Invest in schools - don't cut!
Every child deserves the best
The Government cuts means that most schools will lose out on vital funds. check out Schoolcuts.org.uk to find out how we can campaign for fund our schools.
Parents from Avenue School win in the High Court to suspend an academy order at their school |
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Parents and teachers at Avenue School have been battling to stop the academisation of their community primary school.
The Academy programme is a failed system. It does nothing to support our children in education. Money leaves to classroom and ended up in inflated salaries of CEOs. We send our solidarity greeetings to the NEU in Newham and the Avenue Parents who are showing why we have to stand up and challenge this privatisation programme. For more information visit their facebook group Avenue Parents Group. Nadine Powrie resigns from The John Roan school
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Chair of Governors apolgises for false claim over deficit
Read the article from the NewsShopper here
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Teachers and staff at The John Roan achieve a successful outcome after three days of strike action:
The John Roan NUT have agreed to suspend our strike action planned this week after an agreement that jobs and courses will be reinstated and assurances on workload have been guaranteed.
Read the full statement here.
Download the statement and latest bulletin here.
Teachers strike over job losses and course cuts
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NUT members at The John Roan are on strike after seven weeks of negotiations had failed to get the Headteacher Nadine Powie to withdraw the redundancies and cuts to courses at our school. So far teachers have taken action on 21 April and 26 April with further action planned. The NUT have asked that the school management engage in meaningful negotations to resolve the dispute and restore jobs and courses.
Download our strike bulletin here You can download a letter to parents, explaining how this situation has arisen. How did it get to this?
The NUT has met with the Headteacher on four occasions since 29 February, most recently on the 19 April, where we have tried to resolve issues relating to:
Our hope is that Nadine Powrie will return to negotiations and recognise that the the issue of the deficit has been misrepresented and that the school can move forward without these severe cuts. Read Nadine Powrie's proposals for reorgansation and redundancies. Download the NUT document to read our detailed submission to the Governing Body regarding the restructuring. Download our document outlining why we oppose the redundancies and the rationale of the deficit budget and cuts. Download the documents on the Recovery Deficit Plan, projected funding from the Local Authority and Ms Powries budget 2015/16 which indicates in grey the extra spending on non-staffing costs. As we have made no significant headway to resolving these issues, we will be taking strike action on Thursday 21 April. We continue to call for meaningful negotiations to ensure that uncessary redundancies and cuts to courses are avoided. We are available to meet at any time that is convenient to the Headteacher and we urge her to take a more active part in consulting with unions. It is our wish to resolve these serious issues as soon as possible and to avoid further strike action. |
Want to connect with other Parents?
John Roan parents have set up a parent led group open to the school community called John Roan Resists
(Facebook) You can email them at: parentsforjohnroan@gmail.com and tweet at @JohnRoanResists John Roan Resists along with The John Roan NUT called a public meeting open to all to discuss our response to cuts and the threat of academisation with the announcment of the White Paper. Admin staff in the GMB agree to join NUT and ballot for strike action
After nearly two hours of negotiations with no substantial agreement on the core issues, the GMB who represents the majority of admin and support staff will be initiating a ballot to strike in opposition to the cutting of 20% of staff, the reduction of posts from 22 to 15 in admin, the complusory redundancies of two premises supervisors posts and the lack of meaningful consulation that has caused stress and confusion amongst staff. We welcome this decision by GMB members.
We are working closely with all the unions (NASUWT, ATL, Unison and Unite) and hope to collectively defend the provision at The John Roan. |
Head announces drastic cuts to staff and courses
On Monday 29 February, the staff at The John Roan were called to the Maze Hill hall to be informed that the school was to restructure due a deficit. The news was devasting as staff opened sealed envelopes to hear whether they had a job or not.
Colleagues left school in shock and some in tears - these devasting cuts have come out from nowhere. John Roan NUT met the next day and agreed to fight these cuts all the way.
We have asked on several occasions since December 2015 and summited two Freedom of Information Requests (FOI) to both the LA and the school n February 2016.
We finally recieved some information from our FOI on 21 March, 2016 but Nadine Powrie, the Head still refuses to release detailed accounts of the 'Recovery Budget' that was submitted to the LA for approval in December 2015.
What we can report is that the $438,000 deficit this year is down to a projected overspend by Nadine Powrie of approximately £680,000 in non-staffing costs.
We want answers.
1) Why does Ms Powrie refuse to release the public accounts of her 'recovery budget'?
2) What spending has Nadine Powrie committed the school to in terms of non-staffing costs (£680,000 overspend on premises, supply and services and curriclulum support) that has created this deficit since her arrival in September 2015?
3) Why has Ms Powrie suggested in a letter to parents that the deficit is due to a fall in expected student numbers in the Sixthform when the budget balanced and was signed off by the Governing Body in July 2015 based on 250 students arriving (not 350 as Ms Powrie claims).
4) Why is Ms Powrie claiming the issue is staffing when benching marking our school's staffing expenditure with 30 other similar schools places us in the middle ? (i.e. we are average in our staffing costs)
4) If the deficit is neither a product of loss in funding (the previous budget was based on projected sixth form numbers of 250 and 242 students enrolled - hardly a dramatic loss of funding) or staffing costs that are excessive compared to other schools, then why is Ms Powrie suggesting almost 20% cuts in staffing which would have a serious impact on teaching and learning?
If you are concerned about what is happening at The John Roan School and would like transparency and accountablilty then contact the Head, Nadine Powrie and Chair of Governors, Patrick Cooper directly with these questions.
npowrie@thejohnroan.greenwich.sch.uk
pcooper@thejohnroan.greenwichsch.uk
There have been some preliminary negotiations with the NUT, GMB and NASUWT where the case for withdrawing all the redundancies and cuts was put to Ms Powrie.
We have asked that Ms Powrie provide the full accounts so that the budget can be fully scrutinised.
These are the cuts threatened by the 'restructuring' to The John Roan:
Following courses to be cut:
Change to school day and increase in teacher Workload
The students deserve better - please join our fight to save jobs and courses at The John Roan
Colleagues left school in shock and some in tears - these devasting cuts have come out from nowhere. John Roan NUT met the next day and agreed to fight these cuts all the way.
We have asked on several occasions since December 2015 and summited two Freedom of Information Requests (FOI) to both the LA and the school n February 2016.
We finally recieved some information from our FOI on 21 March, 2016 but Nadine Powrie, the Head still refuses to release detailed accounts of the 'Recovery Budget' that was submitted to the LA for approval in December 2015.
What we can report is that the $438,000 deficit this year is down to a projected overspend by Nadine Powrie of approximately £680,000 in non-staffing costs.
We want answers.
1) Why does Ms Powrie refuse to release the public accounts of her 'recovery budget'?
2) What spending has Nadine Powrie committed the school to in terms of non-staffing costs (£680,000 overspend on premises, supply and services and curriclulum support) that has created this deficit since her arrival in September 2015?
3) Why has Ms Powrie suggested in a letter to parents that the deficit is due to a fall in expected student numbers in the Sixthform when the budget balanced and was signed off by the Governing Body in July 2015 based on 250 students arriving (not 350 as Ms Powrie claims).
4) Why is Ms Powrie claiming the issue is staffing when benching marking our school's staffing expenditure with 30 other similar schools places us in the middle ? (i.e. we are average in our staffing costs)
4) If the deficit is neither a product of loss in funding (the previous budget was based on projected sixth form numbers of 250 and 242 students enrolled - hardly a dramatic loss of funding) or staffing costs that are excessive compared to other schools, then why is Ms Powrie suggesting almost 20% cuts in staffing which would have a serious impact on teaching and learning?
If you are concerned about what is happening at The John Roan School and would like transparency and accountablilty then contact the Head, Nadine Powrie and Chair of Governors, Patrick Cooper directly with these questions.
npowrie@thejohnroan.greenwich.sch.uk
pcooper@thejohnroan.greenwichsch.uk
There have been some preliminary negotiations with the NUT, GMB and NASUWT where the case for withdrawing all the redundancies and cuts was put to Ms Powrie.
We have asked that Ms Powrie provide the full accounts so that the budget can be fully scrutinised.
These are the cuts threatened by the 'restructuring' to The John Roan:
- 14 teaching posts deleted including 1.2 Psychology and 2 Sociology teachers, 2 MFL teachers, 2 DT teachers, 2 Maths teachers, 1.5 English teachers, 2 Assistant Headteachers leading to 11 redundances.
- 1 Science teacher, 1 PE teacher (initial discussions meant Ms Powrie reinstated 2 science teachers and 1 PE teacher, when she realised she couldn't deliver the curriculum without them).
- Admin posts reduced from 22 to 15 - with new job descriptions for those who seek to reapply for their jobs
- Deletion of 2 Site Supervisor posts.
Following courses to be cut:
- RE across KS3 (Y7&8) and KS4 (Y9-11) to be deleted and replaced with 9 'drop down' days
- GCSE Psychology
- GCSE Sociology
- Government and Politics A Level
- Film Studies A Level
- BTEC Sport
- GCSE Media, DT and Food tech under threat
- Drama Collapsed into English
Change to school day and increase in teacher Workload
- Small groups at A Level to be taught vertically (Y12 and Y13 taught at the same time in the same class)
- Options choices reduced to increase class sizes
- Introduction of 6 (50 min) period day
- Increase of teaching load for all teachers to 22.5 hours a week
- Removal of daily tutor time and replacement with 1 period a week
The students deserve better - please join our fight to save jobs and courses at The John Roan
A summary of information and questions discussed at the recent Staff Information Meeting on Tuesday 23 February with Governors can be found in the News section here.
The Mercury newspaper have covered our campaign here.
The Story so far in the fight against academisation.....
- Parents were informed on Wednesday 3 February of The John Roan Governing Body's plans to consider turning The John Roan into an academy as part of a Multi Academy Trust (MAT). Parents, teachers, staff and students are opposed to such plans. They submitted an open letter to the Governing Body which you can read here
Please click on the links to the left/ above to read about our Anti Academy Campaign. Read also our collection of articles on Education here.
Please send us your views on johnroannut@gmail.com
If you are a parent and would like to contact the parent action group please email parentsforjohnroan@gmail.com.
If you wish to take part in a parent led discussion of academisation of Primary schools in Greenwich please take a look at this website.
Teachers at The John Roan take strike action against excessive workload
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Teachers at The John Roan went out on strike on Tuesday 10 and Thursday 19 November 2015. We are fighting to win respect for our profession as teachers. We have had enough of the constant monitoring and denegrating of our work. We are fighting, not just for a policy to limit observations and endless scrutiny, but to ensure that our workload and marking that means we can do our job without excessive stress, but for something more. We are fighting for respect, we are fighting for the next generation of teachers who should be able to stay in the classroom for more than three years without giving up due to stress and exhaustion. We are fighting for our students who would like to see the same teachers last longer than a few terms. We are fighting for our school, a great school that is loved by teachers, students and parents because we are community. Please send us your messages of solidarity and encouragement to our NUT members who are standing up for education. It really matters right now: johnroannut@gmail.com |
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Here are some of the resources that John Roan NUT have produced for parents and the community. Here is a press release of our strike action on Tuesday 10 November.
Staff at the John Roan campaigning for a staffroom at our lunchtime picnics. Eventually after many meetings and lunchtime picnics we finally got two staffrooms at both Maze Hill and Westcombe Park. Well done folks!
