Correction: Urswick School stats

Richard Brown, headteacher at Urswick School just called to clear up a couple of problems with the teacher/pupil ratio statistics published in the previous post.

The figures were taken from the Department for Education website and show Urswick has a much higher pupil teacher ratio than other secondary schools in the borough (20 pupils to 1 teacher while at the other end of the scale City Academy and Mossbourne have near 10 pupils per teacher).

But Brown said this was because Urswick is the only school on the list that doesn't have a sixth form (although he said he was consulting about changing that). Sixth form students have different funding and much smaller class sizes of 12 or less which brings down the pupil/teacher ratio for a school.

This means that the teacher pupil ratio provided by the Department for Education will not reflect the situation at GCSE level or lower. Consequently Urswick is one of the few schools in the borough giving a real picture of the pupil teacher ratio at that level.

Brown said that Urswick never has class sizes of more than 25 adding that many of the maths classes were smaller. The school has an annual intake of around 150 which, in other schools, would generally mean 5 classes of 30.

Brown also pointed out that year groups at the school can have very different levels of ability and that this could cause some large fluctuations in the schools performance in terms of GCSE results. Academies do not have the same problem as they use the fair banding system which grades the ability of pupils across the borough into A, B and C ability and a school can take a third of their intake from each band.

All of this means that Hackney parents will have their work cut out for them if they want to assess the schools they are expected to send their children to.

Another moral of the story is that I should check the stats better. I did try. I sent this email to the Learning Trust on 27 September 2011:

"I was hoping to get a comment from the learning trust about the significance - if there is any - of all the borough's academies having average or above teacher:pupil ratios while all non academies have average or below average teacher:pupil ratios."

The request included reference to where the stats had come from http://www.education.gov.uk/establishments/urn/134693/mossbourne-community-academy and a spreadsheet with all the details and a version of a graphic used to illustrate the differences.

No reply came.

Response time from the Learing Trust had dwindled somewhat following requests for a copy of the "assessment framework" which seemed to cause such an uproar at Cardinal Pole school last term.

Correction re £2 bullets and surge in blogosphere

A recent Blood and Property post called "£2 bullets and conspiracy theories: Hackney's worst enemies this summer" said "Are the police selling guns and drugs in Hackney? A significant chunk of Hackney residents appear to believe this." This has now been corrected to "a minority of Hackney residents" after it was pointed out that the original was misleading.

Also, it may not have been clear that the issues discussed were raised by the audience and were not the views of Black Parent Community Forum which runs these monthly meetings. It was pointed out that Blood and Property coverage wasn't particularly helpful - so apologies. It was an impressive and friendly event (with the head of London's armed police fielding any questions thrown at him) and I'd recommend anyone going to the next one - I don't think it's been decided yet who the guest will be.

OTHER NEWS: The role of the blogosphere in Hackney seems to be growing as websites provide a platform for unprecedented numbers of comments in the wake of the London Fields shooting.

Criticism of Mayor Pipe's immediate comments (Hackney Citizen) and Hackney Hive appears to have led to him making some new ones.

Middle class guilt/angst debate(Hackney Citizen) and here for criticism of middle class angst debate (uncarved.org).

The Hackney Gazette also has a statement from Hackney's borough commander on the event.

A tale of two Labour Parties? Conservative implosion

A TALE OF TWO LABOUR PARTIES?

Hackney Labour Councillors now outnumber opposition councillors by more than 6 to 1. The number of opposition councillors has fallen from 12 to 7 while the number of Labour Councillors has risen from 45 to 50.

Labour's gains were achieved without fielding any ultra-orthodox Jewish candidates - an impressive feat considering the size and political clout of this community in Hackney. In addition, Jules Pipe and his Labour group appear to specifically avoid making deals with ethnic/religious groups.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Haringey, Labour councillors staved-off the threat of a Conservative breakthrough by pushing through planning concessions that will help large families - a demand that has been made by the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Hackney, with the support of the Conservative group - but which was refused by Hackney Council.

The reason for the deal making in Haringey appears to have been the by-election in the Seven Sisters ward last year when the Conservatives fielded an ultra-orthodox Jewish candidate who lost by just 64 votes.

But the planning deal may have been unnecessary. Last week's elections saw a massive turn out for Labour in Seven Sisters with all its candidates more than 1000 votes ahead of the Conservatives - including the same ultra-orthodox Jewish candidate who nearly won last year.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Before the elections Rabbi Abraham Pinter told Blood and Property that the Seven Sisters ward in Haringey would prove or disprove claims that ultra-orthodox Jews will only vote for candidates from within their community. The claim was made by Jewish historian Geoffrey Alderman and the leader of Hackney's Lib Dem Group, Ian Sharer.

However it is unclear whether Pinter or Alderman and Sharer have been proved correct by the election result. The huge London-wide turnout for the Labour Party swamped local subtleties.

But, whether it needed to or not, it appears that the Haringey Labour Party specifically sought the support of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and it did so by offering planning concessions. This seems to be exactly the kind of deal making that Hackney council avoids and the last election seems to have put Hackney Council in a stronger position to resist the race-based politics that Geoffrey Alderman believes will eventually take over. (Stop worrying and learn to love race politics)


CONSERVATIVE IMPLOSION?

The Hackney Conservative Group has been reduced from 9 to 4. There are no longer any Green Councillors. However the Lib Dems gained one seat - Abraham Jacobson - who replaced Joseph Stauber (a Lib Dem who defected to Labour). (ALSO, A CORRECTION IS REQUIRED IN RELATION TO Cllr Jacobson, I referred to him as an ultra-orthodox Jew but he is modern orthodox. He left a comment at the end of this post.) The Lib Dems now have three seats.

The Conservative group's most obvious problem was in the Lordship ward where the party lost two of the three seats it held.

Ultra orthodox Jewish councillor Bernard Aussenberg was the only Conservative who held his seat in the ward, doing so with 1,401 votes. The other seats were taken by Labour candidates Edward Brown - took the most votes with 1,827 - and Daniel Stevens who took 1,378.

This left the leader of the Hackney Conservative Group, Matthew Coggins, in fourth place with 1,261 votes, too few to regain his seat.

The other Conservative seat in the ward that had belonged to another ultra orthodox Jewish councillor - Simon Tesler. But Tesler was deselected by Lordship Conservatives. His replacement, Alexander Ellis, failed to win enough votes.

There was some kind of dispute over Tesler's deselection which was intensified when Tesler stood as an independent. Coggins told the Jewish Chronicle: "Mr Tesler was deselected not because of the time he spent representing the strictly Orthodox community but because of his lack of attendance at council meetings. "

The cost of this dispute may have been at least one seat. Coggins won 1,261 votes and Ellis 1,079.

They were beaten by Labour's Daniel Stevens who took 1,378 votes.

Simon Tesler won 467 votes.

Although 118 votes is pretty clear margin at this level, Coggins will probably wonder what would have happened if the disgruntled Simon Tesler had not decided to stand as an independent.

Who stood,
Who was elected
Hackney councillors

Darren Caplan - the corrections...and dinner

Darren Caplan has pointed out an error in an earlier story: Darren Caplan on women's bodies (the corrections have been made and he has left a full comment after the post.)

He also telephoned to say he'd replied in the comments section. During the conversation he said that he may respond to the other story: Darren Caplan, Simon Nayyar...are these criticism's fair?

The story repeats claims from this story:Move over MPs expenses, there's a new scandal in town. (Incidently the same excerpts from the same article were published in the comments section of Luke's Blog on April 2.)

The criticism is that both Darren Caplan and Simon Nayyar work for lobbying firms that represent supermarkets Tesco and Asda respectively, but claim to support local businesses in their campaigns.

Caplan told Blood and Property that he did not work on the Tescos account and added that a number of prospective MPs come from this profession including Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

Blood and Property hopes he'll be able to answer a few more questions about what the job entails - whether standing in an election is just a good thing for a Lobbyist to have on his CV, or whether Hackney could benefit from an MP trained in the dark arts?

And while you wait, here's a 40 minute video debate with Darren Caplan: Question Dine in which he deals with questions on voting at 16 and immigration, all in a dinner party setting. I enjoyed the 15 minutes I watched.

Dave vs Diane - Will she vote for her MP Meg?

In case you haven't seen the comment section of this (old - Jan 27) post on Hackney Lib Dem candidate, Dave Raval - Telegraph City Diary and Hackney South's Lib Dem candidate...

For a while the only comments were Diane's denial that she doesn't live in Hackney (and a correction - yes she does live in Hackney). But, Hackney South Lib Dem Candidate, Dave Raval, didn't mean she didn't live in Hackney:

Dave said: "I’ll respond to your points separately. Firstly, I said that neither Labour MP for Hackney live in the area they represent. This is true - it’s is a simple fact. This is what I wrote on my website, www.daveraval.com, in reply to Diane Abbott’s comment there. Clearly I have hit on something that the Labour MPs feel touchy about!

"Diane - Thanks for looking at my website! Much appreciated.

"You do indeed live in Hackney, you live in Hackney South and your MP is Meg Hillier. (Meg doesn't live in Hackney).

"In fact, I was planning to canvass you since (whilst I am sure publicly you have to categorically say that you intend to vote Labour, and I don't expect you to respond in any other way on this site), I suspect that actually there is a high chance that you don't support the current Labour leadership and it is a secret ballot after all...

"The point I am making is that, unlike many MPs, including Meg Hillier, I am dedicated to the area I am standing in and have proven it by moving here. Do I think that's the most important thing in politics - no I don't, but it does show commitment and I think people should be able to make up their own minds about this, armed with the facts".

"The other question you asked was – what car I drive!! That one is simple to answer – it is an ultra low carbon Mini, with a British flag on the roof. It’s low carbon because I care about the environment (I don’t drive it much in the first place) and I put the flag there as I’m fed up with the racist parties in this country claiming it for themselves. As a mixed-race Brit, the British flag is mine too!

"If you’re still curious, there’s a photo on www.daveraval.com, click on “Green Living” in the “About Dave” section (just above my photo). Still amazed that the car made it into the Daily Telegraph though...