Parent Power: Hackney Gazette Talking Point

11 Mar 2010

Two weeks ago, Hackney paid host to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown who chose Woodberry Down Primary as a venue to announce his plans for the future of education.

I was pleased to see a school in my constituency acknowledged nationally and I went along to show my support.

The reasons for choosing Woodberry Down as a national example are understandable; the school has outstanding Ofsted results and Executive Head Greg Wallace has been commended countless times for his excellent leadership.

Also Secretary of State for Education, Ed Balls, who accompanied Mr Brown, is a Stoke Newington resident and sends his children to a Hackney primary, so is likely to be aware of the school’s reputation for excellence.

And whether it was by accident, or good design, there could not have been a more apt view than the new Skinner’s building, Hackney’s fifth academy, taking shape outside of the window of the room from where Mr Brown made his speech about creating a world class education in Britain.

My only observation was that the audience was notably lacking in figures actually involved in Hackney education.

In fact the only face I recognised from Hackney was that of Catrina Tilbury, Head of Nightingale Primary, who was snubbed by Number 10 only last month when her invitation to an event there went astray. The first she knew of her intended visit was this very newspaper contacted her to see how it went.

But the main reason for coming to Woodberry Down was to acknowledge a new scheme the school has been piloting, which is to be rolled out in other primary and secondary schools across the country because of its success.

My government is encouraging outstanding schools, like Woodberry Down, to create links with struggling schools in the nearby area in an attempt to raise standards by sharing strong leadership and facilities. 

Woodberry Down has been piloting just this having formed a federation with two other primaries, London Fields and Mandeville, which have both enjoyed improved results.

The announcement that more schools will benefit from federations headed up by strong leaders, was something I was pleased to hear.

However, some people are not sure about all the changes that Mr Brown proposed.

Plans to allow parents the power to ballot the local authority if they are unhappy

with their school’s Headteacher, seems to contradict the view that schools should be run by leaders.

Gordon said in his speech: “ Today I am announcing new measures to ensure that if parents are dissatisfied with a school they will have a new right to initiate change in the leadership of that school

While he later makes it clear there must be a “significant” number of parents for this to happen, some people believe that there’s a possibility that more advantaged or ‘pushy’ parents will see this as a green light to effectively ‘run out’ Headteachers they do not see eye to eye with.

Teachers already do a tough enough job without worrying about their popularity in among parents.

While I do not excuse poor teachers in Hackney - it is well known saying that good teachers cost a school more, but bad teachers cost them more in the long run – I can’t help but feel a certain amount of respect is being lost for the profession.

The event at Woodberry Down was organised by Teach First, a charity which encourages top graduates into teaching careers and as a result, raise the profile of teaching as a career.

I have supported their cause a great deal and last month taught a class at Clapton Girl’s School as part of a week which saw forty professionals return to the classroom, and just last week I also co-hosted a seminar with them in Westminster.

Woodberry Down has nine of these top graduates working across its federation, proof that they are excellent judges of what makes a good teacher.

It is with this in mind that I can’t help but think that we have missed a trick – instead of allowing parents to chase teachers out later in their careers, we should make the sorts of checks and measures used by Teach First, part and parcel of teacher training to ensure teachers are up to scratch from the very beginning.

Only then can we be confident that we can achieve the world class education that our children deserve.



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