NUT: Learning Trust ignored warnings about Haggerston?

Hackney NUT said today that the Learning Trust's support of the former head of Haggerston school was a major cause of its problems.

The Hackney Gazette followed the story last year:
Hackney Gazette - Strike hits school in 24-hour teachers' walkout
Hackney Gazette - Haggerston headteacher in resignation shock
Hackney Gazette - Crisis at Haggerston School deepens

In September the 2009, the Times Education Supplement (TES) also described Haggerston as "a comprehensive hit by strikes, sudden resignations, staff cuts and money worries".

The NUT says its concerns about what was happening at the school were ignored.

"At the time the NUT criticised the restructuring as being unworkable and having a major impact on student’s progress. Now OFSTED has agreed, identified this area as a weakness."

The NUT added: "This dispute could have been avoided last summer if the Learning Trust had refused to back the restructuring. Instead they helped push it through. Now they are very silent over the OFSTED report."

Before his re-election in May, Mayor Jules Pipe said that the Learning Trust was disgusting.

Blood and Property asked the Learning Trust for a comment on these issues this afernoon, and will publish a response if one appears.

Here is the NUT statement in full:

Press Release Monday 28 June 2010

Haggerston Girls School OFSTED Report

The OFSTED report on the recent inspection of Haggerston School has now been published.

It grades the schools as a “3 - satisfactory” which are the second lowest rating a school can be given.

Haggerston School was previously awarded the status of a ‘Beacon School’, meaning that it was one of the most successful schools in England. The current OFSTED Report reflects the decline in the school during the past few years.

The OFSTED report was very supportive of the quality of teaching, student progress and improved behaviour. Parents and students were very supportive of the school.

The areas identified for improvement by OFSTED arise from the previous headteacher’s reorganisation of the staffing structure.

The OFSTED Reported noted: “The school has been through a period of turbulence and instability since its last inspection, but the new leadership team has made a significant impact in a short period of time on raising expectations”

The period of turbulence refers to the strike action members of the NUT took last year over compulsory redundancies.

This improvement in leadership follows the departure of the previous head, chair of Governors, chair of Finance Committee and removal of delegated powers from the Governing body and new link with Mossbourne.

“Despite a growing number of positive features, however, the school is not yet good because its systems for identifying and supporting students with different needs are not yet sufficiently well established across all year groups to ensure that all groups of students achieve consistently well”

“As a result, the most-able students are not always fully challenged, and students with special educational needs and/or disabilities are not always given the support they need to do consistently well”.

Maggie Kalnins the previous headteacher deleted all the posts for Special Needs teachers and restructured the staffing structure so that there was no Heads of Years whose role it is to provide support and identify children who are under achieving.

NUT spokes-person said:
Last summer we had the spectacle of redundancy notes being given to teachers on sports day.

At the time the NUT criticised the restructuring as being unworkable and having a major impact on student’s progress. Now OFSTED has agreed, identified this area as a weakness.

The loss of 5 experienced teachers has had an impact on the school.
NUT took strike action last summer to oppose compulsory redundancies and this action was only called off following the resignation of the headteacher and the Union reaching agreement with the Trust.

This dispute could have been avoided last summer if the Learning Trust had refused to back the restructuring. Instead they helped push it through. Now they are very silent over the OFSTED report.

Students had their education disrupted last summer in what was an unnecessary dispute.

The school, which is an accredited language college, also made its outstanding head of foreign languages redundant last year. So no one is in charge of modern languages at the school.

Not surprisingly following such a disastrous restructuring the school has gone backwards. The blame for this rests on the shoulders of Maggie Kalnins and the Trust”