NEU Strike Action on 25 and 27 June 2019
Revoke the academy order and stop the forced academisation of The John Roan
John Roan NEU members are taking strike action next week to do everything we can to save our school from academisation. Our industrial action has been sanctioned by the Action Committee of the National Education Union following a lawful ballot. It is in support of our trade dispute with the Secretary of State for Education who we have asked to use his discretionary powers to revoke the Academy Order made for The John Roan School.
We understand that the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) has imposed the Multi Academy Trust United Learning Trust (ULT) as the sponsor who intends to take over the assets and the running of the school on 31 August 2019. We have produced some information for staff and parents about United Learning. If this goes ahead we will lose one of the oldest state schools (342 years) to an unaccountable private organisation and the John Roan will no longer belong to the community is has served.
As NEU Joint General Secretary Mary Bousted said in The Guardian on 5 May: “Despite the academy programme supposedly being about choice, parents now realise they actually have no say whatsoever in who runs their schools.
“This has led to a great deal of anger resulting in an increased amount of parent-led campaigns against forced academisation. Parents now fully understand that there is no hard evidence that shows putting a school into a multi-academy trust (MAT) will lead to improvements”.
As both teachers and trade unionists that value education, we have considered carefully as to whether and when to take strike action, as we appreciate that it may disrupt you and your children. Our action will not affect the Y10 and Y12 exams that are currently taking place as our responsibilities do not include invigilating exams. However, where there are NEU members who are directly involved with the administration of an exam, we are asking for dispensation by the NEU from the action so that staff can support students in this situation. This is also the case with trips when they have been planned months in advance.
As NEU members, we want to continue to be employed through the Royal Borough of Greenwich and not through a Multi Academy Trust as will happen unless the Secretary of State revokes the Academy Order. If staff are forced to transfer, our conditions will worsen. We have concerns about the impact this will have on our workload, staff morale and staff turnover in the school.
We hope that parents and carers will support our stand. We believe that the best way for improvements to continue to be made at The John Roan is by it staying as a community school, rather than being forced to become part of an academy chain. United Learning (ULT) in correspondence with staff have indicated that they intend to restructure the staffing of the school in September which will lead to post reductions and course cuts.
We believe that this will have an adverse effect on our students' access to the subjects they want to study and that fewer staff will mean that we cannot deliver the quality of provision our students deserve. Our working conditions are the students learning conditions and we fear the impact academisation will have on the curriculum offer too. We have made it clear that we will challenge any attempt to cut the provision for our students at The John Roan.
We never take the decision to strike lightly, but we feel too much is at stake for both our current students and the future of the school to do nothing. We ask that parents join us.
We will be organising our community picket at Maze Hill on Tuesday 25 June and Thursday 27 June from 7.30am until 10am.
We are also supporting the Lobby of Greenwich Council at Woolwich Town hall on 26 June at 6.30pm to protest at their decision to agree to the conversion of John Roan to United Learning Trust.
We understand that the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) has imposed the Multi Academy Trust United Learning Trust (ULT) as the sponsor who intends to take over the assets and the running of the school on 31 August 2019. We have produced some information for staff and parents about United Learning. If this goes ahead we will lose one of the oldest state schools (342 years) to an unaccountable private organisation and the John Roan will no longer belong to the community is has served.
As NEU Joint General Secretary Mary Bousted said in The Guardian on 5 May: “Despite the academy programme supposedly being about choice, parents now realise they actually have no say whatsoever in who runs their schools.
“This has led to a great deal of anger resulting in an increased amount of parent-led campaigns against forced academisation. Parents now fully understand that there is no hard evidence that shows putting a school into a multi-academy trust (MAT) will lead to improvements”.
As both teachers and trade unionists that value education, we have considered carefully as to whether and when to take strike action, as we appreciate that it may disrupt you and your children. Our action will not affect the Y10 and Y12 exams that are currently taking place as our responsibilities do not include invigilating exams. However, where there are NEU members who are directly involved with the administration of an exam, we are asking for dispensation by the NEU from the action so that staff can support students in this situation. This is also the case with trips when they have been planned months in advance.
As NEU members, we want to continue to be employed through the Royal Borough of Greenwich and not through a Multi Academy Trust as will happen unless the Secretary of State revokes the Academy Order. If staff are forced to transfer, our conditions will worsen. We have concerns about the impact this will have on our workload, staff morale and staff turnover in the school.
We hope that parents and carers will support our stand. We believe that the best way for improvements to continue to be made at The John Roan is by it staying as a community school, rather than being forced to become part of an academy chain. United Learning (ULT) in correspondence with staff have indicated that they intend to restructure the staffing of the school in September which will lead to post reductions and course cuts.
We believe that this will have an adverse effect on our students' access to the subjects they want to study and that fewer staff will mean that we cannot deliver the quality of provision our students deserve. Our working conditions are the students learning conditions and we fear the impact academisation will have on the curriculum offer too. We have made it clear that we will challenge any attempt to cut the provision for our students at The John Roan.
We never take the decision to strike lightly, but we feel too much is at stake for both our current students and the future of the school to do nothing. We ask that parents join us.
We will be organising our community picket at Maze Hill on Tuesday 25 June and Thursday 27 June from 7.30am until 10am.
We are also supporting the Lobby of Greenwich Council at Woolwich Town hall on 26 June at 6.30pm to protest at their decision to agree to the conversion of John Roan to United Learning Trust.
We will be taking strike action on Tues 25 June to stop the forced academisation of our school. If United Learning takeover, there will be cuts to courses, cuts to teaching staff and larger class sizes across the school. @JohnRoanResists @steveoakes1234 https://t.co/2hzvDbVaJz
— thejohnroannut (@thejohnroannut) June 21, 2019
A Message from John Roan Resists - Parent and Community Group
John Roan is a community school and the support from the community has seen off two attempts to steal our childrens' future. We are a growing campaign that is reaching out to others up and down the country that are defending their local schools and sharing inspiration and ideas. We are determined to see our school recover from the damage done by predatory MATs and those in positions of power who have facilitated both cuts to the national education budget and the undermining of our education service by trying to build a privatised education business. We are extremely concerned about United Learning Trust taking over our school. Staff and ex staff of United Learning schools have started contacting us and the more information we get on the ethos and practices of the United Learning Trust (ULT( the more we know we must to everything we can to stop this hostile takeover. Please visit our FB group and Anti-Academy page for more information/
John Roan Resists.
John Roan Resists.
NEU Statement in response to the UST withdrawal
21 December 2018
UST BACK OUT OF JOHN ROAN TAKEOVER
Parents and staff at The John Roan School were informed yesterday that the UST (University Schools Trust) had withdrawn from their attempt to forcibly academise the school. In June the UST was named as the DfE’s preferred sponsor on an academy order issued after the school was contentiously rated “inadequate” by OFSTED.
Over the past six months parents and staff have been campaigning against the forced academisation with particular concerns over UST’s financial viability. These fears were confirmed yesterday when UST’s CEO, Grahame Price wrote in a letter to parents that the trust’s “resources alone will not be enough to address the challenges that the school faces.”
Anni Harrison, a parent and spokesperson for John Roan Resists, said in response to the news “What the community of parents and carers have achieved today in resisting academisation is hugely significant. We have seen off the UST through our own research and due diligence. What we need now is a united parental and community stance against any new sponsor."
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests conducted by parents have revealed that the USTs ‘flagship’ school Saint Pauls Way Trust (SPWT) has experienced high staff turnover of 21% year on year. Recently parents from the SPWT primary school contacted John Roan parents with their concerns about the safeguarding of their children and stonewalling by the UST when they made complaints. These complaints have been raised with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) in Tower Hamlets and are on-going.
In addition further research uncovered articles, dating back to Grahame Price’s Headship at Wilmington Enterprise College in December 2008, revealed that Grahame Price had left the school under a ‘cloud’ and a few months later the school was plunged into special measures, closed and then academised the following year.
Kirstie Paton, NEU co-rep at The John Roan School explained, “We are relieved that the UST has finally agreed to withdraw. We remain implacably opposed to this forced academisation. The whole academisation process has been extremely disruptive to our school where considerable amounts of public money have been frittered away on consultants who have had very little impact on those that count – our students.”
Greenwich NEU Secretary, Tim Woodcock, responded to a letter from Dominic Herrington, Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC), by adding “The RSC has stated that the DfE are now looking for a new sponsor. We will continue to lobby both Dominic Herrington and Damian Hinds (Secretary of State) to listen to parents and rethink this proposal. We are now part of a growing number of schools nationally that will continue to challenge the rationale that academies deliver a better education compared to LAs. We believe that The John Roan and other schools like us are better placed in the family of LA schools rather than forcing unaccountable MATs (Multi-Academy Trusts) on communities that don’t want them. This will only serve to disrupt the education of our students.”
UST BACK OUT OF JOHN ROAN TAKEOVER
Parents and staff at The John Roan School were informed yesterday that the UST (University Schools Trust) had withdrawn from their attempt to forcibly academise the school. In June the UST was named as the DfE’s preferred sponsor on an academy order issued after the school was contentiously rated “inadequate” by OFSTED.
Over the past six months parents and staff have been campaigning against the forced academisation with particular concerns over UST’s financial viability. These fears were confirmed yesterday when UST’s CEO, Grahame Price wrote in a letter to parents that the trust’s “resources alone will not be enough to address the challenges that the school faces.”
Anni Harrison, a parent and spokesperson for John Roan Resists, said in response to the news “What the community of parents and carers have achieved today in resisting academisation is hugely significant. We have seen off the UST through our own research and due diligence. What we need now is a united parental and community stance against any new sponsor."
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests conducted by parents have revealed that the USTs ‘flagship’ school Saint Pauls Way Trust (SPWT) has experienced high staff turnover of 21% year on year. Recently parents from the SPWT primary school contacted John Roan parents with their concerns about the safeguarding of their children and stonewalling by the UST when they made complaints. These complaints have been raised with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) in Tower Hamlets and are on-going.
In addition further research uncovered articles, dating back to Grahame Price’s Headship at Wilmington Enterprise College in December 2008, revealed that Grahame Price had left the school under a ‘cloud’ and a few months later the school was plunged into special measures, closed and then academised the following year.
Kirstie Paton, NEU co-rep at The John Roan School explained, “We are relieved that the UST has finally agreed to withdraw. We remain implacably opposed to this forced academisation. The whole academisation process has been extremely disruptive to our school where considerable amounts of public money have been frittered away on consultants who have had very little impact on those that count – our students.”
Greenwich NEU Secretary, Tim Woodcock, responded to a letter from Dominic Herrington, Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC), by adding “The RSC has stated that the DfE are now looking for a new sponsor. We will continue to lobby both Dominic Herrington and Damian Hinds (Secretary of State) to listen to parents and rethink this proposal. We are now part of a growing number of schools nationally that will continue to challenge the rationale that academies deliver a better education compared to LAs. We believe that The John Roan and other schools like us are better placed in the family of LA schools rather than forcing unaccountable MATs (Multi-Academy Trusts) on communities that don’t want them. This will only serve to disrupt the education of our students.”
