NO to a UCL City Academy

Latest: First City Academy displaces Frank Barnes and Swiss Cottage Schools; now Frank Barnes School to be dumped on Edith Neville School

Petition (PDF)

Update 10 November 2007

Dear Colleague,

We do not believe that the Provost and Michael Worton have made an adequate educational case for the involvement of UCL in the proposed academy school in Camden, at Swiss Cottage.

At a public meeting that UCLUCU Officers attended in Camden on 9 October, Professor Worton publicly insisted, that to all intents and purposes the academy will be "a comprehensive school". He was quite categorical about this. However, once an academy is set up, UCL would be under no obligation to abide by such a promise.

John Bangs, NUT Head of Education Policy, told him explicitly that everything that UCL publicly proposed in terms of curriculum and governance could be carried out with a comprehensive community school, and that therefore, the academy proposal as it stood was unnecessary.

Leaving aside the educational problems of academies, the evidence from existing academies is that collaboration with other local schools is extremely difficult because while schools are accountable to the local education authority and each other in terms of governance, entrance policies and curriculum, an academy is independent and accountable to its sponsor and the DCSF. Therefore many of the stated reasons in UCL's bid would be far easier to achieve with targeted support to one or several community schools.

Mary Fulbrook has spelled out the disadvantages of an academy, the scale of local opposition and the problems arising from the choice of the particular site at Swiss Cottage (see here).

The simple question we believe the Provost needs to answer is this: why does he want to drag UCL into this unpopular and ill thought out plan for an academy?

UCLUCU Executive Committee

Petition

To: UCL Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant

We the undersigned are Camden residents or members of UCL staff. We are concerned that UCL is the preferred sponsor for a City Academy in Camden.

Academies are privatised schools. They are not maintained schools; consequently parents and students are not protected by education law and staff are outside national pay and conditions.

We have three major concerns:

Why is UCL only linking with one Camden school and not the family of schools? An elite school would be seriously detrimental to other Camden schools and will prejudice our work with other secondary schools. Such a move runs counter to the historic inclusive ethos of UCL.
The site for the proposed academy is currently occupied by Swiss Cottage Special School. Swiss Cottage Special School is an outstanding school, agreed to be the #1 special school in the UK. The school has been given no guarantees that there will be no loss of provision for their students. UCL should not be sponsoring a school that will seriously damage special needs education in Camden.
Parents and students have demanded a new community school for many years. But if UCL signs a private deal with Camden Council, this will prevent a community school being considered.

Therefore we demand that UCL withdraws its sponsorship of an academy in Camden.

Background

Leaflet (PDF)

No City Academy in Camden

UCL involvement does not make a bad idea good

The Academy programme is in a mess. Everywhere you look, City Academies are failing. Ofsted slams their standards. The Audit Commission attacks their bookkeeping. Huge amounts of public money has been poured into schools run by Central Government and private companies. But instead of helping these failing schools improve, the Government wants to build more.

The Provost of University College London wants to set up and run a City Academy here in Camden. He is using our good name and the promise of staff and student volunteering to promote his plans - and he refuses to consider alternatives. As a result he has found himself opposed by parents, pupils, teachers, councillors and UCL staff. The NUT teachers union and the UCU college lecturers union both oppose the academy plans.

Here are just three good reasons why you should too.

The Academy is Elitist

City Academies are designed to be elitist. They focus funding and resources in one school rather than across all schools. Proponents of City Academies talk about 'diversity' and 'choice'. But pupils cannot choose one school for Maths and another for Art! They go to one school and have to stick with it.

Ironically, if UCL's plans are successful, the Academy will necessarily have the pick of the brightest pupils and most motivated parents in Camden. UCL refuses to say what its admissions policy will be. It does (now) say the Academy won't be openly selective. However, there are many ways an Academy can select pupils covertly, from choosing a wealthy catchment area to using expulsions.

The Academy is Undemocratic

UCL does not want its Academy to go into competition with those of a community school. UCL has kept its proposals secret. Now it is trying to cajole Camden Council behind closed doors to accept its plan with a minimum of consultation.

Nor will the school be run democratically. UCL will appoint a permanent majority of governors. Local businesses may have a say, but parents and teachers will have less input than in other Camden schools. It will be run entirely independently from the rest of the schools, so the school will not be accountable to other schools in the borough. This is a recipe for division.

The Academy is Unnecessary

Camden schools are not failing. All Camden schools have very high Ofsted reports despite Camden being one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

UCL's proposals do not need an Academy to work. Faced with opposition, UCL has watered them down. Professor Michael Worton, the Vice Provost in charge of 'selling' the Academy, says the Academy

won't be selective,
will be a comprehensive school,
will work with other schools in Camden,
will apply national terms and conditions for staff, and
will have a similar governance structure to a school.

Everything UCL is now proposing could be carried out with a community comprehensive school. There is no need for an Academy.

In fact, some of UCL's arguments for their involvement will be harder to implement with an Academy. Successful innovations in curriculum cannot be applied to other schools if the Academy is not like other schools. This is why we argue that UCL should spread its involvement across Camden and give every child a chance.

UCL has invented a 'solution'. It is now trying to find the problem.

UCL UCU Policy

UCL UCU has agreed two resolutions opposing city academies in recent years. In contrast to UCL management, as a democratic organisation, UCU policy can only be formed in general meetings open to all members.

1) MOTION: UCL City Academy 2007

This union notes

UCL management's controversial proposal to set up a City Academy in Camden.
UCL's plan relies on "voluntary contributions" from UCL staff. However,
1. UCL has not asked staff what we think of the proposal,
2. UCL has not consulted with the union about legal and contractual implications of staff volunteering on this scale, in particular regular and routine commitments from staff may be treated as contractual (i.e. they may cease to be voluntary over time).

This union believes

That the proposal is unnecessary because all the suggested benefits of the Academy could be carried out by UCL linking up with a comprehensive school.
That the proposal will concentrate UCL's efforts in one school rather than many. The plan is to create an elitist 'fast track' to university which will compete with other Camden schools.
The proposal risks undermining current staff volunteering in schools and FE colleges.

This union resolves

To defend all staff placed under pressure to 'volunteer' services for the City Academy, up to and including declaring a dispute should any member be disciplined for refusal to participate.
To organise a UCL-wide campaign against the City Academy proposal, to counter management propaganda and to encourage the maximum level of debate.

2) MOTION: City Academies 2006

Passed by UCL AUT 25 April 2006.

Submitted to AUT Council as an emergency motion where it was passed and became national AUT (now UCU) policy.

Existing AUT policy strongly supports the drive across the UK to widen access to Higher Education, so that all who would benefit from a university education are able to do so. We believe that access should be based on merit, attainment and the potential to benefit from higher education. Therefore, Council supports the Aim Higher initiative to widen participation in UK higher education, particularly among students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, minority ethnic groups and disabled persons. The recent UUK/SCOP study "From the Margins to the Mainstream: Embedding Widening Participation in Higher Education" highlights the ways in which higher education institutions are strengthening their widening participation practices, particularly at the pre-entry, access and admissions stages.

One of the strengths of Aim Higher is the development of local and regional partnerships between higher education institutions and a range of colleges, schools and employers. Such partnerships help to improve widening participation to higher education as a whole rather than simply focusing on individual school-university recruitment. However, Council notes that a number of universities, including UCL, are proposing to sponsor individual Academy or Trust schools.

Council notes the strong opposition from the school teaching and support unions to the establishment of Academies and Trust schools. One of their many concerns is that Academies and Trust schools are disproportionately likely to admit pupils from more socially privileged backgrounds or those with more educationally assertive parents. Council, therefore, believes that Academies and Trust schools are not the best way to widen participation in higher education and calls on universities to opt for broader partnerships with colleges and schools rather than sponsoring individual Academies or Trust schools.

Council also notes that many of those responsible for this attack upon genuinely comprehensive schooling have been rewarded by the corrupt award of honours. This has served as an inducement to the wealthy, powerful and self-aggrandizing to join in the assault upon local democracy and equality of opportunity.

Council believes that Community schools, democratically controlled by local people through their Local Education Authorities represent the best way forward for secondary education, for the promotion of equal opportunities and for the avoidance of the corrupt practices involved in the sale of honours associated with City Academies and Trust schools.

Council calls upon Central Government to abandon its promotion of City Academies and Trust Schools and calls upon the senior managements of universities to refrain from any involvement in this anti-democratic attack upon comprehensive schooling.