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Eco Friendly Southwark schools given awards

ECO FRIENDLY Southwark schools were rewarded for their work in the local environment by London Mayor Ken Livingstone last week.

Charles Dickens Primary School in Borough and Sacred Heart Secondary School in Camberwell were both presented with distinction awards worth £2,000 at the London Schools Environment Awards on Wednesday.

Walworth School and St Peter’s Primary School in Walworth also received £1000 “highly commended” awards.

Mr Livingstone, presenting the awards, said: “I really want to commend the hard work of children and teachers who have got involved with the London Schools Environment Awards this year, particularly Charles Dickens Primary, Sacred Heart Secondary, St Peter’s Primary and Walworth Secondary school, who submitted outstanding work.”

The awards were developed to educate students about their responsibility for the environment and to recognise the most green-thinking schools in each London-borough.

Projects that the Southwark schools undertook included creating nature gardens and vegetable patches, monitoring rubbish to ensure that waste was recycled and designing posters to remind staff and pupils to save energy.

Walworth School were singled out for special praise by the judges for their clear eco-strategy. Students will decide how to spend their prize-money through their eco-committee and have already decided to create flower and vegetable gardens.

Teacher and eco-coordinator at the school, Jennifer Partridge, said: “I am very proud of how the students have taken responsibility for raising adult awareness of the importance of recycling and reducing the use of resources.” (Southwark News 29.9.05)

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VAT threats to new academy prevents community use

THE NEW City of London Academy in Bermondsey is being prevented from allowing the community full use of its brand new facilities by complex tax regulation, the ‘News’ can reveal.

The regulations mean that the school is unable to allow community use of its leisure facilities for more than 10 per cent of its teaching hours without being hit by a tax bill for 17.5 per cent of the costs of its new buildings, nearly £3.5 million.

As the school is a City Academy it is not under the control of the Local Education Authority (LEA) and therefore is registered as a limited company and a charity. This allows it to supply a zero rating VAT certificate to contractors in respect of construction work on its new buildings. This certificate means that the academy does not have to pay the roughly £3.5 million VAT on the costs of the new building.

However, this exemption is issued on the condition that at least 90 per cent of the usage of the buildings is for ‘relevant charitable purposes’.

If the Academy opens its facilities after school hours for community use, it is deemed that they are not being used for ‘relevant charitable purposes.’ If this use exceeds 10 per cent of the charitable use, the £3.5 million VAT becomes payable on the base building costs, an expense not budgeted for by the school or the Department for Education and Skills.

If it assumed that a regular school week runs for five days from 7am to 5pm, for 40 weeks a year, the relevant charitable use is 2,000 hours per year. If this is to equate to 90 per cent of overall usage of the facilities then the school liable for the £3.5 million tax bill. This would then leave the school bankrupt and its team of volunteer governors liable for the excess charge.

Local councillors and MPs have united across party lines to condemn the Government over this issue.

MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey Simon Hughes has been aware of this issue for the past year and a half and said: “This is an important subject where I and others have been trying for months to get the government to take action to get maximum community benefit at the new City Academy. “ I am very disappointed that so far we haven’t won the argument, especially as the government want people to think that they’re very supportive of the school. Now that the Prime Minister and two education ministers have actually been to the site to see how good it is I will go back to ministers and tell them that they can’t get away with being hypocritical.

“If City Academies are meant to be the schools of the future then they must also be places where facilities can be used by the wider community as well.”

The problem is one David Sumner, finance director of the Academy, has been wrestling with for two years. He said: “The whole point is to get as many people as possible to use the new school buildings without having to look over our shoulders at an administrative oversight.”

Lib Dem Council Leader, Nick Stanton, who is also a governor of the new school, said he found the issue “completely bonkers” and commented that, “it runs counter to everything the Government is trying to promote.”

Cllr Stanton also alluded to the controversy caused by the building of the school on what was formerly Paterson Park, saying: “One of the promises made is that the school would be a different type of community facility to the park and something local people would be able to use. If there’s VAT regulation that stops this then we need to change it.”

Southwark Labour Group spokesman for education, Cllr Andy Simmons said: “I will be lobbying the Government about this. There is not point in putting lots and lots of money into a school and not making it the heart of the local community.”

When the Prime Minister was at the Academy last week he made a policy speech that included the phrase: “Not only has the Academy got new buildings, it is bringing new hope and breathing new life into the local community.” A spokesperson for Mr Blair this week said: “One of the fundamental community values of academies is what they bring to the students that go to them.” (Southwark News 22.9.05)

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Southwark schools praised for ‘substantially improved’ GSCEs

Southwark schools have been praised by schools Minister Andrew Adonis for their “substantially improved” GCSE results this year.

St Michael’s school in Bermondsey, the Academy at Peckham and Walworth School all received letters from the Minister after grades grew by ten per cent or more. Waverley School was also praised for achieving best results in its history.

Lord Adonis thanked staff for their hard work and said: “I believe we are seeing a renaissance in urban education, which is being led by the improvement in London schools. I am delighted that your school is contributing to this achievement.”

Between them, the four Southwark schools improved GSCE results by 41 per cent over the last year. St Michael’s jumped from 65 per cent of pupils gaining five or more A* to C grades up to 79 per cent. The Academy saw a ten per cent rise to 22 per cent and Walworth achieved 33 per cent, up from 21 per cent last year.

Head of St Michael’s, Martin Tissot, said: “I know Andrew Adonis is passionate about improving education and obviously we’re delighted the progress made by the school has been recognised.”

He said the results were part of a continued improvement at St Michael’s, which has sent the number of students gaining 5 A* to C grades grow from 39 per cent to 79 per cent in just three years.

“The improvement in our school is down to a relentless focus on teaching and learning, as well as good discipline and pastoral care. We intend to be just as good, if not better, next year.” (Southwark News 22.9.05)

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Finally open

Blair takes tour on first day of new City of London Academy

PRIME Minister Tony Blair was in Bermondsey on Monday to open the brand new City of London Academy buildings in Lynton Road.

Mr Blair, accompanied by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly and Education Minister Lord Andrew Adonis, toured the new buildings, unveiled a plaque commemorating the opening and gave a major policy speech outlining the future development of his city academy strategy.

He praised the work done by Principal Martyn Coles in setting up school, saying: “Today is a tribute not only to your principal, who has led this school to where it is today, but also to your chair of governors William Fraser and sponsors the Corporation of London, whose contribution has been invaluable.” It must have been a frenetic first day of term for the children. Not only had they not seen their new school building until that morning, the amount of security and press personnel buzzing around made the place feel lie more like Westminster than SE16. Bermondsey Gran Kate Southion, who, alongside the ‘News’ spearheaded the campaign for the new school, but was not invited to the event, said: “I’m very very pleased that the school is open. At the end of the day it’s a big success story.”

Chairman of Governors William Fraser, who spoke after Mr Blair, said: “The Governor and the Principal both realise this is only the start of our dream. This is a school built in and for the 21^st Century and I hope it will fulfil the hopes and aspirations of all involved in the city academies project.”

The City of London Academy has already been open for eighteen months but was previously based in temporary accommodation at Waverley School. The work on the new Lynton Road buildings started in January 2004 and was completed in time for this year’s academic year.

It is the second ‘city academy’ officially to open in Southwark. Two more are in the pipeline - a combining of Joseph Lancaster Primary and Geoffrey Chaucer secondary schools, sponsored by hedge fund charity ARK Education and an academy at Aylwin Girls’ School, sponsored by Carpetright boss, Conservative Peer and sponsor of the Peckham Academy, Lord Harris. (Southwark News 15.9.05)

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Southwark school pupils picked to sail the world

A GROUP of Southwark youngsters welcomed home the vessel that they will be sailing around the world, 40 years after Sir Francis Chichester set sail on the very same ship.

Along with Princess Anne, the patron of the United Kingdom Sailing Academy (UKSA), the youngsters were in Greenwich last week to ‘salute in’ the world famous Gypsy Moth IV 38 years after Sir Francis Chichester set sail to become the first person single-handedly to circumnavigate the globe.

Three Peckham students and another from Bacon’s College in Rotherhithe were picked through a series of selection processes based at UKSA that included students from schools from all around the country.

The Academy at Peckham’s Headmaster, Peter Crook, spoke of his feelings on his student’s selection: “I was very, very pleasantly surprised as you wouldn’t have thought of students in Peckham excelling at sailing. The selectors picked up on our student’s enthusiasm, character and leadership qualities.”

Robert McClaren, sixteen, a student at Highshore School in Peckham, said: “I am very excited about being given this once in a life time opportunity, which would be an experience that would stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Phillip Holman, 17, a student at Bacon’s College, said: “UKSA has been a life changing experience for me. It gave me a completely different perspective on learning and education.”

The ship was sailed up the Thames last week in ceremonious fashion by two of Britain’s most recognised sailors of recent times, Dame Ellen MacArthur and Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson. The group will utilise its £300,000 revamp and will re-circumnavigate the globe in the 53ft long ship in December as part of upcoming celebrations that marked the return of Sir Frances on his epic 29,630 mile voyage.

Following her two-month voyage, dubbed the ‘Sail of the Centenary’, the Gypsy Moth IV will return to UKSA on the Isle of Wight, where she will be used to encourage youngsters of differing backgrounds to take part in sailing. (Southwark News 15.9.05)

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Key Stage 3 on the up

SOUTHWARK’S KEY stage 3 results have improved for the fifth year running but are still some of the worst in London.

The exams for fourteen year olds have improved in the three subjects of English, maths and science but Southwark children are still getting worse results than virtually any other inner London authority.

Science results were up four per cent but still languished near the bottom of the table, with only 56 per cent compared to 74 per cent nationally and 65 per cent in neighbouring Lambeth.

English results were up two per cent with a far more respectable 65 per cent meeting level 5 or above, compared to the national average of 74 per cent. Worryingly there was a considerable gender gap for English results with only 58 per cent of boys making the same grade – a pattern repeated in many boroughs but by no means all.

Fifty-six per cent of Southwark children gained level fives in Maths compared to 65 per cent in Lambert, 61 per cent in Islington and 74 per cent nationally.

Southwark Council’s Executive Member for Education, CIIr Caroline Pidgeon, acknowledged that there were difficulties but said that the results were going in the right direction.

“This year’s key stage 3 results are extremely encouraging, particularly as all subjects have shown improvement for the fifth year running.

“The results follow significant improvements at GCSE and key stage 2, so the future is looking bright for education in the borough.”

“Congratulations are in order for all of the young people and education staff whose hard work is really paying off. We’ll be doing all we can to support schools in continuing to raise pupil attainment,” said the councillor, who has taken over full responsibility for education since Southwark’s schools returned to council control last month.

Labour Education spokesman, CIIr Andy Simmons, commented: “It’s good to see that the results are continuing to improve. Partly this is a result of the government’s London Challenge funding. But there certainly is a concern that we aren’t improving as fast as the other London boroughs.” (Southwark News 15.9.05)

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School goes large as demand grows

OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S Primary in Peckham is due to expand with a new, modern building to link the two existing red brick structures.

Two new classrooms will be created, one playground will be lost but the other will be landscaped in the £2.75 million project to be finished within a year from next January. Head Mark Parsons said: “We have some tiny classrooms, with tiny furniture, but children are getting bigger! Also we’re getting popular now – since the good Ofsted report in 2003 we have continued to improve. The LEA has been brilliant, but it’s been eight years of bullying people to make them see that we have a school worth investing in.” (Southwark News 15.9.05)

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GCSE results keep on rising

THE NUMBER of pupils awarded five good GCSEs rose by 5 per cent in Southwark this year, edging closer to the national average.

That means 47 per cent of Southwark’s sixteen-year-olds achieved five A*-C grades - an increase on just 34 per cent in 2001.

Provisional GCSE and Equivalent results 2005 (as at Friday 26^th August 2005)

Percentages of pupils achieving 5 or more A* to C grades at GCSE and equivalent level 

[1] * Results for Warwick Park School

[2] ** The above is the position as at 12pm on Friday 26th August 2005

Different schools have different stories. Smiles were all around at St Michael’s where exam results had continued their meteoric rise upwards.

Walworth School also made a massive improvement of 12 per cent, catapulting them from 21 to 33 per cent A*-C grades – their best performance in recent years and nearly triple the number of just four year years ago.

The results from the Academy at Peckham suggested that academy status, presently being sought by both Alywin and Geoffrey Chaucer, is not a cure-all. The Academy’s results this year showed a big improvement of 10 per cent, bringing them back up to the 22 per cent its predecessor school Warwick Park’s achieved in 2002, its last year.

Waverley, Aylwin and St Thomas the Apostle all produced solid improvements in grades. Usually high-flying Catholic girls’ school Notre Dame was the source of some concern as grades fell from 69 last year to 60 per cent.

Cllr Caroline Pidgeon, executive member for education at Southwark Council, said “Congratulations are in order for all the year 11 pupils who have worked so hard to get these results, and also to the dedicated education staff.

This is a particularly significant jump on top of the progress we’ve witnessed over the past four years, and it also follows he success of Southwark’s primary pupils at Key Stage 2 this week. We’ve just resumed responsibility for running our education services following a vote of confidence from the DfES so these results are further confirmation that education is on the up in Southwark. We will continue to work hard to ensure this progress continues.” (Southwark News 1.9.05)

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St Michael’s tops the table

THE NUMBER of pupils walking out of the gates of St Michael’s School with five good GCSE’s has doubled in the three years that head Martin Tissot has been at the helm. The Bermondsey Roman Catholic Secondary has moved up from being a mid-table school to being the highest performing state school in the borough and one of the best in London.

“I had a five year plan and vision, “ said a delighted head Mr Tissot, watching his young charges collect their results from the school foyer last week. “I knew what good looked like before I came here and I have tried to apply it here.”

Central to that strategy is getting the basics right. “Structure, rigour, clear boundaries and high expectations,“ Mr Tissot named as being the key characteristics of a good school. “If kids behave well in class there can be pretty mediocre teaching and they will still make good progress,” he said, but making clear he didn’t put any of his own team in the ‘mediocre’ category.

“But we aren’t an exam factory,” said Mr Tissot. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We have an enormous range of things going on including sport and drama.”

Georgina Jones from Peckham was St Michael’s highest achiever gaining 9 A*s, 2As and a B. “It’s paid off, the teachers really encouraged us to think we could get the higher grades and we have.” Sixteen-year-old Georgina will take her A-levels at Richmond College and hopes to go on to study law at Oxford or Cambridge.

Other pupils like Jeffrey Agyeman, 16, found themselves considering a very different future from what they had been expecting. “I was predicted Cs and Ds,” said Jeffrey “but I have got As and Bs, so now I can go on to study in sixth form and get a career in media or law afterwards.” (Southwark News 1.9.05) 

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Education now formally under council control

SOUTHWARK’S education service was handed back to the council on Monday after four years of being run by outside, private companies.

As the ‘News’ reported in June, the government Department for Education and Skills decided the progress being made in Southwark education, a positive Ofsted assessment of provision for 14 to 19 years-old in April and the general council status as ‘improving’ meant it was time for education to come back in house as from August 1.

Following damning Ofsted reports in 1998 and 1999 the DfES directed Southwark Council to hand their education service to an external company.

Technical consultant W S Atkins won the bid in a £28 million contract beginning April 2001, but pulled out three years early in July 2003.

Cambridge Education Associates took over and ran the service until this week. Southwark’s education director Alison Delyth, who transferred from CEA to council employ this week, said: “The fact that the council has been given the green light to resume responsibility is an expression of confidence in all of our education staff, and shows that young people have been making progress.”

Executive member for education, Cllr Caroline Pigeon, said: “We’re delighted to resume responsibility for running our education services, which reinforces the fact that we have turned the corner in improving our services and that there is a real culture for change in Southwark.”

 A council spokesperson said there was already a new school improvement structure in place, which included appointing new advisers and consultants, including for drama, dance, music and visual arts. She said a review of special needs education had already led to schools receiving another £500 for each child with special needs. Two new academies have been announced at Geoffrey Chaucer and Aylwin Girls’.

Although key stage 3 and 4 results are improving steadily, with GCSEs improving at twice the national rate, key stage 2 (primary) were found by Ofsted to have room for improvement so a new primary school strategy is currently in draft form. A reading group for primary school teachers to discuss new children’s books, the only one of its kind in the country, has produced ‘lines of pupils queuing up to read the latest novels’, according to teachers. (Southwark News 4.8.05)

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Send off for school cook

ALMA PRIMARY School’s cook had an emotional send off for her retirement last week as the whole school snuck into the dining hall to shout and cap when she came in and to present her with a huge and bunch of flowers.

Christina Hally, 65, has been cooking for children for 35 years, five of those at Alma Primary in Bermondsey, Head Tom Wilson said: “She knows the name of every child in the school and what they like and don’t like. If they’re off their food she lets me know, and in terms of healthy eating she preceded Jamie Oliver!”

Mrs Hally was too busy wiping away her tears to talk, though she did say she was looking forward to spending time with her grandchildren.

Alma pupil Lily, 5, told the ‘News’: “I’ll miss her because she’s leaving. She says goodbye to me when I go home,” and Sadie, 5, added: “I like her when she’s cooking.”

(Southwark News 4.8.05)

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