Category Archives: Schools

What’s this government got against Hodge Hill’s youngsters?

Meeting youg sports ambassadorsOn Friday I saw first hand the growing evidence of how this government’s over-hasty cut-backs are hitting our young people. It came as figures confirmed that our constituency now has the highest youth unemployment in Britain.

At Colebourne school on Friday afternoon, I met the teachers and young people running the schools sports partnership that runs school sports and competition across our patch. Their worries? The partnership is about to be devastating. ‘Back to the 1980s’ as one teacher put it.

Then on Friday night I met over a hundred youngsters protesting about the closure of Naseby youth centre – a place that has kept youngsters inspired and off the street for years.

So what has this government got against our youngsters?
- future jobs fund, providing thousands of city jobs for under 25s, axed
- youth budgets slashed and youth centres closed
- the school sports partnership devastated
- EMAs abolished
- tuition fees tripled

On Wednesday, I’ll be leading a debate in the Commons challenging both Tories and Liberals to think again. Watch to see how they vote

 

Press Release – Byrne Fights Hodge Hill Sports Funding Cuts

Byrne Fights Hodge Hill Sports Funding Cuts

Liam Byrne MP will today meet with local young sports ambassadors to discuss how best to fight government proposed sport funding cuts.

The Member of Parliament for Birmingham Hodge Hill is meeting with young people from the Calthorpe School Sports Partnership which includes schools across Hodge Hill, Small Heath and Highgate.

Education Secretary Michael Gove performed a humiliating climbdown in December last year, finding £47m to promote competitive sports in schools after promising to scrap the £162m Sports Partnership Programme he had previously labelled ‘a complete failure’

Liam has been campaigning to turn Hodge Hill into a Sports Village as part of his Hodge Hill 2020 (HH2020) regeneration plan. Hodge Hill has around 50% more green space per capita than the Birmingham average – and is one of the youngest constituencies in the country. But much of the space is undeveloped, and local residents’ have consistently identified the need for more things for youngsters to do at Liams regular residents meetings, street surgeries and school gate meetings.

This inspired his programme of work with young people – and his work to  create a sports village linking the renewal of our schools, spaces and sports facilities into a network of assets available for sports use across the community. Local young people have been key to developing this vision

Ultimately he aims to create a sports village trust, owned by the community to run these important assets on our community’s behalf.

Now the funding for the rest of the Hodge Hill Building Schools for the Future programme is uncertain and a valuable programme to help local young people get fit, learn teamwork and aspire to be the best is being scrapped.

Liam said:

‘This is another blow for our young people and the future of Hodge Hill. This year we doubled the number of our young people going to University, now tuition fees are going up, EMA is being scrapped, our unfit schools will not be made fit for 20th century learning and valuable sports programmes are being scrapped.

 

Hodge Hill ward campaign survey results

Earlier in the summer, Labour’s team also asked residents of Hodge Hill what they thought of the government’s decisions to put up VAT, and whether they would back our campaign to reinstate funding cut from the rebuild and refurbishment of Hodge Hill school. Here’s the results;

  • 88% thought the VAT rise was not fair – 9.45% thought that the VAT rise was fair
  • Almost 70 %  supported Labour’s campaign to reverse the decision to cut the refurbishment of Hodge Hill School; 24% thought the cut was OK

Thanks to everyone who took part!

 

Our £12 million new Saltley school: update

As local resident will know, the Tories aided and abetted by the Lib Dems cut nearly £30 million from our local school-building programme. We have a few schools still going ahead – and one of them is a new Saltley school, not renewed on any major scale since 1928!

Liam and Saltley pupils plant a tree from Prince Charles

Liam and Saltley pupils plant a tree from Prince Charles

Here’s the update I’ve got on plans, overseen by the amazing head, Anne Cole…

Mrs Cole

Our Ref: HT/MAC/jmc

14th June 2010

Mr Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Dear Liam

Thank you for your recent letter and interest in the Saltley BSF project. In response to the specific questions you have raised:

1)                  The Building Schools for The Future programme is seen by the school as fundamental to providing the local community with the school it deserves to meet the educational requirements of local children in the 21st century.

Saltley School was originally built in 1928 and many of the school buildings and classrooms are outdated and in need of major repair works. Classrooms generally are too small with 30 pupils being taught in rooms as small as 35m2 (against a government recommended size of 56m2).

The School’s smaller gym is not fit for purpose and will be demolished whilst the School’s largest gym is prone to flooding every time it rains heavily. A key part of the plan is to provide a new Sports Hall to cater for the needs of the pupils and the community.

All of the specialist teaching areas urgently require modernisation and new equipment.

We can also create a purpose built dining hall to replace the current modular building.

The BSF project also allows for Saltley School to admit an extra form of entry of pupils per year. This is required to address the deficit of local school places due to the rising local population in this area.

2)                 The school is now applying for planning permission having agreed the 1:200 designs of the refurbished/remodelled school. Financial Close is scheduled for the end of 2010 and building work will start Dec 2010 / Jan 2011.

The school has been planning this project for over 4 years with full consultation with parents, pupils, staff and the local community.

The school has also been active in helping shape the Birmingham BSF project as a whole by helping select the preferred bidder and acting as schools representatives throughout the sample scheme programme. Saltley’s Business Manager was part of the FM working group that drew up the Birmingham BSF FM contract which was rated in an independent gateway review by 4Ps as ‘The best FM contract in the country’. Work is ongoing in this area with Birmingham Schools Representatives working with BCC and Catalyst to ensure that the schools achieve the best value for money possible through the BSF process.

3)             We envisage the new Saltley School being a state of the art teaching facility with equipment and facilities to meet 21st century learning.

The ICT investment will mean that local children, from one of the top 1% deprivation index areas, will have access to some of the best ICT facilities in the country.

The school will be modernised to be fully DDA compatible allowing us to cater for pupils with disabilities for the first time.

4)             Our vision is incorporated into the BSF Output specification , part of which follows:

We wish at Saltley School to be regarded as an exemplary centre of Excellence in Education, dedicated to nurturing a strong sense of purpose, ambition and confidence throughout the entire school community.

Pupils at Saltley will strive to achieve and exceed challenging academic, personal and social targets though a culture of enterprise, innovation and creativity.

Staff at Saltley will promote the highest standards of spiritual, moral and ethical development to enable our pupils to become Global Citizens.

We will develop and nurture high quality teaching and learning in an inspirational environment.

An improved lunchtime experience for all the school is a priority and a vibrant, airy, light dining area with appropriate spaces for queuing and serving will encourage pupils and staff to enjoy healthy meals in a safe and sociable environment.

Saltley’s specialism, science, will pervade all other curriculum areas and be possibly linked to ICT and Maths.

Curriculum areas, on a cluster basis, will be capable of delivering the curriculum, initially through traditionally based, departmental models, but will also be adaptable and flexible enough to respond to the inevitable changes in curriculum needs and the consequent changes in pedagogy these will bring.

A priority is the security of the site to ensure the health and safety of staff and pupils. This is of particular importance because of the extensive nature of the site.

The newly refurbished building will also enable expansion for post 16 provision and the architects are indicating the possible location on the site master plan.

The final building will inevitably be a compromise which is limited by:

a)                  The available funding

b)                  The outdated recommendations of BB98 (ironic for a 21st Century building!)

c)                  The constraints of refurbishing a 1928 building

However we are confident the many hours of detailed work we have put into the plans will produce a massively improved school which we eagerly anticipate.

We enclose a draft copy of the Planning Design Access Statement for your interest which we feel neatly summarises Saltley’s BSF project.

Yours sincerely

Anne Cole

Headteacher

 

Hodge Hill – Washwood Heath school cuts outrage.

I’ve had confirmation today of huge cuts in funding for our young peoples’ future today as in a chaotic announcement, the Tory-Lib Dem council  announced the cancellation of plans to rebuild Hodge Hill Mixed and Washwood Heath Technology College.

Over £30 million of funding has been slashed – while the Tory-Lib Dem Council in Birmingham did not raise of finger of protest.

One of our greatest breakthroughs in the last Parliament was getting in place over £63 million pounds to rebuild our secondary schools. We want to see these are real hubs for the community, open not only to help our youngsters get a world-class education, but there to serve and enrich our quality of life all year round. One of the ideas I am working on is how a ‘Sports Village Trust’ run by the community could run some of these new buildings at weekends and in holidays.

The new Tory-Liberal government has now reviewed whether to actually write the cheques for the money agreed. We need these new schools – our kids deserve the best too. Just so you know what’s at stake, here is the list of how much many – and where – we got agreed.

School Value Start dates
Saltley £11,743,409 November 2010
Park View £8,960,867 November 2010
International £11,552,051 November 2010
Washwood Heath Technology College £16,852,066 August 2011
Hodge Hill Mixed £13,837,014 September 2011
Hodge Hill Girls Awaiting feasibility November 2012
Grand Total £63,945,097  

And here is the cold announcement I had from the Department for Education today;

Hodge Hill                                                     Stopped

Washwood Heath                                      Stopped

International School                                  Unaffected

Park View                                                  Unaffected

Saltley                                                       Unaffected

Waverley                                                   Unaffected                         PFI

The news comes five days after the Government sneaked out a report showing under Labour’s management last year, department’s came in £5 billion under budget.

We’ll be fighting this crass decision. Look out for our campaign in your area soon.

 

Smith & Nephew school: campaign update

More news on our fight to get a new school on the site of the old Smith and Nephew plant on the Alum Rock Road.

I recently met with council officers to chase things along, following our breakthrough earlier in the year when the Council finally agreed to go ahead with compulsory purchase of the part of the site they needed (about 3 acres).

Now here’s the plan. The council has agreed the goal should be to open a new school on the site in 2012, with three form entry. That’s a school for 630 pupils.

The council is now pinning down the funding stream with the city to pay for the compulsory purchase of land – and consultants have now been instructed to carry out the range of surveys needed for a planning application to go in.

The scheme is part of the Council’s ‘Additional Places Programme. Because central government operates 3 year budgets – and the school is earmarked for 2012 – the council has agreed that funding for this project will form part of the city’s ‘basic need submission’ to the government for 2012.

So, the bottom line is as long as the new government doesn’t do anything stupid on education funding in the Autumn, this project has a green light all the way. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Well done Heathlands!

In between meetings with our new police commanders in East Birmingham and the city council’s chief executive, I did my weekly school gate surgery at Heathlands, where I had the great privilige of handing over the school’s first award to Citizen of the Week, Maya Headley.

Heathlands is coming on in leaps and bounds. We’re all hoping for good things from their Oftsted review which finished this week and at assembly today we learned about the schools #1 placing in the North Birmingham swimming  gala and their championship in the Saltley football league.

Citizen of the Week is a new award which goes to the young person who demonstrates consistent helpfulness, kindness towards others, and an attitude of putting something back into the school. It’s a brilliant idea from a brilliant school.

 

Adderley School – time for a move?

Adderley School is in the heart of the area first laid out by Lord Norton, the last lord of the manor of Saltley over a century ago. Lots of parents at the school have told me that its current site is just not good; its crowded in and surrounded by industrial units. So, we’re now trying to get a campaign going to get the school moved to a better site. I’ve asked Tony Howell, Birmingham City Council’s Strategic Director for Children, Young People and Families for an update this week.

 

New school at the Smith & Nephew Site

By my reckoning we are about 1,000 school places short in East Birmingham – hence our long campaign to get a new school built on the Smith and Nephew site on Alum rock Road – a once in a generation opportunity to build a school at the heart of the community in Washwood Heath.

 With a mandate from resident meetings in the area I, together with Councillors Mohammed Idrees and Ansar Ali Khan, liased with the developer who owned the site and Birmingham City Council in order to make progress and build a school on the site. Earlier this year we celebrated success as Birmingham City Council agreed to compulsorily purchase the land needed to build a new school.

I’ve now written to Birmingham City Council Chief Executive Stephen Hughes to double-check the funding is in place – Labour gave the city hundreds of millions for education spending – and a timetable for getting work under way.

 

Thank you Prince Charles

It was a great pleasure to be at Saltley School yesterday – to help plant a new oak tree gifted to the school from the Prince of Wales. The Prince dispatched the marvellous gifts to every school in Hodge Hill which joined in a unique two yr research programme into the aspirations of our youngsters led by Prof James Arthur of Birmingham University. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the report. And thanks to the Prince for such a thoughtful present. It’s a fantastic symbol for the years to come.