own. In addition, we are dismayed at the results of the SAR, which left us with a choice of the two worst performing schools in Brighton; although now it seems that we will only have one choice, and that all children from our Wards, areas not represented in the process, will be sent to Falmer school. More galling still is the fact that our Ward abuts the areas within the catchment for two of the best performing schools in Brighton. The parents in the next door catchment area are blessed with the best outcome for their children, who have a great start to their secondary education, and a promising future.
This review is unjust to our children. It is unfair that they be so easily banished from the privileges that a good education brings. The new Falmer fixed catchment amounts to social exclusion, ensuring that Falmer school never receives the comprehensive intake that might enable it to flourish.

"The results will be a longterm ghettoization of our Wards. Who would choose to live in a catchment area that leaves their children with a substandard education? We want our communities to flourish, to grow, to change and improve, but this sounds the death knell on that possibility. Our children deserve opportunities to learn, and to become valuable productive members of our society. These proposals, blatantly unfair, do not promise the best for our Wards, or ultimately for Brighton and Hove.
There is no even distribution of deprivation and disadvantage. This is a further disenfranchisement of people already shamefully excluded. I urge you to rethink the proposals and to request that the review place a higher value on social justice.

"Thank you."

Monday, 27 November 2006

Get Involved Now!

There's a meeting of the Parent Stakeholders Group on Tuesday 28th November, 7pm at Hove Town Hall. These are the people who were supposed to be representative of our interests through the process of the Secondary Admissions Review.

It is vital that we now have our views heard by the Parent Stakeholders Group. This meeting is our first opportunity to change the Review, and time is short. We only have until January 12th to get our voices heard and the sooner we start the better.

The Parent Stakeholder Group consists of about 23 parents and carers from across Brighton. However, only one person on that group, Claire Jackson, was from the Coombe Road/Bear Road area; her child goes to St Martyns. As far as we can tell, she was brought onto the Parent Stakeholder Group very late, in mid-September 2006. We wait for confirmation on an actual date.

There was no representative from Moulsecoomb/Bevendean on the Parent Stakeholders Group during the entire process of this Review so far.

The bottom line is that we don't think our views were represented on that group, or on the Working Group, which consisted of:
  • Councillors: 2 Labour, 2 Conservative, 1 Green Party, 1 Liberal Democrat
  • A parent governor from Cardinal Newman
  • 4 representatives of the Parent Stakeholders Group who came from Preston Park, South Hove, Central Brighton and Hanover
  • 3 local authority officers
After the meeting on 12th January 2007, the Working Group will send their proposals to "The Child, Families and Schools Committee" who will make the final decision about the Secondary Admissions Review and therefore the admissions process in 2008.

Please try to come tomorrow. We want to get our voice heard by the Parent Stakeholders as soon as possible to impress on them our fears for our children's future, but also for the future of our community, if the only choice for our children is Falmer.

I hope we will see some of you there.