Lisa
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Councillor BlackburnI reproduce here part of a reply that Councillor Blackburn sent to Alan Veale in July this year.
Mr Veale,
Now that the situation at Marton School has been resolved, I am delighted to give you my thoughts on your most recent unsolicited message, as well as on your previous messages.
For the record, I have now, and have had throughout, full confidence in the ability of the Head Teacher, School Staff, Governors, Parents and Pupils of Marton School. That they have been able to make such significant progress (as noted in the most recent OFSTED monitoring reports) recently, despite the best efforts of a small, disgruntled minority - is a great credit to them. Likewise, the Director of Children's Services has, in my view, handled what was clearly a delicate situation in a highly professional manner. Mr. Lund continues (as a recent Inspection of the Children's Services Authority demonstrated) to manage a flourishing and improving department, which does him and his team proud, and serves the pupils and parents of Blackpool very effectively.
Quite what you sought to achieve in your protests remains a mystery to me. I can only hope that now that you have no connection whatsoever with Marton School, you will allow the Staff and Pupils there, with the support of the Governing Body, the opportunity to continue their efforts to further improve the school.
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Mr Blackburn lives within spitting distance of Marton Primary school. I may be wrong - so please correct me if this is the case, but............I am told that his child/ren do/es NOT go to Marton school. If this is true I would invite him to put forward his reasons for this. If he wishes his reasons to remain private - fair enough. If he doesn't want to publish his reasons on a forum maybe Alan could e-mail him privately to find out. However, I feel that when you put yourself up as a Councillor you have certain obligations to the residents of Blackpool, so please tell us. If my information is incorrect I would like to hear how you are finding Marton.
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EDENA
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ILL INFORMEDI am appalled that Councillor Blackburn would dare set himself up as judge and jury, after the event.
Where was he when Children were being taken out of the school?
Where was he when Teachers were resigning because of all the problems since the previous headteacher left?
To my knowledge he hasn’t spoken to any of the concerned parents or shown any concern for the school or its children.
He has listened only to the opinions of the LEA, and they, as the letter from the Director point out, only give half the picture. For him to now congratulate himself and fellow councillors is incredible. How can anyone be pleased when the school is sliding down the league tables, staff have left in their droves, children have been withdrawn, nursery places are under subscribed, the MUGA had to be campaigned for by parents, the results have plummeted, the cost to tax payers has shot up.
There are places for 60 children but only a fraction of that have joined the school. The nursery only has 15 children in it. Neighbouring schools are full; does this mean there are plans afoot for Marton? Why is St Nicholas expanding? How can this be sustained? Teachers and council workers are being made redundant. Surely if the school is not attracting the pupils something will have to give. Does this mean closure of a once excellent school?
It was interesting that Councillor Blackburn mentions that the HMI report was positive. Well I have read it cover to cover and I don’t know why he did not acknowledge what the report says at the end. “This visit has raised some concerns about the standard of education provided, and the school’s performance will be monitored.”
He seems very poorly informed on the matters that are on his doorstep. No doubt the Director will tell him what he wants to hear.
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R. Thornton
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Mr BlackburnResponses to Mr Blackburns sad letter have been posted on this forum previously. His letter simply shows how ill informed the councillors are over the matters of Marton school - and it is a sad indictment of Labour councillors that they are unable to check for themselves the facts before they publicly put pen to paper. The HMI report clearly stated the need for continuing monitoring of the standards at Marton, the SATs results and the PANDA show the downward spiral. But no - he prefers the spin to the reality. We can perhaps excuse the governors for ignoring facts and not having the wit or intelligence to check things for themselves but for a councillor to do this is inexcusable.
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Alan Veale
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The Future?I dont want to come across as a prophet of doom, but I would just like to make a general observation on what I see as the potential future of Marton Primary School:
In my opinion, there are only two possible scenarios a) the authorities take action by whatever means to remove the source of the present problems besetting the school, and a period of recovery is allowed to start, or b) the authorities take NO action and the school continues on its present path.
Over the course of the last twelve months I have learnt a good deal more about educational matters than I ever knew before from a parental point of view, and I think it appropriate at this time to pass on to readers of this forum something of what I have learnt: I understand that, when a school experiences difficulties (for whatever reason) that cause intakes to fall, this can only continue to a certain level before the LEA have to place the school in Special Measures. This is a probationary period during which the school is expected to take positive steps to improve its position, but if improvements do not happen then the only option is closure.
So we are probably only a short way off from Special Measures. The ongoing assessment by HMI (referred to recently in other posts) is likely to be the key factor in deciding whether this will be applied. Interestingly, the HMI follow-up visit is now overdue, and I would suspect that certain little bodies are doing whatever they can to postpone that visit as long as possible! Remember that the last inspection took place at the end of November (over 9 months ago), and the school has certainly continued to lose out since in both numbers on the role, and in the SATS results for Year 6. This can certainly not be termed as maintaining improvement, and taken together with the ongoing DfES investigation into the LEA, the Head Teacher and the Governing Body, the immediate future for the school does look bleak.
We therefore have to consider the very real prospect of the school being closed. Think about it both teaching and non-teaching jobs being lost, children being displaced into schools that are already at risk of being over-crowded, the buildings and grounds being re-developed for more housing and the loss of a valuable asset to the community.
I hope that does not happen, and hopefully someone somewhere will take urgent steps to try and reverse the decline, but this does depend on the authorities taking a very different view from their public stance so far! One may even be forgiven for wondering if this turning a blind eye act is a deliberate one? Is there a hidden agenda here from Progress House?
Sadly it will only be the people living in the community of Marton that will lose out the children, the parents, the staff. Mrs Coupe will move on to another area, Mr Lund will shrug his shoulders, and Mr Turner will carry on believing that he is still an effective chairman of a non-existent governing body
Who loses? Who cares? If youve got a voice now is the time to use it. Before it is too late!
Alan Veale
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R. Thornton
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HMI follow up.I sincerely hope that we get a more professional inspection than the one provided by the couple who visited last November. They seemed to have a very narrow focus and so ignored (or did not wish to tackle) much of what was happening in the school. Some of their statements, as mentioned here often on the site, were based on very dubious research.
Let us hope that an HMI comes to the school with eyes wide open and willing to make a thorough investigation of what has gone on.
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E. Maltby
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HMIPerhaps I have become bitter following the events of Marton school but it seems to me that the various sections of the establishment are all following their own agenda, none of which hold the welfare of the children or the interests of parents at a very high level.
Take the last HMI for example. For those who are new visitors to the forum that gentleman was fully informed of parentsconcerns over safety of the school computers. He was told of the supply teacher downloading dubious images for his own use and anyone with the tiniest amount of IT knowledge knows that this would not be possible if the network was secure.
He was told of the lack of response by the head and the authority over this issue in a meeting with a small group of the MSAG.
Now you would think that Her Majestys Inspectorate would be in a perfect position to insist on checks being carried out and then reporting to parents on what had been done and so allay fears.
The report was published - no mention of the issue. No doubt it did not feature on his little tick list which he carried into school.
So in February children strayed onto pornographic sites - THEN the authority had to act. The HMI could have sorted it in November !
This was just shameful neglect by a person working on behalf of what used to be a respected sector of education. Somebody else, no doubt on a bloated salary, on the gravy train which is education, ticking his little boxes and writing his report, with no thought for the people who really matter in education.
No, I hold no hopes of any constructive change when a return visit is made by the HMI
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