Former head teacher James Walker wins unfair dismissal claim against Lambeth Council

Back in November 2010, I ran a piece observing that the former head-teacher of Henry Fawcett Primary School, James Walker, had launched an unfair dismissal claim against Lambeth Council and the school's executive board for his dismissal in November 2008 shortly after he returned from work following a battle with cancer. 

Mr Walker was dismissed from his job as head-teacher on account of allegations of bullying and harassament from a staff member (Penny Bermingham), who was found by the Employment Tribunal not to be a credible witness.  Last Tuesday (2nd August 2011), Mr Walker (who represented himself) won his case, but the Evening Standard is reporting that he is giving up teaching and moving away from London.

The case was heard at the Employment Tribunal Court in West Croydon, and the Tribunal considered Mr Walker to have been treated with an approach that "bordered callousness". 

Mr Walker had worked in education in the Borough of Lambeth for 18 years (both as a Deputy Head and Head teacher), but the Tribunal found Lambeth Council had painted him in the most damaging light.  Mr Walker reported to the Tribunal that Lambeth had undertaken actions such as clearing his office, destroying his files and failing to specify their allegations agaisnt him.  The tribunal noted that Lambeth had failed to act impartially.  Mr Walker submitted that he was threatened with disciplinary action if he refused to resign the day after his first CT scan.

The judgement (Walker v Lambeth) accepted Mr Walker's evidence that he had not been aggressive towards Penny Bermingham.  A former staff member observed, "I witnessed Penny to be cruel during James's absence, humiliating staff and attempting to make them feel insignificant and worthless."

Beyond the injustice that was perpetrated upon James Walker, there is the matter of the effect upon Henry Fawcett school, which was taken out of special measures in June 2010.  Mr Walker said, "...Experienced and talent teachers have left, parents have lost confidence and needy children have been neglected.  It is a disgrace that Lambeth has used public funds to push me out of my job and I hope the actions of those responsible for this waste will be thoroughly investigated’".

The experienced teacher had previously been enjoyed a successful role at Lambeth, having been placed in charge of the Children's Centre attached to the school in 2005.  Indeed, his success in raising achievement at Henry Fawcett had previously been praised by the executive director of Children and Young People’s Services, Phyllis Dunipace and former secretary of state, David Milliband.

Unfortunately, by February 2009, Ms Dunipace wanted to remove Mr Walker from his post, and, it has been alleged in a press release issued by the family, commissioned a strategy for so-doing.

Interestingly, Ms Dunipace retired from Lambeth Council in summer 2010.  Penny Bermingham remains a teacher at neighbouring Ashmole Primary school in Oval.

One can only hope that Lambeth Council has measures in place to ensure that no case like this one can recur.  Nobody appears to have been painted in a particularly positive light, and Mr Walker is said to be leaving teaching and leaving London.  Our local children deserve better.

"Unfair dismissal" case launched by ex-head of Henry Fawcett School

The ex-head teacher of Henry Fawcett Primary School, James Walker, has launched a constructive unfair dismissal case against Lambeth Council and the school's executive board. 

Mr Walker was in charge of the Henry Fawcett school from September '99 until February '08, when he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent two operations.  Seven months later, (September '08), he returned to work, only to be suspended in November '08 due to an allegation made by a staff member (which was unrelated to the school's educational standards or financial management).  Following the suspension, he submitted a disability discrimination claim against Lambeth Council.

During his suspension, in July '09, Lambeth Council dismissed 12 governors from Henry Fawcett.  Kate Hoey said to the Evening Standard at the time, "I feel that [Mr Walker] has not been treated in a way that would generally be considered to be justified and when the governors supported him, they got rid of them."

In September '09, whilst Mr Walker had been absent from the school, an Ofsted inspection was undertaken, and the school was considered to be failing.  Henry Fawcett was immediately placed in special measures (but has more recently had these removed).

Mr Walker claimed to have "management concerns" in the school, prior to his sick-leave which were "dismissed", but these were later raised with him upon his return to work.  He resigned recently (September '10), but has now launched a constructive unfair dismissal claim which means that a resignation has occured because an employment contract has theoretically been substantially breached

It would be useful to have a little more insider information on this matter.  It is, however, worth noting, that Kate Hoey MP has backed James Walker, which potentially demonstrates the existence of an injustice at some stage.

Kennington Park Children's Centre to close

Lambeth Council published a report on 22/10/2010 that was made public yesterday(ish), announcing that the Kennington Park Children's Centre (on its current site in the park) is to close for three reasons:

1.  Henry Fawcett School is judged to be in a position to provide leadership and support for the Centre if it's located on the school site.  (The report indicates that a national policy may be introduced requiring Local Authorities that are managing Children's Centres to outsource them to third party organisations).

2.  The new location (at Henry Fawcett School) is judged to be more accessible for catchment area (across Oval ward) families.  The report oulines the fact that the new site should "increase access by community groups that are currently underrepresented", but it doesn't say what it means by that.  [Are we talking about people who live in the south of Oval who wouldn't cross the park, or people of under-represented races, or underrepresented income?  I hate it when underrepresentation is raised, but it's not outlined what is meant by that word.]  Moving the site, in any case, puts it nearer to where most of the users of the site live.

3.  Long term sustainability for the Children's Centre will be secured.

To be fair, the report accurately records that "current users" would prefer the Centre to remain in the park, whilst non-users would prefer the site to move to Henry Fawcett.  The results of the questionnaires are quite mixed.  48% of responses would prefer that the centre stay on site, 41% want it moved and the rest were undecided.  I suspect that the decision had already been made on the basis of finance, and perhaps in the current climate, we should be relieved to retain a Children's Centre in Oval ward.  (For my last post on this matter, see "When consultation risks being lip service".)

The report outlines the fact that the Children's Centre received a budget of £304,170 (2009-2010), funding management, administration, teaching, outreach and the creche, but also notes that maintenance and running costs are high and have to be sustained through that budget.  The difficulty is that when a Children's Centre is located on a school site, the costs are shared, whereas in a stand alone site, costs fall entirely on the Centre itself.  £200,000 of income (2009-2010) was also sourced from elsewhere.  The report is not clear on where the £200,000 came from.  The entire cost of the Children's Centre was (2009-2010) £591,500, leaving a deficit of £87,500, which actually, doesn't sound to me as though it's a massive deficit that couldn't have been covered in other ways, but if the Council need the site for the PRU (see below), I can see why the Children's Centre would have to move.  (Interestingly, there's a slight risk that lots of dissenting parents will not continue to use the Children's Centre on the new site, which could leave the Council with a deficit for the next few years, but they're balancing that against capital cost savings).

There are a number of interesting statistics within the report eg. Oval Ward is one of 20% most deprived national wards and a third of users of current Children's Centre users are actually from Southwark.  Services available to those on ward boundaries often suffer and I'm not sure whether Lambeth will be able to be so partisan when the proposals for the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham partnership are put together, but since there's a nearby Children's Centre in Southwark, I can see the rationale for the move.

The major loss appears to me to be a lack of childcare for children between 0 and 2.  This will not be offered at Henry Fawcett, but instead through "associate childminders".  I'm not too clear on what an associate childminder is, so would be grateful for comments.  The report is quite clear that the capital money to be spent on amending the school could have been used on renovating the Children's Centre, but the timeframe is not sufficient to complete a feasibility study and carry out the works, and the Council also estimates that additional repairs would be necessary.

I was wondering what would happen to the Kennington Park Children's Centre site, but apparently, it would house (if money is forthcoming, which it probably won't be now the cuts have been announced) the Primary Pupil Referral Unit (PRU).

The new Henry Fawcett site should come into use between March and April 2011.  I can't say that I'm entirely surprised, but if the PRU funding doesn't come through, it will leave the Kennington Park Children's Centre empty.  That would add it to a fast growing list of "empty" buildings; the former Lilian Baylis is in meanwhile use, the Beaufoy Insitute is empty and the Olive School (I believe) is empty .  Proposals for the former Lilian Baylis will be heard at the KOV meeting on Monday 1st November (see calendar), but it won't happen that quickly. I heard on the grapevine that the Olive School is temporarily being used as a PRU, but I'm not sure whether a new tenant has been found.  Would be grateful for comments on that too, so I can update.

Kennington Park Children's Centre (or, When "consultation" risks being lip service)

(All pictures of Kennington Park Children's center (above) attributable to and copyright 2010 Google Streetview)

On 22nd July, I attended a meeting with Kennington parents at which Kate Hoey, Cllr Peter Robbins and Cllr Mark Harrison  (among others) were present, to discuss primary school provision in the area.  At least twenty minutes of the meeting were dedicated to discussing Kennington Park Children's Centre (a Lambeth day care centre for those aged from 6 months to 5 years old), which is useful since the issue of its potential closure is still under dispute.

One parent at that meeting spoke up to say (roughly, as my notes aren't perfect), "I'm a mother of a child who attends Kennington Park Children's centre..  There is a proposal to move the Children's Centre to Henry Fawcett Primary School.  How will that impact on what you're able to do for the rest of the school?  Will the space be sufficient?  It seems to me that if the school is so under pressure then to add to that might not be the right thing to do."

Claire Nuttall (Associate Head Teacher) of Henry Fawcett answered by saying, "At the moment, it's not... it is a consultation.". 

But more tellingly, somebody from Lambeth Council said as follows.  (I'd be delighted if Cllr Robbins or Cllr Harrison were able to tell me the name of the speaker, as what follows is a shorterned transcript of their remarks (my highlighting)).:

"We are proposing to move Kennington Park Children's Centre to Henry Fawcett School and we are consulting on that over the next couple of months.  We've got a number of meetings with parents next week.  Children's centres... are hugely succesful and... we've got 30 in Lambeth and... we've had a history in Lambeth with having children's centres placed in schools.  We've got 5 in the voluntary sector in Lambeth and 5 in place with nursery schools.  The other 20 are in primary schools.  The advantage is that the school can work with families and children from a young age.  Head teachers who have a children's centre say they find it hugely advantageous to do that.  They get to know parents and work with families and they work with issues and problems the families have.  It's a universal access service which is a huge advantage of children's centres.  If families do have special needs, they can be targeted with additional services." 

"We don't know what will happen in the future, but we hope we'll be able to maintain a children's centre service.  We've found having children's centres in schools provides a strong leadership for the children's centre, so a head teacher will know clearly what they want to happen with the school and provides leadership for the children's centre as well. On the whole, that model has worked very well in Lambeth.  It's difficult for a head teacher to manage a children's centre which is off site because the staff are at arm's length and I think clearly it's better to have that flow of children and activities... within the building and outdoors.  There is the space at Henry Fawcett and we're hoping that we'll have some capital...  We've earmarked some capital to put into the building, and the ground floor of the Henry Fawcett School provides a lot more space than there is at the Kennington Park children centre.  It's not quite as much outdoor space, but is perhaps a better quality outdoor space / learning environment for the children, but that's a proposal.  We've got 4 meetings next week with parents where we want to hear your views on that and we know that parents who use the childrens centres have some concerns about is, so we'll be consulting you over the next couple of months about whether you want that move to happen, but also, we think there's a very strong case for it and if it goes ahead, we can then start consulting on plans, and what the plans look like and what services would be delivered in the children's centre.

Kate Hoey:  "When you say consulting, are you going to listen to what they say?"

Lambeth Council person: Yes, of course we're going to listen to what people say..."

Hoey: "You haven't made your mind up in advance?"

Lambeth Council person:  No, we haven't. We haven't. But there are strong financial worries as well.  Within the children centre model, the health and family support is funded separately, but the childcare has to pay for itself.  The childcare is not subsidised.  We can't use the children's centre funding to provide cheap childcare places and that particular aspect of it is not working well at Kennington Park Children's Centre and we've talked with Claire and the Chair of govenors at Henry Fawcett School and produced an improved model for childcare to work at the school site because, to be frank, we can't afford to have a childcare business which is losing money.  It's just not possible in our current financial climate. 

Claire Nuttall (Associate Head at Henry Wafcett):  "Just to answer your specific question as far as Henry Fawcett School goes if [the Children's Centre] came and the impact that would be on it...  The Children's Centre was a part of Henry Fawcett School until a year ago.  When we took on the school [after it entered special measures], because it was on a different site, we went to the LA and said "we can't manage it there" because we couldn't see it every day.  We had to walk across the park and we weren't able to effectively manage it.  At the time we said, "unless it's on our site, we can't manage it" and the LA took it back... I think it would be very positive for the parents to be able to access the kind of extended provision that we get because it would provide a real hub for the parents... There are health visitors and groups for the parents to come to.  We already have our own version because we think it's important, so we run a Reading Cafe for weekender(?) drop in.  It would be positive. It wouldn't take away from our resources or our capacity because it's separate and it has its own manager.  But it's under the overall leadership of the school, so the impact, I think, would be positive."

Council person: , "what we do want to do over the next couple of months is talk to parents across the area as a whole, not just the current users of the children's centre".

---

Anyhow, today I received an email, addressed to Princes Ward councillors, Kate Hoey, and a number of other folk, suggesting that there are plans afoot to close the Kennington Park Children's Centre.  You'll note from the above dialogue that the consultation was somewhat farcical, even from that first meeting.  I've highlighted in red that funding appears to have been earmarked to move the Centre, even prior to the consultation about whether to move it or not.  When pressed by Kate Hoey about whether the consultation was genuine, the speaker was forced to concede that "there are strong financial worries".  I'm not too sure whether there's much point in Lambeth Council pretending to consult, if they're just going to close something anyway, but perhaps it has to happen for statutory reasons.

It appears that staff and parents have come up with a number of ideas about how to make the Children's Centre profitable eg. by using it for other events, such as yoga/gym/creches etc. but the correspondent who has written to me has suggested that Lambeth Council has been running down the building on purpose, in order to reduce intake and undermine staff morale.  That's a harsh criticism indeed, and (being that I have no children and even little experience in day care centres), I can't back it up.  I'm sure that Lambeth would dispute that claim!  There don't seem to be enough people to fight for all of the services that we're going to need to preserve, but there appear to be at least 137 people who want to save Kennington Park Children's Centre.  There's a Facebook group here (which seems to be open to all), where they've advertised all of the consultation meetings.  Discussions on there seem to be quite active, so I'd advise you to join if you're interested in retaining the centre on its current site.  137 people can be wrong, but they represent a significant body of concern, and from the meeting I attended above, I was already concerned (as was Kate Hoey from her remarks) about the legitimacy of any such consultation.  I'm not at all surprised that Lambeth are leaning in the direction of closure, since they've already allocated the budget!!

The Associate Head Teacher of Henry Fawcett was enthusiastic (at the above meeting) about having the children's centre on the Henry Fawcett site.  Cynically, I presume it means that the school would receive more money.  But positively, it improves the educational life cycle of children if the school get to know them from their earliest years.  (Early intervention is also a significant help in reducing likelihood of delinquency in later life).  All I'd add is that the Henry Fawcett school is landlocked between two roads.  I doubt that the space they could provide the Day Centre is equivalent to the amount (and quality) of the space they've currently got, based in the middle of Kennington Park. 

I say that, despite being deeply impressed by the quality of the presentation from Claire Nuttall (Associate Head of Henry Fawcett) at the Kennington Parents meeting.  I'm not too sure that continuing to refer to Henry Fawcett as a school that has "just emerged from special measures" is productive.  Two members of staff were present from the school at the meeting on 22nd July, and they spoke very positively about wishing to remain under council monitoring so as to improve their school even further.  I'm not saying it's perfect, but if I were a parent, I'd have been the first to visit the place.  My guess is that they'll achieve a "good" Ofsted rating very quickly if their level of enthusiasm and commitment was anything to go by.  By contrast, no member of staff from Vauxhall Primary was present at the meeting at all.

But, I've been lurking in this area for some time now, and I've a wider remit than merely young people and education.  I'm just the tiniest tad suspicious that the real reason for relocating the Kennington Park Children's centre is because of the St Agnes redevelopment to take place in the park. The park land on which the centre is based could be sold off for considerable profit by Lambeth.  And once again, there's a risk that the Kennington Park Children's Centre would be lost from the public domain, just as Bolton Crescent (Southwark) and St Agnes are redeveloped with family housing, causing an inevitably increased intake at the local Henry Fawcett, Crampton Street and St John the Divine Primary schools (not to mention the others further into Kennington) and an increased need for daycare places.  I'm concerned about reducing the footprint of a school at a time when Lambeth parents are fighting like crazy for places in the south ot the borough (and the ones in the north are showing rumblings of discontent).  How great is the benefit of a children's centre on the site of a school, if that reduces the size of a landlocked site for current primary school students?

Kennington Schools - Ofsted reports and meeting for concerned parents

I've been emailed a flyer which suggests that parents in Kennington are concerned that two local primary schools are in "special measures" and would like to meet to discuss their options.  Click the poster to view a larger copy to discover where/when the meeting takes place:

Being placed in special measures means that Ofsted judge that a school does not provide an acceptable level of education and lacks the leadership capacity to improve matters.  The local schools that have been / were placed under special measures are Henry Fawcett Primary School and Vauxhall Primary School (see here for large .zip file of the data as at 31st March 2010 from Ofsted).  Note that as of 9th/10th June 2010 (date of last inspection), Henry Fawcett is deemed no longer to be in special measures.  Therefore, the poster above is somewhat misleading.

I cannot imagine how it must feel to teach or lead a school placed in special measures so I really hope that the parents at those two schools are rallying together to be as supportive of the staff as they can.  It would be very interesting to see if the wider Kennington and Vauxhall community could think of ways to offer their talents to the schools that do not make the grade that would give the children at those schools a boost, but I'm not altogether inclined to think that Londoners are necessarily so community minded.  Whilst being placed in special measures is something of an indictment on a school, I do wonder whether the school intake at both of the schools that were originally placed in special measures comprises of a larger number of children who speak English as a second language, and who are entitled to free school meals (indicating poverty).  Note that the most recent Henry Fawcett Ofsted report states "Attendance has risen, but not at a pace that matches the improvements in other areas, despite the school's strenuous efforts." which rather implies that the staff are working with a set of parents who don't place a high value on education and potentially have lower aspirations for their children.

As far as I know, there are seven primary schools in SE11 and Ofsted rate schools Overall effectiveness with the grades Outstanding, Good, Satisfactory and Inadequate.  I've provided links to all of the Ofsted reports so that anybody interested can analyse further:

Archbishop Sumner (C of E) - 2009 Ofsted Report judged school as Outstanding
Charlotte Sharman - 2009 Ofsted Report judged school as Satisfactory
Henry Fawcett - 2010 Ofsted Report judged school as Satisfactory
St Anne's Catholic Primary School (RC) - 2008 Ofsted Report judged school as Good
St Mark's (C of E) - 2008 Ofsted Report judged school as Good
Vauxhall Primary School  - 2010 Ofsted Report judged school as Good
Walnut Tree Walk Primary School - 2010 Ofsted Report judged school as Good

I'm not surprised that having two of seven schools in special measures (or recently placed as such) is causing consternation amongst local parents.  If you're not religious and don't wish to enter into attending church for the sake of your child's education, you have a choice of only four schools, two of which are or have recently been in special measures and a third of which is judged only as satisfactory.  This, I imagine, puts considerable pressure on places at Walnut Tree Walk.