(OR DESTROYING SCHOOLS FOR A DISMAL TODAY)
| Transforming Schools for a Brighter Future (OR DESTROYING SCHOOLS FOR A DISMAL TODAY) |
|
| Letter From Elected Mayor Mark Meredith Why are we proposing a change to secondary and special schools? |
| "For several years
now the number of young people of secondary age has been falling both
locally and nationally". |
| The figures used by Serco
in their proposals are not the same as Office of National Statistics
(ONS) projections of student numbers based on above-average birth rates
in the City. So instead of Serco's estimate of 12,000 they estimate
that there will be around 13,000 pupils in 2015 and if a 10% margin in
error is used, the population could be 14,300 students! In any
event it is not sensible to run a system without any surplus places
i.e. there are the needs of looked after children who move from school
to school. There will not be a drastic fall in population in the north
of the City and certainly not in the number of children wishing to come
to Haywood. Despite repeated attempts by the Local Authority to
restrict our numbers, we have remained popular and are one of the few
oversubscribed schools, as well as the largest in the City. In the
"admissions and catchment area" part of the consultation paper it says:
"We are not proposing to
continue with catchment areas. Since 1981 parents have been allowed to
express a preference for any school and, if the school has places
available, the child must be admitted. Catchment areas only apply when
schools are over subscribed or, in rural areas, when free transport is
provided. Earlier this year the Government issued a new Code of
Practice which all schools must follow, regardless of the way they are
governed. In future, parents will be able to express a preference for
any school and will be offered a place if there is space".
If this is the case now why is the LA trying to illegally restrict the
numbers of our new intake to 180 instead of 210? |
| "When the results of
all 150 local authorities in England are compared, Stoke-on-Trent is
third from bottom. If we are to ensure that future generations of
children do better, we need to transform our Secondary Schools. This
transformation will not be easy and will take time". |
| What evidence is there for
this statement? Does it just refer to Key Stage 4 results, or cover Key
Stage 2, 3 and Key Stage 4 results? In 2006 at Key Stage 4, Stoke's
GCSE results meant that 18 Local Authorities were below it. When
compared with similar schools (Contextual Added Value) 30 LAs were
below Stoke including Walsall and Bradford that Serco have run. The Key
Stage 4 results in 2007 were even better. The Stoke on Trent schools
that were put into special measures have come through that process
strengthened. A lot of transformation has taken place at
secondary level. For the City to achieve the national average
work needs to be done from birth to 19, particularly at primary age, in
local communities as well as in schools. Work such as Haywood's
Family Learning in ICT (FLI) project needs to be extended across the
City. At many of our secondary schools and certainly at Haywood
transformation has already taken place as the May 2007 Ofsted report
shows - "a good and improving school
with outstanding features". To become outstanding in all
features we know we need to further improve our results but that takes
time. Although children enter here "well below average", "all students make good progress"
and by the end of Year 11 move closer to national averages according to
the HMI who led the Ofsted inspection. More help and support from the
LA instead of these destructive proposals would help us become truly
outstanding. There ought to be some acknowledgement that given the
severe deprivation in the area we are doing well. The government
ordered a strategic intervention in the LA because of the poor quality
of the LA leadership and lack of capacity to improve, as well as
concerns about Social Services and the protection of children. It was
not because of the failure of secondary schools and/or their
leadership. Failure to build upon good practice and the
destruction of popular secondary schools will lead to a reduction in
achievement. |
| "We want to ensure that
our young people have access to the most modern computer technology and
specialist facilities, that they are taught in light, pleasant
surroundings and that all their learning needs are catered for". |
| As our Student School
Council Representatives have already pointed out to the new Director,
they already have access here to modern technology and specialist
facilities and most of their surroundings are pleasant. The cost
of refurbishment to enhance all facilities would be less then the cost
of building a new school. Destroying this school would waste a
lot of public money. Our students through Creative Partnerships have
already drawn up new plans for the building and are waiting to put them
into operation. "Resources and staff
are used exceptionally and effectively to promote high standards and
encourage students and parents to have high expectations of the school".
Ofsted May 2007. |
| Our Vision |
| We will achieve this
by: Placing the Learner at the Centre |
| Serco and the new
directorate need to actually visit schools like Haywood and they would
find that the learner is already placed at the centre and they have a
wide range of curriculum choices. A new Key Stage 3 curriculum is
also being introduced. That is why we were asked to talk about it
at a local leadership conference and why we have visitors from out of
the area to find out more. We are at the forefront of the development
of Diplomas and are helping the City steer the 14 - 19 Curriculum. "Overall, teaching and learning are good,
and some are outstanding. As a result of this good teaching,
students make good progress". Ofsted May 2007 "As a result of the many opportunities for
vocational education, particularly in the school’s specialism
of
engineering students make good progress in acquiring the skills
necessary for their future working lives". Ofsed May 2007 |
| Supporting high quality
leadership, management and staff development |
| If all schools are closed,
or just some including Haywood, it will be very difficult to retain
high quality teachers and support staff. The education of
children currently going through secondary education or about to will
be badly affected. We have the best staff attendance rate in the
City. "Leadership and management are good. The strong vision and passion of the headteacher are shared by all the staff. This is seen by the way in which everyone pulls together as part of a community of which they are all proud". Ofsted May 2007 "Responsibilities are effectively developed and all staff are encouraged to take an active part in observing each other in their work. A culture of continuous improvement underpins the quality of lessons and the effective identification and sharing of good practice". Ofsted May 2007 "Staff are used exceptionally effectively to promote high standards" Ofsted May 2007 |
| Placing the school at
the heart of the community |
| Ofsted graded Haywood as
outstanding for its work with local partners. We are already at
the heart of the community as one of the first fully extended schools
in the City, the first secondary to receive the Healthy Schools Award
and the first to work extensively on family learning. To close us
would threaten the 'Every Child
Matters' developments which are needed in this area. As an
engineering college, we are one of just a few in the area and a few in
the nation. No mention is made anywhere of engineering as a
specialism to be continued in this document. "The presence of the City Learning Centre
on site powerfully adds to the school's position as a centre of
learning that is seeking to develop curricula to suit the whole
community". Ofsted May 2007 |
| Developing the
City-wide dimension |
| It has never been explained
how these proposals link to wider regeneration or cultural and sports
plans. |
| Transformation |
| "During
the change, great care will be taken to make sure our current schools
keep on improving as they have been in recent years". |
| It is hard to see how
schools will be helped to improve when morale will be very badly
affected and schools badly disrupted. If it is acknowledged that
schools are improving, how will closing them and simply building new
schools help. As one of our prospective parents said at our Open
Evening "What you do need to value
and invest in is the staff you already have. At schools like Haywood
High with more support and investment in them you will have outstanding
schools in this City without the massive expense and disruption bought
on by building schools for the future". "Please do not patronise us by telling us
that new buildings and facilities are for the best and that our
children will not achieve at this school in its current state.
You cannot begin to put a price on committed and supportive staff and
peace of mind of parents". We already have what Serco call
"the powerful mix of new facilities,
state of the art technology, joint working and shared good practice".
If Serco bothered to visit our schools they would see this for
themselves. |
| The
Schools |
| Our
Proposals in Summary "Our favoured option a) is that all 22 secondary and special schools should close, and that 12 new secondary and 4 new special schools should open in their place. This option is explained in more detail in the rest of this section. However, there are other options that could be considered and on which we would welcome your comments - b) closing only those 9 secondary schools which need to close either because they are changing status to become academies or because education is no longer to be provided on the site; c) closing all local authority schools and opening a smaller number but leave faith schools out of the proposals for closure; d) leave St Joseph's Catholic College out of the closure proposals given its particular circumstances In our favoured proposals three Catholic Schools will open. Two of them, the current St Thomas More and St Margaret Ward, will change their admissions arrangements to admit an agreed number of non-Catholics. St Joseph's will have an increased number of post 16 places. St Peter's Church of England School will become an Academy and move to the current 6th Form site in the University Quarter". |
| We do not support the
favoured option (a) to close all schools including Haywood nor do we
support option (c) leaving faith schools out of the proposals for
closure or (d) leaving St Joseph's out of the proposals. Option (b) is
unclear and provides no real choice. Once the school is closed this
'special place' will be destroyed and a new school on a new site would
not be Haywood. We need to remain open before we can consider the pros
and cons of a new site for us. Only those schools that can no longer
support themselves through a drastic fall in numbers should be closed
not a popular oversubscribed school like Haywood. There should only be
the one Academy, St Peter's, if the LA is forced to have one in Stoke.
The case for academies is unproven and at least one of the faith
schools has a worse added value score than Haywood. Only one of them,
St Joseph's, has the same quality of Ofsted report. We were both
described by Ofsted as "good with
some outstanding features." Parents should support the
development of alternative proposals which do not close Haywood. These
alternative proposals which keep education local
are currently being worked on by Headteachers and School Governors in
conjunction with the three local MPs. |
| Schools Specialism |
| If you reduce to 12 schools
some of the specialisms will be lost including a valuable if more
traditional specialism such as engineering. The headteachers through
the Excellence In Cities partnership worked together in the past to
ensure a spread of specialisms across the City. It is a credit to the
work of all the schools that we have such a wide range of specialisms;
many have been fought hard for and could be lost in an instant. "Designation as a specialist engineering
college has improved resources and the sharing of expertise. These have
enriched the curriculum and helped to improve teaching and student
achievement in the specialist subjects, especially design and
technology. Cross-fertilisation of skills, talents and resources
between engineering/technology and other departments, seen particularly
in mathematics, science and music, is making a significant positive
impact". Ofsted May 2007 |
| City Learning Centre |
| The Haywood CLC is attached
to the school and we share a community/student library. The partnership
of the CLC with Haywood has been praised as an example of good practice
and should be allowed to continue. Engineering developments for the
area are being led by the CLC and the school. The two should not be
separated. "The presence of the City
Learning Centre on site powerfully adds to the school's position as a
centre of learning that is seeking to develop curricula to suit the
whole community". Ofsted May 2007 |
| Governance |
| Haywood, after becoming the
first school in the City to achieve Foundation status, is well on the
way to becoming a self-governing institution. We already have
very close links with Higher and Further Education institutions, and
the local hospital and Creative Partnerships. These links could
be developed further through Trust arrangements. We are the type
of school the City is promising to create. It is insulting to the
school community not to let us do this ourselves. |
| The
Favoured Proposal in More Detail |
| New School at Burslem Bank Top Haywood |
|
It is simply not true that
the site does not meet government standards.
The Area Guidelines for
Schools (BB98) do suggest that the site area of 58,801 would only
provide sport for 680 students, but this site area figure doesn't take
into account or use Dimensions (owned and run by the LA) and our new
BSF buildings plans which reduce the floor space required by the
building of a student designed learning tower. In fact if our original
BSF plans had gone ahead the design/layout of the school would have
changed significantly. The whole of the elongated Science department
was to have been demolished and replaced by a 2, possibly 3, storey
building based on engineering hexagonal shapes. There would be no
problems about planning because the top of the student designed tower
would be no higher than existing buildings. Yes remodelling of the
existing buildings would be required - a 10 million Pound refurbishment
was part of the original BSF strategic case. The other point to note is
that, with arguably the best PE department in the City, both our staff
and facilities are regularly used by other schools. For example we
recently ran on our site (and had plenty of room), an Able and Talented
sport competition for 10 schools. One of our partner primary schools
regularly uses us for their Sports Day. Because of the proximity of
Dimensions, they have never provided the money to enhance our sports
facilities and our bids were consistently refused. But if the LA's
sports strategy of using an organisation like Dimensions is to
continue, then Dimensions should be included in our site area figures
and/or fully incorporated into our site.
It used to be said that we wouldn't have the numbers in future or that our site wasn't safe. Now that those statements have proved to be false the consultation paper is now trying to make the weak, ridiculous claim that we are not big enough. Was it deliberate that sports facilities weren't even mentioned and the statement reads as if the whole school is too small? Just look at our floor area - one of the largest in the City! If the will was there, our facilities could be enhanced by including Dimensions, by building a new sports hall and/or joint use of nearby land with Port Vale FC, as suggested in the headteacher's email to the Director, 4 October 2007: "Staying on our site would also enable us to continue with all of our extended schools activities in and around the local community, as well as allowing the revitalisation of our Creative Partnerships Aiming Higher/BSF Project. Subject to governor discussions, Creative Partnerships, as well as Port Vale FC and possibly the local hospital could also become Trust partners. There is also the local Co-operative store with whom we have fair-trade links and university and college links. As a Foundation Trust working with these organisations, continuing with our curricular links with local secondary schools and the college, developing further links with local partner primary schools, we could all work together to transform Haywood into an outstanding school in all features by raising achievement". Using the BB98 guidance on sports facilities the Holden Lane site is also too small, as acknowledged in a letter to Joan Walley MP "This Holden Lane site, whilst slightly too small, meets the requirements because it has a sports centre on site!" The answer for us is simple! Give us the same sort of facilities. Also we have pointed out before that a lot of extra space will be gained by going ahead with our original BSF plans, including the new learning tower, our students Aiming Higher project. Our students' views are currently being put forward in the general BSF discussions led by the LA, because our students have already helped design our possible new buildings. We have pointed out before that in schools of the future a lot of learning would be virtual with not everyone on site at once. The LA's current proposals and rejection of our plans for a learning tower show a lack of imagination and contradict the ethos of BSF. Just as schools of the future will not have boundaries of time or space so the boundaries with other educational institutions will become blurred. Schools will not have to be gigantic institutions. The other point to make is that if the figures on future admissions are wrong, as explained earlier, then there would be enough students in the area to keep all schools open and very large 1400+ schools would not have to be built. The effectiveness of very large schools is currently being challenged by members of government. How does the proposal reducing 4 schools to 3 meet the requirements of the new Education Act to provide "choice and diversity" and address local community needs? There would be less choice of schools, not more, and only the choice of one if parents are opposed to the ethos of either a Roman Catholic or Academy Education. Parents already have a school they wish their children to go to in large numbers - Haywood Engineering College. The proposed new site at Bank Top is unsuitable and possibly has dangerous methane problems. The bank slopes too much, and the ripping up of playing fields, as well as the new building required would be opposed by residents in the area. People around our current site are comfortable with this school and haven't opposed recent building extensions including the building of the City Learning Centre. They benefit by our facilities including our library and would benefit by our new learning tower and extended lecture theatre linked to the CLC in our plans. The Bradeley residents near the proposed new site would strongly oppose using it for a school when there is a perfectly adequate site where Haywood is now. |
| Moving Forward |
| How we will move from the Current Provision
to the New Arrangement |
| The unnecessary changes
caused by closing a successful school will create a dent in morale and
subsequent loss of staff to neighbouring LAs, as well as loss of
children. The young people at Haywood and children in years 4, 5, and 6
at partner primary schools do not deserve to have their education
disrupted in this way. Our ethos, 'a
special place' as Ofsted described us, will be totally lost.
There are no details on how quality staff will be either retained or
recruited. At Haywood and other schools there is a young staff with
only a small percentage due for retirement. The proposals show a lack of concern for those forced to remain at the school until a new school opens. The stigma of the death sentence they have been given represent a downward spiral as teachers and support staff and resources diminish and the schools empty. No-one has made any attempt to quantify the cost of running a school into the ground. "Haywood High School and Engineering College is a stimulating learning community where students can flourish as a result of the huge commitment of staff to the personal development of all students" Ofsted May 2007. Will the Director of Serco stand by her claim that whatever form Haywood took I could remain its Head and could therefore retain our staff and the school ethos? |
| Consultation |
| "We
have also been consulting young people through a number of specially
arranged meetings held in September and October". |
| Young people have been
excluded from formal consultations beginning in November. Our school council had one meeting with Ged Rowney which did not discuss these proposals. Also our parents' views have been ignored. - “To provide a genuinely personalised education, every school needs to be free to develop a distinctive ethos and to shape its curriculum, organisation and use of resources. Parents are entitled to have more choice of good schools to which they can send their children, and children are entitled to every opportunity to achieve their potential. An important part of the drive towards higher standards and more diversity and choice in education will come from the creation of self-governing schools. The Government is committed to giving schools the power to respond to the needs and aspirations of parents and learners and to take charge of their own development." Extract from a letter sent by Sir Bruce Liddington, Schools Commissioner, Department for Children, Schools and Families, to all Headteachers. The closure of the school flies in the face of this statement and denies parents a choice. This closure seems to contravene recent legalisation "The EIA 2006 amends the Education Act 1996 to place new duties on LAs to secure diversity in the provision of schools and to increase opportunities for parental choice when planning the provision of schools in their area. In addition, LAs are under a specific duty to respond to representations from parents about the provision of schools, including requests to establish new schools or make changes to existing schools. The Government's aim is to secure a more diverse and dynamic schools system which is shaped by parents". DCFS guidance on Closing a Maintained Mainstream School, page 17, 4.18. As the first self-governing Foundation School in the City we should not be closed. |
| How to Express Your Views |
| When you eventually receive
the booklet, please send the tear-off reply slip in to the
Director. The small size of the reply slip is an insult to all of us. So as well, please send your views anyway on paper to: Ged Rowney, Director of Children and Young People's Services, Floor 2, Civic Centre, Stoke on Trent, ST4 1RU by 11 January 2008 or use the electronic feedback form on the website and/or email them at consultation@stoke.gov.uk |
| Summary of Points |
A building does not make a school.
It is the people - staff, students, parents. Don't let them destroy ours. |