Is the loss making Seckford Foundation looking to make money from free schools?

Seckford Foundation Website

For 400 years the Seckford Foundation ran Woodbridge School, for a while they ran a library and they also run Almshouses. All in Woodbridge. Just what has happened in the last twelve months that has prompted Seckford to propose running three new free schools and possibly two libraries right across the County?

It is difficult to be sure but some local Beccles residents think they know the reason. Money. John Rutter a local Beccles resident writes in the letters pages of the Beccles and Bungay Journal:

The Seckford Foundation is not interested in the educational needs of Beccles but have both their eyes fixed on the pots of Gold they see at the bottom of Mr Gove's rainbow. The people of Beccles should do all they can, including writing to their MP and signing the petitions against the free school to prevent this farrago from making any more progress. If we do not, then the excellent local educational provision will be diluted by critical amounts of our school's funding being transferred to the Seckford Trust.

And local resident Don Moxon writes:

The costs of setting up a free school would be a scandelous waste of public money, syphoning off funds which should be for the benefit of our children. The free school proposal is educationally unsound, and if parents carefully consider the arguments and the true interests of their children, I hope they will see the glossy self-interest of the Seckford foundation for what it is, and have nothing to do with it.

So are they right? Well there does seem to be some evidence to support this view. In their latest 2010 accounts the Seckford Foundation the foundation admitted that they are currently in a financial deficit:

The net loss for the year after tax and realised losses on investment assets is £543,610 (2009: £244,835) this reflects the fall in income as a result of the reduced numbers in the school; down from 983 in 2009 to 929 in 2010, and also to the increased level of depreciation resulting from the bringing into operation on the 15` September 2009 of the new Sixth Form and Belstead Centre.

In fact there have been losses for each of the six years that accounts are available totalling some £2 million over the six year period. Now Seckford are clearly financially stable with plenty of money in the bank to cover this at least for now but making a loss cannot go on forever.

Year	Loss
2010	544K
2009	245K
2008	600K
2007	71K
2006	278K
2005	280K

Source Charity Commission

In their submission to the Charity Commission the trustees state that one of their aims is to:

"To investigate new ways of widening access for the services on offer by the Foundation."

But this might relate to their existing services - Woodbridge School and the Almshouses. The reasons that the Seckford Trust have suddenly decided to expand remain unclear and as they are not a public body it is impossible to use Freedom of Information or access to meetings to find out. This has led many to speculate that this is a money making venture. After all, why would a loss making organisation start to branch out otherwise?

Updated on Sat 11 Feb at 17:35 to incorporate the 2010 financial data that I did not have at the time of the original article.

Library Campaigners join Suffolk IPS Board and Speak at Select Committee

New IPS Board Member Sylvia Knights pictured
with Suffolk CC Leader Mark Bee at Bungay Library

The new Industrial and Provident Society that is to run Suffolk's libraries is taking shape. As this blog has reported previously a Chairman and two initial board members were recently appointed followed by a General Manager.


Today the IPS have announced the following new members:

• Charlotte Clark - staff nomination and from Southwold Library. Charlotte has worked in public libraries for over 17 years. As manager at Southwold Library, she has helped expand the services delivered to the local community.
• Marion Harvey - staff nomination and from Ipswich County Library. Marion has worked for Suffolk Libraries for 41 years, most recently as manager at Ipswich County Library where she has developed a range of cultural events including community music days, one of which attracted over 5,000 people to the library in just one day.
• Ryan Jay – from Voices 4 Gainsborough Community Library. At 18, Ryan is the youngest member of the board but through running his own youth club, brings experience of securing external funding, running community events and fund raising.
• Sylvia Knights - from Bungay Library Working Group. Sylvia brings years of senior management and domestic and international IT business experience. She is actively involved in Bungay Library – volunteering for the Home Library Service and delivering children’s activities.
• Colin Owens - from the Wickham Market Partnership. Colin’s career spans the engineering and electrical supplies industries and he brings with him significant experience of project and financial management, business planning and building community links. As a Trustee of Wickham Market Partnership, he has been involved in several community based projects and currently leads the initiative to extend the services and value of Wickham Market Library.
• Michael Readman - from Stradbroke Parish Council and for the Eye, Debenham and Stradbroke pilot group. Michael spent 35 years in the financial services industry working in financial control, international trade and human resources roles. Now retired, he was also Vice President, HR Operations, at JP Morgan and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
• Robert Spivey - from Sudbury Town Council. Robert has held senior financial positions in major private and public sector organisations and has extensive experience of developing and implementing business plans. More recently he has served on a number of charity committees.
• Graham Watson - from the Seckford Foundation. Graham is the Director of the Seckford Foundation and was previously Deputy Chief Executive of NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative. Prior to this, Graham was Director of Finance and Support Services for the Princes Trust. Graham has extensive knowledge of charity law, tax regulation and governance issues.

(Biographies from Suffolk CC Press Release)

They join the previously announced members:

• Clive Fox, Chairman (from Aldeburgh library group)
• Mike Hosking (former assistant director for libraries and learning in Cambridgeshire
• Shona Bendix (chief executive of SALC)
• Alison Wheeler (Newly appointed General Manager of the IPS)

After the previous appointments I expressed concern that there was not enough diversity of opinion represented on the board. I am pleased to say that I think that the IPS has gone some way to addressing this with the people they have appointed this time. It is very good to see Sylvia Knights from Bungay and Colin Owens from Wickham Market both of whom were leading members of the library campaign.

More locally we are pleased to see Mike Readman, Vice-Chair of Stradbroke Parish Council (full disclosure - he is also my Father-in-law). Mike was put forward by the Stradbroke, Debenham and Eye library groups.

I am not familiar with all of the other members but from what I understand they have a great deal of experience. I think the IPS has made a wise decision to appoint more directors than they originally intended, enabling two staff and a wider range of libraries to be represented.

Abby Barker at the Save Suffolk
Libraries March last year

This week library campaigner Abigail Barker from Rosehill Library appeared in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to give evidence on behalf of the suffolk library campaigns. You can read the written evidence submitted and see a transcript of the oral evidence where Abigail was appearing on behalf of the national Voices for the Library group.

It was great to see Abby give evidence and providing a strong voice for Suffolk. Shame then that Therese Coffey, the Suffolk Coastal MP who is actually a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee was not there. Her Twitter said she was at St Georges Park, RSC for AkzoNobel UK Science Award and "In debate on banking reform" that day.

Watch the video of the Select Committee below:

To me, to you....today's free school roundup

Barry Chuckle with Charlotte Blencowe

I always thought it was a crazy idea to let any random person who felt like it open their own school but the reality has proved even more strange than I expected. It doesn't even seen surprising any longer that there is a plan to open a free school in a football stadium (Tottenham Hotspur) run by an academy chain backed by the owner of carpetwright. In fact this seems to be one of the more sensible proposals.

The most bizarre though has to be the Chuckle Brother's Free School in Rotherham. OK so its isn't really called that but Barry Chuckle is the Patron of the school which was supposed to be headed by his son's partner Charlotte Blencowe a former Tory parliamentary candidate. According to the Yorkshire Post, the school which is supposed to be opening in September has no building, no staff and no pupils....

Blencowe refuses to comment on reports that the school will now not open and Barry Chuckle says that she "had not spoken to him about the planned free school recently". She claims that the "Future Access Schools Trust" will contact the paper although this seems somewhat strange as the Trust is actually registered at her own residential address. The school website has also vanished.

Rotherham MP Denis MacShane  is quoted as saying:

“There is a cover-up going on regarding this ghost school. It does not reflect well on Whitehall that this process has been allowed to go on and on."

Today in Suffolk the proposed Fullfledge Ecology School is trying to drum up the required "parental demand" for its Woodbridge based all through school. Although it is a bit hidden away it is apparent that this is really a Steiner School, a Suffolk teacher has written a detailed blog post about the school and the Steiner approach if you are unfamiliar with it.

The email they sent out today trying to drum up support is interesting:

Click on text to see larger

As the emails states the DfE does indeed put parental demand as one of the main criteria. The criteria states:

Provide evidence of demand from parents with children of the relevant age for each new year group in each of your first two years of operation. Include confirmation from parents that they would select your Free School as the first choice for their child.

But this isn't what the proposers are asking parents. Their email says:

 "no one is committing to anything by signing: they are simply saying they would like to have this kind of education available for their children - essential more choice in Suffolk"

The same is the case on their expression of interest form on their website that just asks parents to sign that they are "registering their interest in having this kind of school in Suffolk":

Click on text to enlarge

This is hardly confirmation that parents would select the free school as their first choice. This seems a trick that several free school proposers are using.

Wilshaw "needs improvement"

Michael Wilshaw, New Ofsted Chief

Sadly it is all too tempting for some people starting a new job to be a bit too keen to make a mark. Michael Wilshaw the new Head of Ofsted or "Her Majesty's Chief Inspector" as he is also known appears to be doing just that with what he no doubt thinks is "tough" talking.

First the satisfactory Ofsted grade is announced to be chaining to "needs improvement", then Wilshaw writes an article in the Guardian entitled I'll ensure our schools have no excuses for failure where he suggests that "last year's riots proved that the schools in our most deprived areas need leaders with drive and high expectations" and now, apparently, 5000 head teachers "lack leadership".

Now there have already been some really excellent responses to this, I recommend:

• Motivate: Dr Megan Crawford
• When the rhetoric becomes too much: Mad Phil
• Practical jokers are the arch-villains: Geoff Barton (more about Gove but still a good read)
• Comment on Guardian Wilshaw Article by "Disappointed Ideaslist"

The comment on the Guardian article ends with this:

So far all you offer is the current teacher in-joke : "Daily whippings will continue until staff morale improves". That's not leadership.

This seems to sum up Wilshaw's approach particularly given his well known comment:

If anyone says to you that 'staff morale is at an all-time low', youknow you are doing something right."

So when Wilshaw claims that 5000 Headteachers lack "leadership" then what he seems to mean is that they are not like him. Wilshaw has a particular approach to leadership. One which seems to involve telling everyone else where they are going wrong rather than offering support and guidance. And whilst sometimes poor staff morale does happen for a short while when trying to turn around a poorly performing school it is a necessary evil not an aspiration.

Wilshaw seems to think this approach is "tough" and shows "drive and high expectations" but it appears to me more designed to produce newspaper headlines that will please his boss Michael Gove. Such as the following in the Daily Mail:

What worries me is that this will put off good people becoming Headteachers. It is already a tough job and it is extremely difficult to recruit Heads in some areas. 

Wilshaw trades off his experience as Head (sorry Executive Principal) of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney. This is clearly a good school but has a number of significant advantages over neighbouring schools. Not least a brand new building and a very interesting admissions policy that involves children taking tests and a complicated banding arrangement. All this must ensure that only children with motivated parents apply for entry and quite possibly a higher average level of entry to other local schools.

And remember, the old Hackney Downs school (aka "worst school in Britain") that Mossbourne replaced was a boys school whilst Mossbourne is mixed. Adding girls is a sure fire way to significantly improve attainment.

I am also unsure how Wilshaw's "leadership" style would play in a primary school. I can't say personally that I think it that appropriate to secondary education but it is particularly inappropriate to primary. I mean this is the man who actually banned children from hugging each other, he would probably find the propensity of primary school children to climb all over each other impossible to bear and you can't just stand in front of four year olds and shout at them and tell them what to do!

So all in all I think so far that Wilshaw certainly "needs improvement". If he seriously thinks it is poor head teachers that is causing around half of all new entrants to the teaching profession to leave than I would be tending towards special measures. I return to the comment on Wilshaw's article:

You're an intelligent guy. You know full well how your announcements about failing schools, poor teachers, the "smack of firm leadership" and all that cobblers, plays with the public. You know the impression it has created in the mind of the tabloid-reading public of a lazy, self-interested and incompetent workforce. Every time you write an article like this, you reinforce that. Every time you write stuff like this, you serve to not only demoralize the profession you claim to "lead", but you also damage the interests of students by turning away the very teachers who could best teach them.

Wilshaw needs to look in a mirror before blaming 5000 Headteachers.