Some thoughts of an academy school worker in England.
I’ve recently taught in an academy school for over two years, and in that time I saw a lot of things that have angered me as a worker and as someone who values education, and made even more apparent to me the need for a radical overhaul in education that can only be achieved by revolutionary change in society as a whole.
Downhills Primary School, in Tottenham, North London, is fighting a strong community campaign against attempts to turn it into a sponsored academy.
Participation in the campaign has been huge. “I haven’t seen anything like it since the eighties,” said one mother looking at a packed meeting of over 600 people.
In January, more than a thousand people marched through Tottenham in support of the four Haringey primaries which are under threat of being handed over to academy sponsors, including teachers from all over London. They have shown support to other schools across the country which are rejecting academy status.
The academy schools program began in 2000 under New Labour. They are state sector schools run independent of local authority control and with a private sponsor. Less than two ago, there were less than 300 academies in England, but the Academies Act 2010 sought to expand the number of academies and there are now over 1600. Some schools that are deemed 'outstanding' by Ofsted have been ‘fast-tracked’. It is thought that many 'outstanding schools may not even need a sponsor, and might be able to opt straight out of local authority control regardless.
Workfare is a catch-all term that refers to a range of state sponsored wage-less work schemes. Recent withdrawals by high-street firms that had been involved in the Jobcentre’s nominally voluntary ‘work experience’ scheme has put politicians on the defensive forcing them to emphasise the (dubious) voluntary nature of the scheme. However the same defence cannot be made of the coalition’s flagship Work Programme, a compulsory scheme with a ‘mandatory work related activity’ component. But aside from the recent controversies surrounding workfare provider A4E relatively little has been said with regard to the Work Programme, which forces jobseekers as well as many sick and disabled Employment Support Allowance claimants into mandatory unpaid work through a number of private companies.
As part of the IWA days of action against austerity WYSF will be picketing a workfare company in Wakefield as it also happens to be the National Anti Workfare day. We are awaiting confirmation of the target as many firms are dropping out but we think it will be poundland.
Sector-Based Work Academies (SBWA) combine work experience-style placements with a short job-related training components. Launched in August 2011 SBWA are one of the Government’s 5 workfare-centred labour reform schemes in which unemployed people are compelled to perform unpaid work for private companies.
The Work Experience scheme offered through the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is one the five workfare schemes that are currently running in the UK. Recently this has become the best known of the workfare schemes thanks to the government’s damage limitation efforts after the negative publicity surrounding its policy of making people work without wages.
A new compulsory work scheme for the long-term unemployed was announced by the government in November 2011. The Community Action Programme (CAP) is currently being trialled (or ‘trailblazed’, in the government’s terminology) in four regions with the intention to implement the scheme nationally in 2013.
The CAP will be organised through private companies and in many ways resembles the Work Programme but with a greater focus on community work. Participation in the scheme is mandatory – refusal to take part will result in loss of benefits. Placements last six months at 30 hours a week of work with an additional 10 hours of job search under the supervision of the provider (source).
The latest issue of Education Worker, the EWN's bulletin is out, with an Academies Special! We lift the lid on what's happening in schools and academies in particular: what they are, what they do, why they are a problem and what should be done about it. EW#8 can be downloaded from the site, or ask your nearest SolFed local.