Creationism banned from schools - will this affect Yesodey Hatorah?

I haven't posted anything for a long time because I moved out of Hackney.  I am not sure what to do with this blog, any thoughts?

Anyway, below is a story I saw in June that I thought might have some relevance to Yesodey Hatorah. I believe the school's curriculum has some unconventional faith-based characteristics.

'Creationism cannot be taught as a valid scientific theory in any free school or academy, the government has said': http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/06/18/secular-triumph-as-government-bans-creationism-from-free-sch

No doubt Rabbi Pinter could explain whether it is relevant - I haven't asked him.

Yesoday Hatorah sixth most 'exclusive' state school in England

According to research from the Daily Telegraph the Yesodey Hatorah School in Stamford Hill is one of the most exclusive state schools in the country.

The survey says that the percentage of children eligible for free school meals in the local area is above 37 per cent while only 1.6 per cent of pupils in the school claim free meals.

There's a bit more about the schools admissions here on If you tickle us... a Q&A on admissions:

http://ifyoutickleus.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/yesodey-hatorah-senior-girls-school.html

For more on the school and its headmaster Abraham Pinter: 

 http://bloodandproperty.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/yesodey%20hatorah%20school

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: Charedi leaders not to blame

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: amazed any words are left in Charedi dictionary

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: Cllr Mulready does not represent the whole community

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: "When people leave the community they go to the other extreme"

Rabbi Abraham Pinter has answered a number of questions about the Charedi community in Stamford Hill. Here he discusses allegations that womens' rights are under threat at his own school. 

Rabbi Pinter: Is the Charedi community led by its politicians and other questions..

Schools without planning permission mainly in Stamford Hill

Hackney Council has provided details of seven schools in the borough which are operating without planning permission, the majority of them are in Stamford Hill and appear to be ultra orthodox Jewish or Charedi schools.

Joe Lobenstein and sinister motives

A letter from former four-times Hackney Mayor Joe Lobenstein MBE is in the latest Hackney Gazette. In it he said he detected a "sinister motive" in  Nigel Lewis's letter about Charedi Schools in Stamford Hill.

Whatever that sinister motive may have been, Lobenstein never pinned it down.

Instead, after listing Lewis' complaints about a Charedi "closed-shop" and "coup" Lobenstein justified his attack on Lewis with one point, that Charedi kids don't commit crime.

He said that a look at the figures would show "that not a single pupil of Charedi schools in Hackney has ever appeared before a juvenile court or has been accused of any vices which are unfortunately so rampant in society today."

By complete coincidence, just yesterday I was in touch with former Hackney blogger Ben Locker who wrote a piece about this particular argument back in 2007. I'm posting his full blog post on a separate page for future reference.

Back in 2007 Locker wrote: "I was astonished by the argument one person put forward that Stamford Hill has a miniscule crime rate, thanks to the Orthodox Jewish community: even going so far as to say “when did you last hear of someone mugged by an Orthodox Jew?” Apart from the fact that it ignores a problem with unrecorded crime in the Haredi community, what on earth has that got to do with planning law?"

His astonishment was not shared by another Hackney blogger and member of the Charedi community "The Shaigetz" who said: "I, sadly, am less astonished. I have been hearing that justification, in its various forms, since I was twelve. Our superior children do not take drugs, wear ripped jeans or sport nose piercings, therefore we should be allowed to …[fill in the blank]."

(More recently Charedi youths were not immune to benefiting from the recent riots and The Shaigetz had interesting observations on the subject of unrecorded crime )

Lobenstein wrote a piece in the Jewish Tribune in which he criticised Geoffrey Alderman for being rude about Charedi schools in Stamford Hill: "Mr Alderman must have been dreaming when  he wrote that visiting the vicinities of Cranwich Road, Amhurst Park, Fairholt Road and Bethune Road, led him to believe that matters had turned ugly."

"Again, sheer and utter nonsense."

"I claim slightly superior knowledge over that of Alderman when describing Fairholt Road because I have lived there for approximately seventy years. The only school on Fairholt Road is St Thomas Abney School which belongs to the Church of England. No Jewish school is located in Fairholt Road."

Although he did mention "Planning application for the conversion of one local residence into a children's nursery is currently pending" I'm not sure if he was referring to Gur School at 85 Fairholt road which had already been running for more than six months with no planning permission.

In the same column - penned under the name Ben Yitzchok in the Jewish Tribune (May 2011 - pointed out to me by Geoffrey Alderman) - he also said: "Not a single school is operating without having obtained planning consent which invariably takes account of reaction of neighbours, traffic implications, health and safety regulations."

At the time the Gur school, in the road in which he lives, was operating without any of the above.

A couple of weeks ago the Hackney Gazette reported that the Gur school which got retrospective planning permission in July had failed to meet the conditions which came with it: "The council has since served several enforcement notices which have been ignored."

Report by Ben Locker of 2007 planning meeting in Stamford Hill

I'm republishing this courtesy of Ben Locker who wrote a blog called Hackney Lookout until 2008. He also wrote a piece in the Hackney Citizen with Charedi blogger "The Shaigetz" called The Goy next door 

June 27th, 2007

Whose law is it anyway? (pt 3)

About 15 years ago, I read a study that found racist attitudes were eroded when members of different groups came to live together in the same residential block. Partly this was because people got to see each other more often, began to share the same concerns and - the reason I thought most resonant at the time - because everyone enjoys having an audience when they’re complaining about how badly-treated they are by their boss, landlord or whoever else is in authority over them.

If there’s one thing that would help community cohesion in Stamford Hill at the moment, then it’s a bout of close-harmony whingeing about the many ways we have all been shafted by Hackney Council over the last decade or more. But one other thing’s for certain: if the various groups on the Hill continue to use shoddy and dishonest tactics themselves, no matter how admirable their motives, we’re not only sending a gilt-edged invitation to that local authority to shaft us some more, we’re going to find this place turned into a tinderbox.

That much was clear to me yesterday evening, when I went to a meeting organised by Hackney Planning Watch at Stamford Hill Library. I was two minutes late and skipped signing the register so that I could be one of the last allowed in. I bagged a spot by the wall where I could stand and not only get a good view of the speakers and everyone in the room, but could see out of the window and into the glass lined corridor opposite.

I’ve worked with Civic Societies before, and most would have been astonished by (and envious of) the number of local people who turned up to discuss a planning issue. There were about a hundred people in a room laid out for seventy, and there was a crowd of at least thirty more outside the door noisily demanding entrance. I could see quite a few trying to get a view of the meeting from the corridor.

So why the passionate interest? Put simply, the Council has released a document that contains suggested alterations to the regulations that control residential alterations and extensions in parts of the borough. If these suggestions are adopted, different planning laws will apply to residents in three areas: Queens Drive in Finsbury Park; Cricketfield Road in Hackney Downs; and 38 streets that comprise the core of my own area, Stamford Hill.

The new regulations are being proposed in Stamford Hill for a number of reasons. Firstly, the area is home to a long-established Orthodox Jewish community, members of which belong to families with an average of 5.9 children. Living space is in short supply and, to accommodate such large families, many have built extensions on the fronts, sides, tops or backs of their houses - and sometimes have done all four. A high proportion of these extensions would (under normal circumstances) have fallen foul of planning regulations but, for one reason or another, have been approved by the council. A significant number have been built with no reference to planning laws whatsoever, and have still not been awarded permission.

In other words, the extensions are a short-term solution to meet the needs of one rapidly-growing section of the community. Its members have been angered by a Council that is now more likely to refuse extensions and, with not a little justice, complain that it is unfair to crack down on these developments when they have been tolerated (or ignored) by the Council for years.

However, many of these extensions have angered other people who live in the Stamford Hill area. Some residents complain that the developments block the light that reaches their own properties. Others point to the noise nuisance that is exacerbated by larger numbers of people living in bigger properties near them. Many are angered by the fact that a good number of developments have wrecked the streetscape and damaged the original shape of Victorian and early-Edwardian terraces. Still more make the point that the developments are storing up trouble for the future, making Stamford Hill overcrowded, encouraging cowboy developers, giving people the incentive to carve up properties into flats and bedsits, and creating urgent problems with structure and flooding.

And underlying all this is a growing resentment nurtured by some people who feel that the Orthodox Jewish community appears to be given de facto special treatment under planning law. No wonder it was a crowded meeting.

Sadly, in such circumstances, good sense often takes a back seat when one’s own interests are at stake. For example, I was very grateful to Hackney Planning Watch (HPW) for calling the meeting, especially as I had no idea that there had been a consultation on the proposed regulations, let alone that it had closed. However, the first thing that I did after reading HPW’s leaflet was to go and find the planning document on Hackney Council’s website (it’s here. What this document does propose is changes to the regulations to front roof slopes, rear roof slopes, and rear extensions. What it does not do is “abandon our streets to unregulated property developers”, as HPW put it. Nor does it cover those developers who “are even applying to build three story houses in residential back gardens”. Nor was it appropriate - at all - for someone from the table to say to Councillor Coggins that “it was your party who sold off our social housing”. I happen to agree, but it was unfair and antagonistic to one of only three councillors who made the effort to show up.

That said, what the proposals are suggesting - and this is the thorniest point for me - that residents within three defined areas of the borough should be subject to different regulations than their neighbours a few streets away. For that reason I thought it highly disingenuous of Councillor Odze to argue that we will all still be subject to planning regulations. Yes we will councillor, but different ones: that is not equality under the law.

This is the point that, more than any other, needs answering and I think that members of the Orthodox community recognise that it is the biggest obstacle to the proposals becoming law. I can think of no other reason why, instead of answering that question, most of the arguments in favour of adopting the new regulations fell into the “Oh go on, we’re nice” category; most notably when a girl of about 12 stood up to make a prepared speech about how her own home was too crowded for her to do her schoolwork properly, how her family faces pressures that arise from her brother’s serious lung disease and how she did “not feel we have been accepted or given space.”

I sympathise, but there are many people across London with similar problems. Should the new regulations apply to them too?

Similarly, I was astonished by the argument one person put forward that Stamford Hill has a miniscule crime rate, thanks to the Orthodox Jewish community: even going so far as to say “when did you last hear of someone mugged by an Orthodox Jew?” Apart from the fact that it ignores a problem with unrecorded crimein the Haredi community, what on earth has that got to do with planning law?

To return to the wider point, though, there was much that was positive about the meeting that could be used as a basis for us all. By and large, all communities on the Hill are sympathetic to (and often adore) large families. Most of us agree that we need more space to have a happier family life (I know I would like a lot more). I also think we all agree that the council’s past inaction and its approval of certain developments have stored up trouble that is now bearing ill-fruit. And I think that, deep down, we all know that allowing inappropriate extensions will only provide a short-term solution for a small proportion of families.

What we need to be asking is what we do about the problem long term. And for that we should be asking ourselves some hard questions, such as whether allowing our planning system to become a communal issue is ever going to be for the wider good, no matter what the motives behind it.

We should then be turning to the council and asking some hard questions, like: Why hasn’t there been a proper consultation on this measure?

Why were the new regulations only published after the local elections?

Why did no member of the council’s ruling party attend last night’s meeting to listen to the citizens’ concerns?

And when we’ve got their answers we can get started on that close-harmony whingeing I was talking about. It will do us all a lot more good than finger pointing, jealousy or diluting the rather limited protection that planning law already gives us.

Charedi community must tolerate inconvenience like everyone else

This is the statement made by Labour Councillor Ned Mulready at Hackney Council's planning sub committee on Tuesday 10 January.

He is talking about a private school for ultra orthodox Jewish pupils at 91 Amhurst Park which is one of many schools set up around Stamford Hill without planning permission.

"The judgement of whether or not to grant planning permission for a school comes down to the need for the school versus the harm it causes to the amenity of residents.


I’ll first address the need for the school. There is absolutely no need for this school to be on this specific site. The school has been built because a group of parents in the local area have decided to opt out of state education for their kids.


Now that is their right but it is a choice. They might see it as an obligation but, in law, it isn’t. It’s a choice. And we must see it as such.


The fact that there is a large group of people in an area with a preference for religious schooling over state education, in my book, doesn’t mean there is a need for a religious school, just that there is a desire.


Now, I can see how it could be argued that if there is a desire for a certain specific type of education from a large part of the local community - a type of education they have a right to choose for themselves - then you could say there is a need for a school which would provide that sort of education.


I wouldn’t agree with that definition of need.


But I can see how you could get to it.


So if we take that as given. Assume that there is a need for a school of this type (I refute that but lets just go with it).


We then come down to the judgement of where the school needs to be. Or rather, where there is a need for the school to be.


There is absolutely no reason why this school has to be built on that site or even in the Stamford Hill area.


You don’t have a right to a school on the same couple of streets that you live on. There is absolutely nothing in any law or regulation that says you do. You have decided that none of the local state schools are for you and that you are going to build your own. Fine. That’s your right.


But the onus is surely on you to find appropriate land to build on. And if you can’t find that land in the small area of Stamford Hill then you move out a bit until you do. And if the site you find isn’t perfectly located for the children who will go there, then you just have to deal with it.


And I think this is something that the Charedi community generally will have to come to terms with as the number of children in the community grows exponentially.


I travelled for two and half hours everyday I went to school there and back. That was a massive inconvenience. But I don’t think for a second that I have a right not to be inconvenienced.


I am aware that there are Charedi customs and traditions regarding having schools and synagogues in the vicinity. And I make no judgement on that. We are a religiously tolerant society and I would hate for that to be threatened.


But we are not a religious society and in law we see those who follow religious customs and traditions as doing so through choice. Therefore the fact that there may be Charedi customs and traditions regarding this should have absolutely no bearing on the assessment of need."

Cllr Mulready sits on the planning committee but was not allowed in the room during the vote or to take part in other discussions after declaring a personal interest in this planning application. Some of the issues here were addressed in the last piece: Does school row expose 'Charedi coup'?

Does school row expose 'Charedi coup'?

The first Hackney Gazette of 2012 features a letter and a news story both of which raise concerns about schools for ultra orthodox Jewish (Charedi) children which have opened illegally in and around Stamford Hill.

Some of these schools have been granted retrospective planning permission but usually with conditions attached.

A Google search suggests at least three similar cases (any more please let me know and I will amend if there are any updates.)

Torah V'Yirah, 91 Amhurst Park.

Beis Trana, at 186-194 Upper Clapton Road. (Both discussed in a Jewish Chronicle piece )

The Gur school in Fairholt Road (Another Jewish chronice piece).

The Gazette's news story covered the Gur school which got its planning permission in July but with conditions that it has failed to meet. The Gazette said: "The council has since served several enforcement notices which have been ignored."

The school has now appealed against the conditions of the temporary planning permission.

The letter in the Gazette is about another school, the Torah V'Yirah at 91 Amhurst Road (The Gazette originally wrote this story on December 16). On Tuesday 10 January the Council's planning committee will vote on whether this school should be granted retrospective planning permission too.

Council officers have recommended refusing permission and under normal circumstances this matter would not have gone before a committee. But a petition of 10 councillors has forced it on to the agenda on Tuesday.

Two councillors who sit on the committee (Ian Sharer, Leader of Hackney Lib Dems and Michael Levy, Leader of the Conservative Group) ) have put their names to the petition calling for the schools argument to be heard and not refused on the basis of the officer recommendation.

Nigel Lewis' letter to the Gazette also referred to a meeting with Hackney Councillors in June 2011 - this included Abraham Jacobson (Lib Dem), Ian Sharer (Leader of Hackney Lib Dems), Simche Steinberger (Conservative), Michael Levy (Leader of the Conservative Group) and Benzion Papier (Conservative) as well as Linda Kelly (Conservative) and Dawood Akhoon (Lib Dem) who have all signed the petition.

Lewis' letter described the June meeting as "a Charedi-run closed shop determined to stifle local democracy".

He added that: "The recent petition likewise appears to be the prelude to an intended coup, in which large areas of Hackney's planning will henceforth be managed with Charedi interests uppermost, irrespective of other people."

This may sound a bit insensitive but tensions around planning and  the Charedi community have dogged Hackney politics for years. During the last Mayoral election Andrew Boff, Conservative member of the London Assembly and candidate for Mayor of Hackney, criticised this blog for suggesting that the Conservative party sometimes behaved like an ultra orthodox Jewish lobby group in Hackney: Reply to Andrew Boff.

A couple of years ago Mayor Jules Pipe criticised Cllr Simche Steinberger for putting the interests of the Charedi community ahead of other Hackney residents.

This is how he described it later in an interview with Blood and Property: "I believe that it was the adopted principle of the entire Hackney Conservative group to oppose the Council’s clarification of planning policy regarding residential extensions. In my opinion, in attempting to negotiate the removal of the item from the Cabinet agenda in return for his acquiescence to allowing an urgent item that lowered council housing rents, he put furthering his group’s political position above operating correctly as Chair of Overview and Scrutiny."

The other side

The debate about ultra orthodox Jewish education facilities has been rumbling for a while in Hackney and the Council has been criticised for not acknowledging the problems faced by its fastest growing community.

Rabbi Abraham (Avraham) Pinter, a regular spokesman for the community and principal at Yesodey Hatorah School led a campaign to turn the site of an old Hackney School into a school for ultra orthodox Jewish pupils rather than turn it into residential homes.

At the time he told the Jewish Chronicle that the site represented "a unique opportunity for the Charedi community in Stamford Hill to have improved purpose-built educational facilities. More than 20 per cent of Hackney's under-16s come from the Charedi community and many of our existing schools are old fashioned, sub-standard residential buildings.

He said: "It is an absolute scandal that the educational needs of the fastest growing part of Britain's Jewish community are being ignored by Hackney Council," he claimed. In other words something needs to be done about schools in the community and until then illegal ones will probably keep popping up.


General tension

The ultra orthodox Jewish community seems to have a rocky record in terms of community cohesion. It is often criticised by the mainstream Jewish media here. Between Christmas and New Year the BBC reported stand-offs in Israel as the wider Israeli population protested against demands for gender segregation.

At the end of last year Geoffrey Alderman, historian and columnist for the Jewish Chronicle, raised tensions when he claimed it was "well known that charedi men are notorious harassers of the opposite sex." (Republishing this comment has offended a reader - see comment below - but the context and a response from Rabbi Pinter are included in the link, I'm hoping that's enough to justify repeating Alderman's claim which is not there because I believe it but to demonstrate that this debate has become very heated within the Jewish community itself. Anyway, if you have a problem with this please let me know via comments below.)

Justified or not, is there any way to usefully address these issues before the effects of a poorly performing economy fray tolerance levels?

Cardinal Pole silence and questions about new head

A report into allegations that staff at Cardinal Pole school were asked to manipulate pupil assessments and to follow a 'no going backwards' policy will not be made public.

The only people who will see the report will be the chair of governors, Fr David Evans and the school's 'interim' executive headteacher Geraldine Freear who has taken over after the previous headteacher, Katherine Hartigan, resigned.

A spokesperson for the school said: "We are not releasing the report as it may prejudice the actions that the head may wish to take."

The report made three recommendations: “The first recommendation relates to personnel, the second to the school’s assessment procedures and the third to clarifying leadership roles within the school."

The school said: "Staff and students can rest assured that our new executive headteacher is very clear about the recommendations and will be acting on these as a priority. She is an extremely experienced headteacher and the governors have every confidence in her ability to lead this school towards a bright future.”

However it is believed that Freear had already been working with the school since the spring before the manipulation claims were made. Blood and Property has asked the Learning Trust what Freear's role at the school was in this period and whether she had any input on changes to how the school assessed its pupils.

Freear already runs two other schools in North West London and has an impressive track record. But teachers at Cardinal Pole are aware that an employment tribunal found the treatment of a member of staff at one of these schools as "not just inept but wholly unprofessional"  in 2007. A news report of the case described a member of staff being subjected to "months of torment" by senior staff.

Blood and Property asked whether that incident was of any concern to the Learning Trust, the school, the governors or the diocese, bearing in mind the morale of the schools teaching staff? No reply has been received.

(It is hard to tell what kind of leadership school authorities are looking for in their headteachers. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Hackney superhead who will take over Ofsted in January told the TES: "If anyone says to you that ‘staff morale is at an all-time low’ you will know you are doing something right". Would he apply that in this case?)


Background:

7 Dec: headteacher resigns

21 Oct: Official investigation reported by Gazette


13 Sept: Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims


12 Sept: Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim

2 July: Vote of no confidence in Head

Will Cardinal Pole findings be made public?

Last week the the Hackney Gazette reported that Katherine Hartigan, the head teacher at Cardinal Pole school had resigned.

This follows an investigation into allegations that the school's senior management attempted to persuade staff to manipulate student assessments prior to an Ofsted inspection. However it is unclear whether the findings of this investigation - believed to include allegations of a "no going backwards" policy for student assessment - will be made public.

The Learning Trust, which oversees the management of Hackney's schools, said that these decisions were being taken at a school level and that the report had yet to be finalised and no decision had been made about whether its findings would be made public.

However Blood and Property has been told that one reason why the findings remain under wraps may be because other senior members of staff at the school could still face disciplinary action. A governors meeting is due to take place tonight on this subject.

Concerns had already been raised about which organisations or individuals commissioned the report and which of them had authority to say whether the findings should be made public or not.

It is believed that National Union of Teachers (NUT) members had threatened to boycott the investigation after the school's head teacher allegedly claimed that the investigation was her responsibility. Those teachers who were interviewed had to be reassured that this was not the case and some believe that the findings will be made public.

More recently there has been a stormy governors' meetings about the report and when it will be available and to whom. Hopefully there will be more news on this later in the week.

All recent Cardinal Pole stories here, and a rough timeline here:

2 July: Vote of no confidence in Head
12 Sept: Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim
13 Sept: Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims

Official investigation into Cardinal Pole

The Hackney Gazette has some interesting new stuff on what's going on at Cardinal Pole - there is now an official investigation by independent investigators.

This is unexpected because, on 12 September the Learning Trust, which runs Hackney's schools, told Blood and Property: “These matters have been looked into and there is no investigation at Cardinal Pole.”

According to the Gazette's front page story the Learning Trust "said they supported the governors' decision decision for an investigation this week". The Gazette reported that teachers "claimed they were told to mask results for pupils in years 7 to 9 in order to show Ofsted inspectors that achievements had improved".

Blood and Property tried to work out what was going on at the school over the summer:

2 July: Vote of no confidence in Head
12 Sept: Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim
13 Sept: Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims

In the last story the school's head, Katherine Hartigan, said: "As part of the drive to raise standards across the school, a new system was introduced for all staff which provided a consistent assessment framework for tracking and assessing pupil progress across the school."

However neither the school nor the Learning Trust have answered any of Blood and Property's requests for details about this "new system" introduced at Cardinal Pole.

If the allegations turn out to be correct the question is whether anyone will follow up the accompanying allegation - that Cardinal Pole is behind the curve and that falsification has been going on at all the other schools?

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.

Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims

Katharine Hartigan, head teacher at Cardinal Pole school in Homerton and the Learning Trust, which runs Hackney's schools, have replied to allegations that staff at the school were asked to falsify coursework last term.

The allegations in the original story were put to the Learning Trust before it was published but Blood and Property only received this short response: “These matters have been looked into and there is no investigation at Cardinal Pole.”

Teachers at the school had passed a vote of no confidence in the head teacher and voted to strike over the issues reported. Also a statement from the NUT suggested that these issues were still being looked into. So the story was not just based on staff room gossip.

The dispute appears to have been sparked by the introduction of an assessment framework for teachers to follow when assessing pupils. Blood and Property will ask for details of this framework and whether other schools in the borough have them too. But thanks to the school and trust for replying.

This is the email from the Learning Trust:

"We are extremely disappointed by this article which questions the professionalism of staff at the school, and casts an unwarranted shadow over the excellent GCSE results of the students this summer.

"Staff were not encouraged to falsify GCSE coursework.

"As part of the drive to raise standards across the school, a new system was introduced for all staff which provided a consistent assessment framework for tracking and assessing pupil progress across the school."

Katharine Hartigan said: "Differing views were expressed regarding the new internal assessment framework and it is disappointing that comments are being taken out of context. I know my teachers are professional enough to disregard any comments which do not meet the very high standards we set ourselves as teachers.

"All matters have been resolved and the governing body, staff and unions are working together to continue to build a strong future for the school."

The Learning Trust said: "This matter has been looked into and no basis for investigation was found”.

Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim

Staff at Cardinal Pole school were urged by email to falsify GCSE coursework marks last term, Blood and Property has been told.

(The school and the trust have provided a response to these allegations)

Also, at a staff meeting attended by the school's head teacher, teachers were allegedly told that doctoring GCSE coursework marks was normal practice elsewhere and schools that didn't do it were "too honest".

This alleged advice sparked a vote of no confidence in the school's head teacher, Katharine Hartigan, as Blood and Property reported on 3 July. At the time the background to the dispute had not been revealed and it was still not public when the Hackney Gazette reported it (page 2, July 14).

The dispute threatened to end in a strike after the school's National Union of Teachers (NUT) representative was suspended - but the school withdrew the suspension.

Then, during the summer holidays, it was revealed that Cardinal Pole had achieved its "best ever" GCSE results.

Blood and Property put the allegations about teachers at Cardinal Pole being urged to doctor coursework results to the Learning Trust and to Hackney Council. They were asked to clarify or correct any of the alleged details in the account here.

The Learning Trust commented on behalf of the school and the council: "These matters have been looked into and there is no investigation at Cardinal Pole."

However a comment from the NUT about the conditions surrounding the suspension and the strike threat suggest that these issues are still being looked into.

In a statement issued in July, the union said: "From September the NUT will have a series of meetings with the head and Diocese of Westminster. These meetings will deal with the range of issues Peter (Domokos) was raising when he was suspended. These meetings will also address the issues which were the subject of the vote of No Confidence in the Head."

The chart below shows the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more GCSEs at A-C including English and Maths in some of the borough's schools.

Cardinal Pole school 'no confidence' in head

The majority of teachers at Cardinal Pole school on Kenworthy Road have signed a petition of no confidence in the headteacher Katharine Hartigan - according to sources.

It is also believed that the school's NUT (National Union of Teachers) representative, who is a teacher in the school, has been suspended.

Members of the union at the school will be balloted this week over whether to strike in support of their representative - the fact that an official ballot will be sent out means that the union believes the suspension was unfair.

Blood and Property doesn't know the reasons for the vote of no confidence but has been told the school's governors are looking into the dispute.

Cardinal Pole school has over 1000 pupils spread over two sites. The main school is on Kenworthy Road in Homerton, the lower school is on Victoria Park Road. In September 2012 the school is due to move to a new site on Morning Lane.

The school passed an Ofsted inspection in March which gave it a '3' or 'satifactory' grade where '1' is outstanding, '2' is good, '3' is satisfactory, and '4' is inadequate.

In a letter to the school's pupils the Ofsted inspector said examination results were low in comparison with national standards but some pupils were rapidly improving their performance.

It said: "Some aspects of your school are good, for example the care and support you receive from your teachers. We saw plenty of you enjoying your lessons and we were pleased to hear that you are happy at school.

Your head teacher has plans to improve the school further. We identified three things

that should help her with this:

1. Improve the use of assessment so that lesson activities are matched more closely to your needs.

2. Reduce the variability of the quality of teaching so that you all make expected or

better progress in all of your lessons

3. Raise achievement in science. "

I have emailed the school and the Learning Trust to confirm the claims and will pass on any fresh details if they are supplied.

Hackney play area or evil vortex?

This week Hackney Bloggers have delivered...

Supernatural

Be afraid because, apparently: 'This (Hackney) playground is much more than a play area, its an energy vortex which was marked out and built by Hackney Council planners and construction contractors.... Why go to so much trouble to build a child safe play area with the newest technology in safety turfing to place a boulder on top of that MOUND. Even if you don't believe a word we say, its pretty odd don't you agree?' (Up there with that masonic pyramid on Canary Wharf and Hawksmoor's pentagon of East End churches.)

Natural

Returning to the real world Northern Rustic points out some exotic looking birds in Hackney (he now seems to have a site dedicated to the Birds of Stoke Newington Reservoirs). This week on Northern Rustic it is Waxwings (as it was at the end of Feb) possibly because: 'It could be a long time before our dark urban borough is graced by them again, so it seems only just to make the most of them'.

Ultra Orthodox

Hackney blogger 'If you tickle us' hit the headlines last week via an article in the Telegraph about Stamford Hill. This promted a flurry of activity and as Tickle said: 'The Hill is alive with the sound of comments.'

A colleague at work pointed out where the 'If you tickle us' might be from (I didn't know): Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice: 'Hath not a Jew eyes; hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer that a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?' (Meanwhile, if you are in need of more conspiracy theories, here's one about Shakespeare and Hackney)

Free schools in Hackney?
This week's Hackney Gazette has a letter from lots of top Hackney folk complaining about the idea of a free school in Hackney. They say: 'While the public will be paying for them, we will have absolutely no say in how they are run or to hold them to account in the event of problems'. This sounds pretty much like academies which, it is rumoured, are slave-ships for teachers, and also steal each others teachers as if they were competing businesses, and which are not subject to freedom of information act.... but are otherwise loved - may be by some of Labour Party people on the list of objectors to free schools.

Well Street in the FT
This weekend's Financial Times had a piece about a charity set up to help poor people in the East End evicting Well Street shopkeepers. The FT reported: "They want to increase my annual rent from £5,000 to £9,000,” says Danny Rao, who runs the street’s post office. “If that happens, I’ll have to close down. And if I close down, half the street’s going to be dead." That will leave lots of room for more off licences and betting shops - the only money-making shops on Hackney highstreets these days - apart from Tescos, but there's one of them there already. Hopefully the FT's undercover economist and Hackney resident Tim Harford will shed light on whether a charity should be denied the right to ask shopkeepers to pay a market rate rent, and whether there is a cause to fight for here.