Opposition grows to London Schools Funding Cuts

Government proposals to introduce a new natonal funding formula for schools from next year are expected to lead to big reductions in funding for local schools. Essentially the formula would result in funding being redistributed from schools in urban areas to other parts of the country, with schools in inner London particularly badly hit. 

Teaching unions estimate that funding for Lewisham schools could be reduced by more than £27m over the next two years, equivalent to the salary of 582 teachers.

Source: School Cuts.

Opposition to these plans is growing. Last night there was a packed meeting for Lambeth parents at Sunnyhill Primary School SW16, called by the National Campaign for Fair Funding for All Schools.

Last night's meeting @FairFundLambeth

Tonight (Thursday 16th March 2017), there's a similar event for Lewisham parents taking place at Edmund Waller Primary School, Waller Road, SE14. They say:

'The National Fair Funding for All Schools Campaign is holding a public forum for parents, teachers, head teachers, governors and councillors in Lewisham to raise awareness about the proposed cuts to schools’ budgets. The event will be attended by Vicky Foxcroft MP, Cllr Luke Sorba, Nicky Dixon (CASE Lewisham), Matt Dykes ( National Fair Funding For All Schools Co- Founder), Philipa Harvey (NUT). Other speakers to be confirmed.

Our aim is to build a local coalition of parents, teachers and leaders in support of the National Fair Funding Campaign to stop these proposed devastating cuts. Lewisham parents, teachers, and heads we'd love to hear from you, please join us. This is not yet a done deal as the consultation closes on 22nd March 2017; the government must hear our voices' (event details here)

London schools have generally got better over the last 20 years, and funding has played a significant part in that. More money means more teachers, more support staff and better resources. No doubt schools in other parts of the country could benefit from a rise in funding, but the pot of education funding needs to be increased to enable this rather than taking the money away from London schools.

School funding cuts protest by Queens Road Peckham station, 25 February 2017

New Cross Academy finance officer jailed in 'biggest ever education fraud'

Surprized that amongst UK newspapers, only The Daily Mail seems to have picked up on the jailing of an accountant for nine years for the 'biggest ever education fraud' seen in the UK. Sam Kayade was found guilty of obtaining £150,000 by theft and £3.95 million by fraud, and was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on 24 June.

Kayade worked for Haberdashers' Aske's school, based at two sites in Jerningham Road and Pepys Road SE14, from 1997. He continued as a finance officer during a period in which it expanded to become the Haberdashers' Aske's Academy Federation taking over other schools including Malory school in Downham (which became Knights Academy), Monson Primary School (which became Hatcham Temple Grove) and Crayford Academy in Bexley.

The court heard that Kayade began transferring money into a bank account he controlled from 2006 and continued until the fraud was discovered in 2012. It became public knowledge in 2014 when the school took civil action against Kayade which resulted in the court ordering him to pay back funds to the school. However only £800,000 has been recovered. Parents were told in 2014 that the fraud amounted to £2m, with the federation's accounts filed in March 2013 stating that £1,047,788 had been lost through "unauthorised transfers" in 2011 and £924,316 in 2012 (Guardian, 12 July 2014). Now it appears that the full amount may have been twice that. 

£4m over seven years is £570,000 a year - an amount that would comfortably pay the salaries of at least 12 teachers at the top of the salary scale. You have to wonder how any school could fail to notice such a gap in its finances, and at the irony of the Government's Academisation programme premised on the need to bring in private sector business know how to education. Haberdashers academies have been very popular with Ministers - Michael Gove famously sent students off to sleep during a visit in 2012 -  and the schools have one of the oldest business sponsors in the country - the City of London Haberdashers livery company. While sophisticated fraud can be difficult to detect,  a hole in the finances that large would put most schools in a cash flow crisis that would be impossible to ignore. Questions too for the Government's Education Funding Agency which funds academy schools and presumably monitors what they do with the money.

The Haberdashers' Aske's girls school in Jerningham Road in 1905
- the buildings remain much the same today, though there are a few more cars and buses!

John Roan Resists Meeting

Last November staff at The John Roan school in Greenwich took strike action against plans to turn the school into an Academy. While 'academisation' (horrible word) was put on hold, it is now back on the agenda nationally with the Government threatening to make every school an Academy whether they want to or not, as well as to scrap the role of parent governor and other changes that will further distance schools from their communities.  The policy is already proving very unpopular across the political spectrum - as most schools are doing fine already, why put them through a costly and disruptive organisational change with no evidence that it will improve them? Shouldn't they be focusing on education?

At The John Roan meanwhile staff, students and parents are now concerned about cuts and redundancies as well as the ongoing Academy threat. Tomorrow night (Thursday 14 April 2016) John Roan Resists are holding a public meeting at Mycenae House, 90 Mycenae Road in Blackheath.

Goldsmiths Sayes Court Institute: for 'bona fide artizans and working people' only (1896)

In the late 19th century, the Goldsmiths Institute in New Cross had a satellite 'Sayes Court Institute' in Evelyn Street, Deptford. According to the 1896 Goldsmiths handbook (a copy of which is in the Special Collections archive in Goldsmiths library), the building (pictured)  included a gymnasium hall, reading room/games room and four classrooms.

Membership was restricted to 'bona fide artizans and working people' only, with the benefits including access to Goldsmiths Library and Swimming Bath as well as classes.Use of the building was offered by W.J.Evelyn, who was one of the Governors of the College. Evelyn, a descendant of the 17th century John Evelyn who lived at Sayes Court, bought the site from the Government in 1869 and created what is today Sayes Court park. The building offered for the use of Goldsmiths was a former dockyard building. I'm not sure how long the Institute continued.

The building, also known as Sayes Court Hall, was originally built as a model making facility for the dockyard. It is shown on this 1914 map in the north west corner of Sayes Court Gardens.

1914 Map -source: Sayes Court wikipedia

'Reclaiming our University' at Goldsmiths

Tomorrow at Goldsmiths in New Cross, Goldsmiths UCU (lecturers/academics union) is hosting a 'Reclaiming Our University' conference. They say:

'The marketisation of Higher Education has radically undermined the idea of the university as a public institution – gearing institutional priorities towards what is financially profitable rather than socially and culturally worthwhile. In this context of intense competition between universities for students and research funding, there has been a dramatic growth of capital projects, advertising budgets and Vice Chancellors pay. Meanwhile students face a huge debt burden, and staff, a working environment characterised by unmanageably high workloads, stress, inequality and insecurity... We want to protect and develop Goldsmiths and Queen Mary as a places that deliver innovative and radical teaching, that support independent and critical research, treat all its staff and students with respect and are committed to social justice'.

Teachers Strike in Lewisham

Teachers picketing Prendergast-Ladywell Fields College yesterday

Yesterday's teachers strike seems to have been pretty effective in Lewisham. Martin Powell-Davies (National Union of Teachers) reports that 75% of local schools were either completely or mainly closed. The strike focused on three big issues, as described by the NUT  :

'Pay – no to dismantling the national pay system
Conditions – no to attacks on conditions – Michael Gove wants a longer school day and year
Pensions – no to working longer, paying more and getting less'

Remembering the New School for New Cross Campaign

Ten years ago the biggest local issue in New Cross was not the NHS - nobody dreamt then that Lewisham Hospital's services could one day be under threat - but education. Specifically the shortage of secondary school places had become a crisis with many local children being unable to get into local schools and only being offered places miles away from home.

Parents set up a New School for New Cross Campaign and lobbied hard in Council meetings, in the media and in the streets. There were protests and large public meetings. As well as pushing for a new secondary school, the campaign put the admissions arrangements in existing local schools under scrutiny. Haberdashers' Aske's was particularly criticised for policies which seemed designed to cream off the most able students for miles around, while preventing a genuinely comprehensive local intake. Eventually the New School for New Cross Campaign developed into the broader Local Education Action by Parents which stood six candidates in Lewisham Council elections in 2002. One councillor was elected in the Telegraph Hill Ward, with its other councillors being from the left-of-Labour Socialist Party (that made the Ward fairly unique in the UK, with none of the major parties represented).

I was reminded of all this when I came across this article about the campaign in the Independent from April 2002 (if you click on the images to enlarge you should be able to read it - if not try right clicking on picture and select 'open in new window'). It shows parents and children demonstrating outside the empty Hatcham Wood school building on Wallbutton Road SE4. Lewisham Council had scheduled it to be converted to a Sixth Form and it became Crossways Academy. As the Council closed this within ten years of opening, the parents seem to have had a point about it not being the best use of the building (though as of 1 February 2013, it has been taken over as a Sixth Form by Christ the King Sixth Form College - it is known as Christ the King Aquinas, which should please Michael Gove with his fondness for pseudo-Etonian archaic classicism).

So did the campaign have any long term impact? It failed to get a new secondary school in the New Cross area, but it did put pressure on Lewisham and existing schools to review admissions arrangements. Haberdasher's Askes changed its criteria and is probably more representative of the New Cross community than it was ten years ago, with more local children. Its proposed new primary free school could make it more socially exclusive again however, as on distance criteria its location at the top of Pepys Road is likely to pull in a disproportionate intake of better-off children from the bigger houses on Telegraph Hill, rather than the rest of New Cross. As these primary children will be guaranteed a place in the secondary school, the latter's intake could be changed accordingly

Even the youngest children in the photos below are now coming to the end of their secondary school education. In the last week the 2013 secondary intake were notified of what school places they had been offered, and many have not got a place in their school of choice. My advice to parents having been through all the stress a couple of times is that you spend all that time worrying about it and before you know it they have finished! But the uncertainty about secondary school places remains a big issue and with rising birth rates won't be going away any time soon. The question posed on one of the 2002 placards - 'Why is our education a postcode lottery?' - remains relevant.

What most parents want today is pretty much the same as ten years ago - not a lot of gimmicks like 'free schools' and academies, but a guarantee of a good inclusive local comprehensive school which their children can walk to and from with their friends.

Lausanne Road SE15 in the 1950s

Andrew Simpson grew up in Lausanne Road, SE15 but has been living in Manchester for many years where he now runs the Chorlton History site. He has though been writing a bit recently on his time in South London, including a series of reflections on his time at Crown Woods School in Eltham in the 1960s, with some evocative 1968 school photos. He also reflects on his less than happy time at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern in Sprules Road SE4 (previously Brockley Central School, then later Hatcham Wood, Telegraph Hill and lately but not for much longer Crossways Sixth Form - soon to be taken over by Christ the King) - and the failings of the 11+ system which consigned many children to second best education.

I particularly liked his tales from Lausanne Road in the 1950s, when his parents let out rooms to a range of interesting characters including 'Millie the Mole'  and her  boyfriend Boy Boy Jones, a getaway driver for a Peckham smash and grab gang and 'a couple who met in Lausanne Road. She was single and German and he was Polish. Their romance began with midnight trysts and ended with the two getting married... Both had been victims of the displacement of millions of ordinary people who had been in the wrong place when the war broke out and found themselves part of that tide of homeless refugees in 1945'.

Sydenham School History

Sydenham School (Dartmouth Road SE26) is holding an event tomorrow to celebrate its 95th birthday, with music, performances, an art exhibition and more. It's a good school (a parent writes) which this year got its best ever GCSE results. Not to be confused with a similarly named private school not far away (Sydenham High).

Whatever your views about single sex education, the fact is that most secondary schools were primarily for boys until advocates of women's education founded schools like Sydenham. On its website there is a fascinating archive of school magazines going back to the 1920s which show how the winds of first wave feminism and suffragism blew through the streets of Forest Hill in the early days of the school.


In 1919-20, the History Club was seemingly where it all happened. A debate on 'The Entrance of Women into Parliament will be for the Welfare of the Nation' saw the motion proposed by Elsie Greenman 'carried by twenty-two votes to four'.  In June 1920 'Miss Dawson spoke on the subject of Guild Socialism'.

The image below is from The County Secondary School, Sydenham, Magazine and Chronicle, 1922:

History Corner: the Prendergast Murals

In the main hall at Prendergast girls school on Hilly Fields SE4 there is a set of striking pastoral murals dating from the 1930s.  At that time the school was called Brockley County and was a boys school (if you go into the Brockley Mess cafe today they have a large photo of boys eating at the school).

The painting was undertaken by a group of students from the Royal College of Arts - Evelyn Dunbar, Mildred Elsie Eldridge and Violet Martin - along with their tutor Charles Mahoney (aka Cyril Mahoney, 1903-1968). They started the work in 1933, with the finished results being officially opened in February 1936. Dunbar (1906-1960) went on to be the only official female war artist in the Second World War, noted for her paintings of Land Girls and nurses (including at St Thomas' Hospital).

The five panels were loosely based on the fables of Aesop and other writers, in addition to s 39-foot panoramic view of the school and Hilly Fields. It was Dunbar who painted 'The Country Girl and the Pail of Milk (above)', with her sister Midge as the model. M.Elsie Eldridge painted 'Birdcatcher and the Skylark', and Mahoney 'Joy and Sorrow'. They were painted directly on to the plaster in wax.

Mahoney's sketch for Joy and Sorrow panel, painted on paper in 1933
(from Liss Fine Art)

Dunbar was chiefly responsible for the balcony panorama. According to Dr Gill Clarke, Dunbar's biographer:  'In order to complete her preliminary sketches, which took 3-4 months, and to get the best view of the extensive buildings, Dunbar had to ascend the water tower of Lady Well Institution. In the Kent Messenger (January 1935), she described how she had to squeeze through a small trap-door and climb on to the top of an extremely narrow shaft, which led on to a tiny railed platform on the edge of the lead roof of the water tower, more than 100 feet above the ground. 'It was like being on a gas stove', Miss Dunbar told a Kent Messenger representative, 'and it was so hot with the sun beating down mercilessly that the water in my paint nearly boiled'' (Clarke's biography is entitled 'Evelyn Dunbar: War and Country').


Panorama of Hilly Fields and School



The murals gained national recognition at the time, and more recent appreciation led to them being listed in the 1990s. They were unveiled on February 21 1936 by the then education minister, Oliver Stanley. The Times reported: 'An example that might well be followed has been set by the Headmaster of the Brockley County School, Hilly Fields, SE4 [Dr G.I. Sinclair], who some time ago offered to Sir William Rothenstein, then Principal of the Royal College of Art, an opportunity for some of his students to execute a series of mural paintings in the school hall... The work has taken about three years to execute, the expenses of the artists being paid out of a small fund created from the profits on meals at the County School'.

Detail of panorama of Hilly Fields and School (photo from Decorated School blog)
- note schoolboy reaching over fence

In his speech, Stanley talked of painting on walls as 'the oldest form of artistic expression' and joked that 'in no other school in the country had the boys the opportunity of  using that form of expression in any other way than in the caricature of the headmaster on the wall' (Times, 22 February 1936).

Detail of panorama of Hilly Fields and School (photo from Decorated School blog)

The murals are quite hard to get decent photographs of - I tried and failed, and found some online. So if you get the chance to see them in situ, take it.

Further appreciation of Dunbar at Paint Drops Keep Falling and of the murals at the Decorated School.

Dunbar at work in the School,
(from St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery)

Ladywell water tower, Dressington Ave SE4, from where Dunbar sketched Hilly Fields.

Built 1898-1900 for St Olave's Union, home to 'aged and infirm'

designed  by Ernest Newman, the founder of the Art Workers Guild

(photo by Mike Quinn at Geograph)

Lewisham protests update

With the government on the ropes in pasty-petrol-pensions-payforsupper-gate, Lewisham is doing it's bit to bring it on...

Teachers strike

Schools across Lewisham were closed on Wednesday during the national strike by teachers against Government attacks on their pensions. Lewisham National Union of Teachers said:

'From next month, the Government will be cutting teachers’ pay.  They want to make us pay MORE for our pensions - but they’ll be paying us LESS pension when we retire. They also want to raise the age retirement to 68 or even 70 ! How can anyone be expected to teach classes of thirty or more children at that age ? We know we’re not alone in facing cuts. Teachers will be marching down Whitehall with ex-Fords car workers who are also fighting for pensions justice. We hope our fight can help protect other workers from cuts too'. Here's a Lewisham banner on the demonstration in central London:

And here's a short film about the strike by local union activist Martin Powell-Davies:

Workfare

Following the protests earlier this month against workfare - unemployed people having to work without pay - there's further action on Saturday 31st March in Lewisham town centre - 'meet outside the front of Sainsbury's inside Lewisham Shopping Centre at 1:00pm sharp for some direct action against companies involved in workfare' (details here).

NHS protest

We mentioned last month that Lewisham Keep our NHS Public were planning to protest in Bermondsey outside the office in the Blue of Con Dem MP Simon Hughes. Apparently 30+ people took part on 25th February (pictured above). They say: 'The protest comprised of health campaigners, including 3 GPs, who spoke to the people of Bermondsey using Lewisham KONP’s sound system about the dangers of NHS privatisation, chiefly that this bill will destroy our universal NHS and will eventually usher in a US style health system. Other speakers included a US citizen now resident in Britain who told the people of Bermondsey she grew up in the 1980s without an NHS in America and recalled having to cross the Mexican border to buy medicine they could not afford in the USA. In less than 2 hours over 160 people of Bermondsey signed the open letter to Hughes urging him to drop the bill'. Hughes voted for the bill nevertheless and it was passed - but campaigners say that the fight to save the NHS is just getting started.

Deptford Lounge Opens

In these dark times for public services, and libraries in particular, it is good to see something new opening. The Deptford Lounge, which opened this week in Giffin Street, is part of a bigger building project that includes shared spaces with the neighbouring Tidemill Primary School. 

On the ground floor there is a spacious library, as well as plenty of study space including public ICT facilities. Technically it isn't a new library as it replaces the one previously located in Wavelengths on the same road, but it is a better space (OK I always want more books, but I like the old school random piles of musty tomes that deter all but the hardened biblophile).

There is a cafe - Unity Coffee - run by the Camden Society, a voluntary organisation 'to support the human rights of people with disabilities'. For the first week, hot drinks only cost £1 (a cappuccino will cost £1.85 from then on). I tried the coffee and it was good!

The Lounge has unusually long opening times  -  Monday-Friday: 7am-10pm and Saturday & Sunday: 7am-7pm.

Some people have argued that with the digital age, libraries will become a thing of the past. It is perhaps true that over time the role of borrowing paper books may diminish - though I can't believe it will die out completely. But what will always be needed will be social spaces where people can read, study, and access information and stories in a warm, comfortable environment without having to spend money. Not forgetting of course public toilets which will no doubt also draw people into the Deptford Lounge from the market and the high street. 

Deptford Lounge is on facebook. See also reviews by Crosswhatfields, Brockley Central and Deptford Dame

Deptford Lounge and Tidemill School

Alongside the building of the Deptford Lounge, the adjacent site (the old Wavelengths car park) has been redeveloped as a new site for Tidemill school. Some of the facilities in the Deptford Lounge are designed to be used by the school when it is open and for wider community use in the evenings and weekends. Since building work started Tidemill has become an Academy school (from September 2011), despite a vociferous local campaign against this. The school now gets its funding directly from the Government rather than via the Council, and the Academies Act 2010 requires that when a school becomes an Academy the land and buildings have to be transferred from the Council to the Academy trust (the new company set up to run the school). In this case the land gets transferred from Lewisham Council to Tidemill Community Academy Trust via a 125 year lease (the land would transfer back to the Council if the school ceased to be an Academy on that site). All of this makes the sharing of  Deptford Lounge facilities between the school, the Council and the wider community more complicated. Whether it will make much difference on a day to day basis remains to be seen.

Michael Gove bores New Cross students

Education Secretary Michale Gove was in New Cross this week at Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, making a speech attacking opponents of the Government's school Academies policies.



The speech on Wednesday was clearly aimed at the national media and the political class, rather than the school students who were presumably dragged out of lessons to provide an audience and backdrop. Not surprisingly many of them were bored to the point of sleep, as shown in a clip captured by ITN news which shows young women nodding off and playing with their nails as Gove waffled on:

Still Gove can be thankful that he only faced the passive resistance of non-engagement. Students at Askes have a tradition of more radical action, with groups walking out to take part in the student protests in November 2010 and in the 2003 anti-war demonstrations.



Some entertaining comments to this on facebook, e.g. 'Not easy to keep school children engaged is it Mr Gove. Perhaps you'll have a little bit more respect for the job we teachers do now?'; ' we were there for 2 hours that's why we have a reason for being asleep or being bored'; and 'i'm one of the girls in this video... this guy is a idiot so i should not be forced to listen to his crap'

Ukemania in New Cross and Brockley

Way back in early 2008 Corrie, a then barista at Broca cafe in Coulgate Street (SE4), invited a few regulars to join her for a ukulele jam session in the cafe. Who could have predicted then that before long the uke craze would sweep like wildfire across the area?

From that session came Brockley Ukulele Group, spin-offs like Post-Puke and more. Among the early strummers was a teacher and a couple of parents from John Stainer Primary School. Before long the school had acquired its own set of ukes and children were being initiated into the mysteries of the one finger C chord.

Edmund Waller Primary School in New Cross has followed suit in arming its kids with those affordable and accessible stringed instruments.

In another ukeist coup the newly appointed vicar of St Catherines Church (junction of Pepys and Kitto Roads SE14), Rev. Sheridan James, is also of the four stringed persuasion.

It was at her instigation that last night there was a mass outpouring of ukemania at the Hill Station Cafe (next to the church) for the Ukulele Carol Jam. Over 100 kids and their parents squeezed into the cafe for the afternoon children's session, followed by about 20 adults in the evening strumming and singing along to Silent Night, Good King Wenceslas etc.

Meanwhile back at BUG...

Brockley Ukulele Group is having an open practice day this Sunday, 18th December at the Amersham Arms (just over the road from New Cross station). If you are over 18 (sorry, pub has strict admissions policy) and fancy joining in with some songs all you need to do is bring yourself and a ukulele. They'll be there from 5pm until 7pm in the upstairs room (stairs lead up from the corridor between the front and back rooms).

BUG also report: 'Due to an ongoing baby boom in the band, we are looking for at least one new female band member - ability to produce tuneful sounds from mouth more important than ability to produce tuneful sounds from uke (though willingness to work on the latter is desirable...)'. For more information email brockleyukegroup@googlemail.com

Sydenham Maths Dons

Priceless new film from two maths teachers at Sydenham School, explaining how to calculate the area of a circle with a bit of help from some of the girls and Sam Sparro's Black and Gold. Remember kids, 'Pi's the Bad Man'.



*nb Sydenham School is the Lewisham comprehensive school in Dartmouth Road and pretty good it is too, not to be confused with the fee paying Sydenham Girls.

Strike in Lewisham & Greenwich

Deptford Visions has some photographs of the picket line outside Lewisham College (Lewisham Way) during the national strike on June 30th. Good to see strikers with their 'fair pensions for all' placards being joined by a contingent of students in 'Flying Pickets' t-shirts.



In Lewisham 50 schools were closed by the strike (out of 89) and many others were only partially open; in Greenwich 47 schools closed, 24 partially opened and just 15 fully opened (see report in Newsshopper).

According to Martin Powell-Davies,'There were ten different picket lines outside Lewisham schools and several PCS and UCU pickets as well. £155 for our hardship fund was collected from the picket line outside Crossways Sixth Form! We got our message out early to London via a live interview for LBC radio from the picket line at St.Matthews Academy. From there, NUT members made their way to Lewisham Town Hall and then up to Charing Cross before marching over to an already packed Lincoln's Inn Fields' (photo below by Martin shows part of the Lewisham National Union of Teachers contingent on the march).



(let us know if you have any other South London strike stories)

Strike to close schools on Thursday

The national strike by education staff and civil servants on Thursday 30th June looks set to have a big impact locally.

On the school front, Martin-Powell-Davis from the National Union of Teachers reports that teachers will be striking at at least 70 schools in Lewisham, many if not most of which are expected to close for the day. A quick look round school websites confirms that on the secondary school front Sydenham, Forest Hill and Haberdashers Askes Hatcham College will all be completely closed with the exception of the poor year 12 students at the latter. Others have not yet publicly stated their position.

The strike is opposing cuts and changes to public sector pensions. Activists in colleges and other workplaces are planning to spread the action further with a range of protests planned, including a possible street party in New Cross. There's a Lewisham Strike Assembly meeting tomorrow night (Tuesday, 7:30 pm upstairs in the Amersham Arms) to plan for this and other ideas. Lambeth unemployed claimants are planning to join the picket line at Brixton Job Centre on the day.

Siberia SE1

One of the hazards about working in South London is that it's very near to Westminster. This means that politicians looking for a quick photo opportunity can jump into their chauffeur-driven cars and head down to some place they couldn't find on a map to show how down with the people they are.

An old Etonian prime minster who wants to show he cares about education? Why not come to a perfectly good South London school you wouldn't dream of sending your kids to and pretend you have spoken to more than a couple of black people in your entire life? Hosting a visit by the President of the United States? Why not come down to another school you wouldn't dream of sending your kids to and play table tennis?

Want to show that you care about the NHS while you plot to hand over chunks of it over to your donors in the private sector? Why not come down to Guys Hospital, after all it's just over the river? God help any conscientious 'public servant' who should object to any aspect of such spectacles. So spare a thought for David Nunn, a surgeon at Guys who dared to interrupt a media blitz on a ward there with messrs. Cameron & Clegg standing around the bed of someone who was presumably too sick to run away. The surgeon has now apparently voluntarily requested indefinite leave, in the same way no doubt that many voluntarily confessed to trotsykist-fascist-deviationism in the days of Stalin (OK I exaggerate for effect - I know that Guys isn't the Gulag).

It put me in mind of the Thatcher period when her habit of turning up at the bedside of disaster victims led to the distribution of spoof 'Thatchcard' donor cards saying: 'In the event of an accident, the holder of this card wishes it to be known that he/she does not wish to be visited by Mrs Thatcher in any circumstances whatsoever'.

(image of Thatchcard from Max Atkinson's blog)

Private education business

AC Grayling's proposed new private university in London, the New College of the Humanities, is already coming in for fierce opposition. Around 150 people attended a meeting today atUCL to launch a campaign against it, and Terry Eagleton and Nina Power have argued that it amounts to the thin edge of a dubious wedge of privatised higher education.

But can anybody throw any light on why the registered address for the New College of the Humanities Ltd is in Peckham at 15 Glengall Road, SE15 6NJ? Not sure many round there are in the target demographic for this self-styled elite institution, even if there are some rather plush houses at the Old Kent Road end of the street.

Meanwhile education staff are among those expected to join one of the biggest strikes in recent years later this month. On June 30th there will be a joint strike against changes to public sector pension, involving teachers, college and university staff from unions including PCS, UCU, NUT and ATL. Students and other anti-cuts activists are also expected to take solidarity action. South London Solidarity Federation have called a Lewisham Strike Assembly for tomorrow (Tuesday 7 June, 7:30 pm) to build support for the 30th June locally. It will take place in Room 143, Richard Hoggart Building (main building) at Goldsmiths. They say: 'Come and help organise for the biggest strike in recent memory on 30th June!'

Tidemill School D-Day?

As reported here in January, governors at Tidemill Primary School in Deptford withdrew their initial application for the school to become an Academy.

However, they are now considering re-submitting a revised application, with the decision one way or another due to be taken at the School's Governing Body meeting on Wednesday 4th May. Deptford Says No, the parents and community campaign against the academy plans, has called for a mass picket of the school in Frankham Street on Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30 pm to show the governors the strength of local feeling.

The Government's Academy and Free Schools initiatives aim to create an education marketplace in which individual schools are directly funded by the Government rather than via local Councils. Further down the line it is likely to involve a much greater role for private companies in profiting from education and a threat to national pay and conditions for teachers and other school staff. However senior managers can earn higher salaries, and as a recent survey shows, many heads in academies are earning in excess of £100,000 a year.