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Terry Wrigley and Francis Beckett at the book launch |
School ‘deliberately attacked’
Author alleges attempt to undermine Islington Green as part of academy plan
A SECONDARY school which is to be turned into a city academy was “deliberately attacked and damaged” by the government, according to a prominent campaigner and journalist.
Francis Beckett believes the Blair administration set out with the specific intention of turning Islington Green School, in Prebend Street, Angel, into an academy, come what may.
He made the claim last Thursday at the Islington launch of his new book, The Great City Academies Fraud.
The event was staged at the Slug and Lettuce pub in Upper Street, only a short walk from Islington Green School. Unions and a number of parents are fighting to prevent the school becoming an academy in September 2008, with City University and the City of London as its £2 million sponsors.
Outspoken opponents of the city academies programme joined Mr Beckett for an evening of speeches and campaigning.
Mr Beckett, a veteran education journalist, said that, with St Mary Magdalene Primary School in Holloway also to become a city academy, it seemed as if Tony Blair, a former Islington resident, and Lord Adonis, architect of the academies scheme who lives in Holloway, were selling two academies on their home turf.
He added: “Islington Green School has been deliberately attacked and damaged by the government and they have tried to turn it into a failing school.”
Education lecturer Terry Wrigley launched his new book, Another School Is Possible, at the same event. It criticises Britain’s “exam-driven” culture and looks at how other countries deal with hard-to-reach pupils.
He said: “The big businessmen of the City of London are trying to take over a local school that’s improving fast.”
Among the audience at the launch was Dorothy McColgan, one of a renegade group of teachers at William Tyndale Primary School in Islington in the 1970s who fought to implement progressive teaching techniques.
Also present was Meg Howarth, who has been leading the fight against the new St Mary Magdalene academy in Liverpool Road. Ken Muller, assistant branch secretary of Islington’s National Union of Teachers branch, said it was crucial to have respected academics and journalists on board in the anti-academies fight.
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