ITV Anglia report on school transport

Vandalised sign (Credit: ITV Anglia) 

There is sometimes some debate about the quality of local media and the resources that they have to cover important local stories. I think this is an important issue and wish the local media had more time and resource to provide good quality news coverage.

However this is not to say there isn’t any of this around. I was pleased when ITV Anglia picked up on the school transport story as is it an important issue for Suffolk parents.

The report and film produced by ITV Anglia’s Elodie Harper does an excellent job of explaining clearly and fairly the issues around school transport - including a helpful contribution from Portfolio Holder Graham Newman explaining the financial dilemma the County Council  faces.

If you have not read and watched the report you can see it on the ITV Anglia Website:

Thurston Partnership Headteachers write to parents about school transport

Headteachers in the Thurston partnership have written to the parents of around 2800 children about Suffolk County Council’s home to school consultation. The letter which you can see below warns parents about the impact the proposed free school could cause on home to school transport if a similar policy in adopted in the Thurston area to that proposed in Saxmundham/Leiston and Brandon/Mildenhall.
You can see the letter below:
ThurstonPartnershipParentsLetter

Home to school transport is fast becoming a major political issue in Suffolk with the proposed free schools threatening to take away the choice of school for many parents in Suffolk. Keep reading this blog for more news!

Glemsford Primary: Delegated Budget suspended as Head faces disciplinary hearing

As I have reported before Suffolk County Council have conducted an investigation into the Headteacher, Liz Steele, of Glemsford Primary School who has been suspended since January. Recently they also announced that they are trying to replace the entire Governing Body. This has led to allegations of “threats” from the County Council by Glemsford staff.

As the County Council cannot replace the Governors without the Education Secretary’s agreement it has suspended Glemsford’s delegated budget. This means Governors cannot make any financial or (crucially) staffing decisions as a County Council spokesperson confirmed to the EADT:

The matter is now before the Secretary of State and the Department for Education has confirmed that no decision has yet been made. “Pending the Secretary of State’s decision, the governing body no longer has the power to manage or make decisions regarding any of the school’s finances. In addition, it does not have any authority to make any decisions in respect of staffing - including appointment, recruitment or disciplinary procedures.”

The County Council has now announced that Headteacher Liz Steele (who has been a teacher for 39 years and due to retire this year) faces a disciplinary hearing as the EADT report:

she received a letter requesting that she attend a disciplinary hearing on May 17 and 18. The council has cited several reasons for the hearing, some of which refer to the “computer fraud”.

The report does not say if her son, James Steele, who is the school’s IT Technician and also suspended following the “free laptop” case will also face a hearing.
Pushed on the allegations of “threats” the County Council responded:

 “The county council is disappointed and concerned about comments that have been made in relation to Glemsford Primary School. “The council has now received and reviewed the report from the independent person who has been investigating these matters. This is clearly a sensitive and confidential case and it would therefore be inappropriate to provide any more detail at this stage.”  

The DfE described the case as “unusual” and said it would make a decision on the replacement of the Governing Body after looking into the circumstances.

I still think there is more to come out about this case after the hearings are concluded.

Beccles Free School: Sir John Leman Transport Consultation

Once again nobody from the Seckford Foundation was present at the meeting and it is now clear that their strategy is to send members of the local parent group to these meetings. In the case of Beccles it appears that McHugh is just about the only remaining member of that group.

It took a member of the public to tell people that one of the free school proposers was present despite a number of occasions where questions were raised that Seckford might be able to answer. Asked why Seckford could not co-ordinate the start and finish times of the school with Sir John Leman High there was an immediate offer from Jeremy Rowe the Head of Sir John Leman to change their times. McHugh wasn’t able to answer as such decisions now are for Seckford not the parent group.

When discussion turned to the free school, McHugh point blank refused to discuss the issue and insisted the meeting was just about transport. But as members of the around 80 strong audience pointed out without the free school the meeting would not be taking place!

During the meeting McHugh sat there whist person after person criticised the free school. One teacher present described it as “offering nothing new at all and trying to put education back 50 years” School proposers Seckford were described as “selfish” the school was slated as a complete waste of public money, people said it would damage Sir John Leman and that the proposal had caused needless stress and anxiety to parents and children who had just got over the school organisation review.

Faced with such criticism of a project McHugh apparently thinks is such a good idea that millions of pounds of public money should be spent on it you would imagine he would be keen to respond. The fact he did not suggests he either does not have a response or is following a mis-guided PR strategy from his masters at Seckford. It appears he was sent to report back rather than participate...

To me this is the outrageous behaviour. People in public life should be prepared to be accountable and to explain and defend their decisions and proposals.

Free School Transport: Beccles Briefing

The first two Suffolk County Council school transport consultation meetings have been about Leiston and Saxmundham. Tonight the story moves to Beccles and some of the issues are quite different.

Ahead of the meting at Sir John Leman High School tonight from 7pm to 9pm here is a quick summary of the issues and link to more information.

Firstly the all important map!
The full consultation document can be downloaded from Suffiolk CCs website. However the extract below shows the main issues.

Using these principles, it is proposed that the transport priority areas for these two schools will be the same because the two Beccles sites are less than two miles apart, and that the existing Sir John Leman High School catchment area will be used for this purpose. This means that students living within this area would be entitled to free transport to either of the two schools.

The promoters of the free school are considering making their own arrangements for transport, independent of the county council, because the daily finish times of the new school may be different from that of Sir John Leman High School.

The map on page 6 illustrates the Sir John Leman catchment area, together with the area (shaded) where Sir John Leman High School or the free school at Beccles would be the nearest. Areas around and including Reydon, Southwold and Wrentham are nearer to schools in Lowestoft, not schools in Beccles. However, it is proposed to continue to include these areas in the Beccles Transport priority area because the nearest school in Lowestoft, Pakefield, does not have any surplus capacity. 

So in Beccles the shared transport priority area for the two schools (which is what Saxmundham and Leiston want) is the proposal on the table.

I will be live tweeting again from the meeting tonight.

Revealed: How the Seckford Foundation plan to spend nearly a million pounds on managers for under 300 children

The Seckford Foundation are as I have previously reported advertising for staff. So far they have advertised for 17 management posts as well as an undefined number of teaching roles to work in the proposed Beccles and Saxmundham Free Schools.

Clearly many of the managers will have a teaching role as well but the last figures we have seen showed that around 210 children would start in September across both the Saxmundham and Beccles schools.

I have produced an org chart below showing the posts Seckford have advertised:



Using the application further particulars available from the Seckford website I have calculated the highest and lowest costs of employing these staff (note I have ignored on-costs such as pensions and NI so these costs would in fact be up to 30% higher).



So a total cost of nearly a million pounds - and of this nearly half is just the "top tier" of Principal, Heads, Deputies and Assistants (Senior Leadership Team).

Having done this I compared it with the numbers of children that had applied for places in the two schools to calculate the cost per child of these 17 management posts.

Apologies, the numbers for Saxmundham and Beccles were the wrong way around in my original post

So from the £5325 average funding available per child, Seckford plan to spend up to £4260 on these 17 management posts. And remember, nearly half of this is just on the 7 "senior leadership" posts. These plans mean that there will initially one manager for every 12 children. One Senior Leader per 30 children ie a Leadership grade staff member for every class!

That leaves £1065 per child for all the other teachers and other costs. That or somehow they have a much higher than average funding per child compared with other Suffolk secondary schools.


Sources
Seckford Principal and Headteachers Further Particulars
Seckford Other Staff Further Particulars
Numbers of applicants for each school (as supplied by Suffolk County Council FOI request)
Average Spending per child in Suffolk secondary schools (Guardian using DfE Data) 

The spreadsheet above is available to download on Wikisuffolk

Free School Transport: Everybody wants "choice" but nobody wants to pick up the bill

Saxmundham Middle School which is where the Saxmundham Free School will be based if and when it opens was the site of the second Suffolk County Council home to school transport meeting yesterday.

The meeting was much like the one the previous night in Leiston but this time the Portfolio Holder for education, Graham Newman attended. He sat in the audience and when asked to respond told the meeting that he did not feel able to respond as he is the “decision maker” in this case.

I am not sure Graham Newman is quite right about this but that said it is preferable to the pre-empting of consultations that we have seen before most notably Cllr Judy Terry’s behaviour during the library consultation.

Still Cllr Newman turned up and he said he had listened and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt for now.

And whilst nobody from Seckford was present John Fisher who is a Saxmundham Town councillor and one of the original free school proposers told the meeting that the Seckford Foundation would also like to see a single transport priority area giving choice to all parents to send their children to Leiston or Saxmundham.

That said Seckford have said nothing in public about this and I get the impression it isn’t really a big issue for them. That’s strange as the whole original justification for the free school was that currently parents had no choice but to send their children to Lesiton. Now they will have no choice but to send them to the free school….so one lack of choice is replaced with another lack of choice.

It was evident thought that everyone wanted their to be a single transport priority area. The only problem is nobody wants to pay for it. But unless someone does the entire stated intention of the free schools - choice - is completely undermined.

On one level I have some sympathy for the County Council. They didn’t ask for the free schools and might well think the DfE should pay for the transport costs.

Then again that sympathy soon vanishes when I read stories like the one on Woodbridge Lib Dem County Councillor Caroline Page’s blog about the County Council spending £780,000 on a “good neighbours” scheme called “Suffolk Circle”. According to their website:

Suffolk Circle offers handily bits of help that make life easier and social opportunities that make it more fun. Membership is open to everybody over the age of 50 living in West Suffolk. It's a great way to get things done and meet new people!

Despite this generous public funding you even have to pay £30 a year to join. So far only 363 people have. And whilst the Circle seems nice to have it must surely be more important that children can attend a school that meets their needs and helps them succeed.

This money would pay for the extra home to school transport in Leiston and Saxmundham for nearly 8 years...

Tonight the show moves on to Beccles with a meeting at the now iconic Sir John Leman High School. Something tells me this will be interesting!

Leiston and Saxmundham School Transport: Your Child, No Choice

Last night the first Suffolk County Council consultation on home to school transport took place at Leiston High School. I have already blogged about the consultation but as the meeting progressed it became evident that the situation was much worse than I thought.

What was immediately striking was the complete absence from the room of anyone actually responsible for the situation. Suffolk County Council politicians such as Education Portfolio holder Graham Newman and Transport Portfolio holder Guy McGregor stayed at home sending their senior officers into the lion’s den. As usual the Seckford Foundation were nowhere to be seen. Nor the DfE. Nor Therese Coffey the local MP.

The only politician in the room was local Tory County Councillor Rae Leighton. I say he is the local councillor but he’s actually the County Councillor for Saxmundham. Interestingly he is completely opposed to both the free school and transport plans.

Leiston and Aldeburgh County councillor Richard Smith (who actually lives in Saxmundham) wasn’t there either.

The scene was set by the County Council officers who explained that the Saxmundham Free School has not actually been approved yet and that home to school transport in the area works fine and they have no desire to change it. Parents agreed with this and whilst some accused the Council of “jumping the gun” in truth they had no choice but to do this now due to the timescales involved.

Council officers explained what had happened in Clare with Stour Valley Community School, the first free school in Suffolk to open. They said that their home to school transport policy had been “challenged” by the DfE and have ended up having to pay for more or less anyone to attend the free school.

The basic problem is that the existing policy is based on catchment areas and free schools don’t have them. So Suffolk County Council have two main options:

(a) Revert to the statutory minimum across the County (nearest school)
(b) Change their policy in affected areas

They have chosen to change policy in affected areas. This is not at all surprising as otherwise there would be serious disruption to areas that do not even have free schools. Quite possibly enough to lose the 2013 County Council elections for the current administration.

The proposals for Saxmundham and Leiston divide the area into two as this map shows:

So basically if you live in the red area you get free travel to Leiston High School and if you live in the Green area you get free travel to Saxmundham Free School. Otherwise you have to pay £480 a year per child.

But it became apparent it was worse than that - and all credit to the County Council officers for answering this question in a clear, fair and accurate way - there may not be any transport at all, even if you can afford to pay. Unless there are spare spaces on a bus that is already there the County Council won’t provide transport at all.

It later emerged that this will also have an apparently unforeseen impact on post 16 education. Currently children going to sixth form in Leiston from Saxmundham pay £150 a year for transport but under these proposals there would not be any buses and the County Council confirmed they would not provide transport at all unless there were. Again just a “spare space” policy.

The free school does not even have a sixth form so quite what is going to happen in this part of Suffolk where there is little public transport and the County Council have already withdrawn discounted travel from over 16s is unclear. There appears a real risk of children not being able to continue their education.

Needless to say the pubic present were very unhappy with these proposals. Local parent David Wolfe, a barrister in Matrix chambers made a strong call to the County Council to provide free transport to both schools. Something they say will cost some £100,0000 a year.

But local parents pointed out that the County already run buses to the location of the new free school - the current Saxmundham Middle and did not understand why it would cost more. It emerged that a large reason was the plans for the free school to open at different times. Currently the opening and closing times of the school are co-ordinated so the same bus can be used for two sets of children.

Incredibly in response to a question I put the County Council admitted they had not even spoken to the Seckford Foundation about the possibility of such a co-ordinated plan. Maybe the County Council, like me, are off the Seckford Foundation’s Christmas Card list….

But the bottom line is that the current proposals make a complete mockery of the Seckford Foundations’s Your Child, Your Choice tag line. Many parents instead will have their choice to send their child to Leiston High School taken away by the opening of the free school and the consequences for school transport unless either the school does not open or the transport policy is changed

Similar posters are around in Saxmundham area, one parent threatened to change it to "your child, no choice"

It will be interesting to see if there is a different reaction in Saxmundham tonight - and if any of the politicians concerned actually turn up to defend their decisions.

See my live tweets on Wikisuffolk
Suffolk County Council Consultation 

Glemsford Primary suspended staff and Governors accuse County Council of "threats"

This Blog has reported before on the cautionary tale of Glemsford Primary School and the “free” laptops that turned out to be anything but free. With the school facing bills of around half a million pounds the County Council moved to suspend staff and then the Governing Body.

Headteacher Liz Steele and her son James Locker-Steele the school’s IT Technician have both been suspended since January whilst allegations of serious professional misconduct were investigated.

The story took another twist yesterday when the suspended staff and Governors accused Suffolk County Council of making “threats” to staff. The following news report appeared on BBC East:

Click to see the BBC News Report

I am not quite sure what to make of this report.  On the one hand it seems hard on the staff and Governors but without hearing both what the County Council have found and the Steeles response (they are currently banned from speaking to the media) it is hard to judge the situation.

But I am not sure a video from a pub with an endorsement from the school caretaker and then local MP Tim Yeo wading in is gong to be that helpful.

That said I can understand their frustration and I do think that this needs to be brought to a head as soon as possible now so that the school and the Steele family can get on with their lives. Whatever the rights and wrongs it must be a really difficult time for them now.

Have the DfE already approved Beccles and Saxmundham Free Schools?

The Seckford Foundation sent a letter to parents in the Thurston area today about their proposals for a free school in Ixworth. This letter reveals one piece of previously unknown information - that Seckford have got through to interview stage with their Stoke by Nayland Free School bid.
But the way they talk about the Beccles and Saxmundham bids is interesting. They claim:

It also successfully applied to run two Suffolk-based Free Schools at Saxmundham and Beccles, which will open in September 2012. 

The “will open” sounds more definite than some of their previous statements however their website has used similar wording for a while. So they are either being over-confident in their letter to parents or they already know the schools are approved.

Update: A source at the DfE has pointed out that these schools were "approved" last year but as yet their funding agreements have not been signed so they are still not definitely going ahead. I don't personally think this is clear from the letter.
Seckford Ixworth Parent Letter 30Apr