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Camden New Journal - By RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 10 May 2007

Big guns declare war on city academies plans

Powerful teachers and governors set to fight for traditional school

A POWERFUL coalition of school governors and teachers have united in a bid to keep Camden free from the government’s controversial city academy programme.
Scores of Camden’s most influential educationalists have signed a petition calling for council plans to open a new school in the borough following the traditional community school model instead.
Among those who have added their names to the campaign are Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson, columnist Fiona Millar and former council leader Raj Chada.
The full list of supporters has been published in a public advert circulated by the Camden branch of CASE (Campaign for State Education) and comes as the council’s education chiefs mull over potential sponsors for a new school which they want to open in Adelaide Road, Swiss Cottage.
University College Hospital and the Church of England are the frontrunners in the race to take control of the school.
Charity Ark have also expressed interest in taking charge but their interest has apparently waned in the face of UCL’s campaign.
The new teaching coalition believes that the school should stay in council hands and are opposing any form of outside interest.
The supporters have a wide geographical spread, spanning from governors in Covent Garden to Hampstead.
The petition said: “(Any new secondary school) should reflect the needs of the community and have the status of a community school, fair inclusive admissions criteria and a representative governing body.”
Andrew Baisley, a teacher at Haverstock School, said: “We are asking the council for a fair playing field.
“There has been a suggestion at the council that a city academy would get more money, but there is no evidence for this.
“We want a fair competition.”
Kevin Courtney, of Camden NUT, said: “When the government proposed their Education and Inspections Bill, they said that all new schools would be academies or trusts.
“But, facing the biggest Labour rebellion, including from Frank Dobson and Glenda Jackson and opposition from the Liberal Democrats a concession was made to get the bill through.
“High performing authorities like Camden would be allowed to put forward community schools into a competition.
“It wasn’t much of a concession. But it is the law.
“It is the will of Parliament. And it would be fatally undermined if Andrew Adonis’ bureaucrats said ‘well you can have a new school, but you can’t have the money for it’.”
Conservative education chief Councillor Andrew Mennear, and Liberal Democrat councillor John Bryant, who runs the children’s portfolio at the Town Hall, have kept a consistent line that Camden has no choice but to at least consider using the city academy model.
Camden pinpointed the Adelaide Road site after joining the government’s Building Schools for the Future programme and accessing around £200 million of funding.

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