UCL Academy will go ahead but school upgrades on hold

Artist impression of the new UCL Academy

Building cash at risk, says campaigner

Published: 01 July, 2010
by TOM FOOT

TENS of millions of pounds worth of school rebuilding projects in Camden have been put on hold to pay for a massive expansion in academies and creation of free schools, one of the country’s leading state school campaigners has warned.

Fiona Millar told a meeting of the Anti Academies Alliance (AAA) in Westminster on Thursday that funding for a major redevelopment of William Ellis School in Highgate, where she is a governor, was officially suspended last week.

The coalition government is reviewing all funding agreements under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme – the former government’s flagship schools rebuilding scheme.

Teachers and governors have spent months preparing plans for repairs and upgrades to their schools.

Ms Millar said: “Our building work was due to start next year. We have been working for two years on those plans. We have been told, it was confirmed yesterday [last Wednesday], that all the BSF work will be put on hold, presumably to find money for free schools. 

“Free schools will take away our building money. We need to get the message out to parents.”

While rebuilding projects for Camden’s schools are in jeopardy, the new £30million UCL Academy remains on course to open by September 2011. It will be built in Adelaide Road, Swiss Cottage – a controversial location close to Haverstock School and Quintin Kynaston.

A spokesman for University College London, which is sponsoring the academy, said he did not foresee any problems with financing the building.

Ms Millar said: “We are facing a situation in our local authority where we will get the academy that no one wants, and no one needs, and no other schools will be refurbished.”

The AAA meeting, chaired by Camden National Union of Teachers (NUT) secretary Andrew Baisley, was attended by about 300 teachers and parents.

There were speeches from Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, Gerry Bartlett, of teachers’ union NASWUT, Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, and John Berry, from the University College Union.

They are raising awareness about the Academies Bill 2010, which allows all schools rated “outstanding” by Ofsted to become academies without consultation. A list released by the Department of Education last week revealed no Camden school has shown any interest in becoming an academy – although Quintin Kynaston, on the Westminster side of the border in Swiss Cottage, has.

AAA national secretary Alasdair Smith said: “We need to create a storm parents will understand. We need action in every school.”

Opponent: I’m having rethink

HAS the prospect of UCL Academy in Swiss Cottage with a brand new £30million building already begun to have a destabilising effect on Quintin Kynaston (QK)?

For QK’s head, who was a vociferous opponent of the Labour government’s academy status, has now declared an interest in applying for academy status.

Jo Shuter, head of the “outstanding” Quintin Kynaston school was forced to rethink her position after the new Con-Lib coalition government changed the rules about getting the status.

Schools classified as outstanding can now apply to be academies without any need for consultation

If it became an academy, QK – just five minutes’ walk from the  new UCL Academy site –  would  be free to run its own admissions system and be rewarded with a bigger budget. 

Union leaders warn that the academy system is “divisive” and will fragment the surrounding family of schools.

Ms Shuter, a former Headteacher of the Year, said: “We’re waiting to see what being an academy might look like. Is there going to be significantly more funding, and if so what does that look like. What are the real freedoms, if there are going to be any freedoms. If we said no to academy status what would that mean? You could be gaining on the one hand, and losing on the other.”

Ms Shuter explained her change of heart: “I was stone cold against them [academies] but some of those reservations have gone away. The whole philosophy of what an academy is has changed. One of the big things was having a sponsor, which I didn’t like the idea of at all, but which you don’t need anymore. Also, I wouldn’t really want us to be called an academy.”

She added: “Whatever happens, I hope we will end up working in some sort of collaboration and partnership with UCL Academy... I wouldn’t see the other school as necessarily being in competition.”

Classroom preview – August start if plans win approval?

THIS is how the UCL Academy in Swiss Cottage (pictured above) could look if councillors approve planning permission for the new school.

Plans are available for the public to see at the Town Hall in King’s Cross. 

Planning councillors will make a decision on the designs in August. 

Building work could begin in the same month – if the new coalition government agrees that the project should still be funded.

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