LEA Puts New College In Special Measures

The Director of education, Steven
Andrews, has announced to staff at New College that the LEA is using its powers
to place the College in the equivalent of Special Measures. This follows a
further drop in the College's performance in GCSE in 2003.

Technically, only OFSTED or HMI has the
power to place a school in Special Measures, but the LEA has used its powers to
require the governing body to draw up an Action Plan for improvement at the
school.It is hoped that this will avoid intervention by OFSTED or HMI, leaving
any agenda for change in local hands.

Leicester NUT welcomes the decision to
intervene, but any action taken needs to be the right action. Action must
support the staff and the school, not further damage morale.

The LEA decision has released additional
funding which is being used for the appointment of a 'Partnership Head' and to
appoint Advanced Skills Teachers who will be additional to the normal school
staffing.

The situation at New College is the
result of a long series of events dating back to the Secondary Review, when
plans for the New College 'super school' — an amalgamation of Wycliffe,
Alderman Newton's and New Parks Schools — were pushed through. This was against
the advice of the teacher unions and parents.

Since its creation NUT has regularly
warned about problems at New College and sought to support staff in tackling
these and making the College a success.

NUT is particularly anxious to avoid any
suggestion that the current problems of New College are to do with the staff or
the quality of teaching. Blaming the staff would be a disgraceful slur after
all that they have done to support the school. It would also only lead to
further loss of morale and damage to the school.Similarly, NUT is seeking to
ensure that the move to invoke Special Measures is not used as an excuse for
worsening conditions of service at the College.

NUT is demanding that staff should be
directly involved in the drawing up of any Action Plan. They are the ones who
know the problems and have to face them. In particular issues of student
behaviour, over-sized classes and the poor levels of literacy of students
joining the school need to be addressed. Meanwhile, a number of questions
remain to be answered:
• Who is responsible for the continuing
problems at New College?
• Why did the LEA go ahead with a scheme
that was widely criticised as unworkable?
• Why has LEA intervention taken so long
to happen?
• Who is likely to gain from the school
not being externally evaluated by OFSTED?

NUT supports the staff at New College
100%. We will not allow them to become scapegoats for other people's decisions
and failures.