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Fiona Millar |
Millar’s tale of ‘backroom deal’ stirs up academy row
Letter prompts student action ahead of school’s judicial review
EDUCATION journalist Fiona Millar has helped stir a student revolt at the university where she spent her own student days over plans to open Camden’s first academy.
The former Downing Street aide wrote an open letter to the London Student newspaper outlining opposition to University College London’s sponsorship of the new school planned for Adelaide Road, Swiss Cottage, and calling for support among students.
Her letter has sparked a tetchy debate between some members of UCL’s student union and the university chiefs who have spent months promoting the project.
It comes ahead of a High Court case, due to begin on Wednesday, which will see the way UCL was handed control of the school come under the scrutiny of a full-scale judicial review.
The court action is the last major hurdle standing in the Bloomsbury university’s path to opening the secondary school by 2011. It already has the support of the Town Hall and education ministers.
In her letter, Ms Millar openly suggests the process was a “backroom deal” between the government and Camden Council, and makes clear her opposition to the use of independent sponsors in schools.
Insiders said students at UCL reacted by drawing together a motion calling on their university to reconsider its support of the scheme.
But the motion is not thought to have been given a full hearing among students running the union and was replaced by a toned-down demand which simply calls for more consultation with students over the plans.
Rows between students and sabbatical officers over how hard the union should argue against the project have gone on behind closed doors, according to sources, with disagreements over whether criticism of a flagship project would lead to any sanctions.
Ms Millar said she had “only good memories” of her time as a student at UCL but was “dismayed” that it had sought to run an academy, independently of Camden’s current family of secondary schools.
She was writing in her role as vice-chairwoman of the Camden branch of the Campaign for State Education.
She added: “The support of London students will be vital in our campaign to ensure that all our schools can continue to improve while remaining publicly accountable to the communities they serve and the tax-payers who fund them.”
Her rally cry was printed three weeks ago and helped begin the internal debate at the student union.
Ms Millar, who lives in Gospel Oak with her partner Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor, said: “Bringing an academy into this borough will undermine the local family of schools and pose a direct threat to the schools nearest to the proposed site of the new school.”
She repeated concerns about how private sponsors gain power over admissions, exclusions and teacher pay in academies.
Ms Millar added: “The process by which UCL was ‘given’ this school was wholly undemocratic.
“The local authority refused to hold an open competition for the new school, largely because UCL stated publicly that it would refuse to enter, preferring simply to be ‘given’ the school in a backroom deal between the council and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.”
A UCL spokesman said the students had been kept fully abreast of the academy project and had their say.
He said: “UCL has certainly been engaged with its students from the outset, and we expect that to continue as the process develops.” |
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