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Breaking the consensus on education
• YOUR revelations about the true motivations of Councillor John Bryant (Leak reveals school plot to win votes, December 6) explains a great deal.
Until now it seemed inexplicable, after all these years of a cross-party political consensus on education in Camden, that officers should be instructed to pursue a ruthless monomania about an academy at Swiss Cottage. The victims of this Lib Dem policy are stacking up:
l UCL. A major force for good in the borough, and a wonderful partner for Camden Council over many years, has been lured into a hornet’s nest of political infighting, as they neglect their own backyard south of the Euston Road.
l Frank Barnes. A callous decision to evict this School for Deaf Children is bad enough, but there are inevitable knock-on detriments for Swiss Cottage School, Jack Taylor School, and Torriano School, as Councillor Bryant and his colleagues shuffle the pieces around on his political chess board.
l The Anglican Church. Those of us who are not Anglicans, but admire the superb work that faith community puts into educating children of all backgrounds, are bewildered at the general discourtesy, and, now revealed, the downright hostility shown by Cllr Bryant.
This secret memo contains the ultimate insult.
Cllr Bryant, with all the magnificent educational expertise of a clerk to governors of a school in another borough, dares to traduce Camden schools. His insults are sprayed around liberally: for example, his farcical claim that our Anglican schools are not “successful”, and his denigratory viciousness about every single one of our secondary schools.
Cllr Bryant seems never to have learned of “value added” considerations for children. Of course, Camden schools face many challenges, because parts of our borough have families with some of the most severe deprivations in the country and children need to be brought on to achieve their full potential even when they cannot access the rich resources of the leafy suburbs. As the government’s multi-agency programme so eloquently puts it, “every child matters”, and to blame Camden schools for poverty, tough home circumstances and a lack of educational ambition is ridiculous. Given the starting point for many of our children, Camden schools are some of the top-performing schools in the country.
Speaking as a long-standing school governor across several Camden schools, and as chair of education for the first five years of Camden as an education authority – the best job on the council by far – I am frankly disgusted by Cllr Bryant’s opinions. My own view is that the vast majority of our teachers in Camden are magnificent. And the ethos of Camden schools, a complex mixture of teachers, support staff, children, parents and governors all working together, has been hugely “successful”.
The vital added ingredient used to be Camden Council, but alas that may no longer be taken for granted if these false accusations are representative of the mindset of the LibDem/ Tory administration in temporary control at the Town Hall.
After the political lottery of the last borough elections, fought not on local issues but in the shadow of the Iraq War, the people of Camden might forgive the hyperbole of Councillor Keith Moffitt repeating his mantra of “35 years of Labour misrule”, when he inherited a four-star strongly improving borough. They might also forgive the inexperienced exuberance of Councillor Alexis Rowell describing Haverstock as a “sink school under Labour”, thereby condemning teachers and children who are doing their utmost to raise achievement – and a UCL academy just up the road will hardly assist that process. But for the executive member for children, Cllr Bryant, to denigrate the excellent work of Camden schools in his “personal political take on where we are at” will never be forgiven nor forgotten.
CLLR JULIAN FULBROOK
Labour, Holborn and Covent Garden Ward
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