Leicester City Schools league tables are out. What a sham!

Last year Leicester City Council closed six secondary schools and expanded ten others, in their words "to raise educational standards."

But pupils lost their local schools, many of which held their areas only community facilities. They were made to travel long distances with no regard to their personal safety.

Some pupils have not even returned to school because their parents feel the only options available are too far.

Leicester has suffered a dramatic fall in the League tables from 114th last year to 134th out of 150 this year. The local Council are promising that levels will rise within the next year or two. But for pupils all over Leicester that were affected as a direct result of the closures, this is no consolation, neither will it be to the next two or possible three years pupils taking GCSE's.

We fought for two years to stop the closure or our local community schools.

Social deprivation issues should have been tackled first, before stealing our local schools, leisure facilities and people's spirits.

I, more than most, really did not want to be proved right, that the secondary review would not be beneficial for our children.

The whole farce was a money saving scheme at our children's' expense.

I hope all those responsible for this fiasco are totally ashamed of themselves, because they should be.

Hobson's choice: Lose your school or your park!

You might think that the announcement of a new £25 million international sports complex mainly funded by Lottery and private finance in Leicester would be greeted with universal support. But what if the council want to site it where your local school is now?

For two years we have fought the closure of Wycliffe Community College. Within days of Education Minister, David Blunkett's final decision to endorse the schools closures, plans (including artists impressions, maps etc.) miraculously appeared for the Leisure centre detailing six proposed sites. This was whittled down to two sites on the Braunstone Estate, one of them being the "Wycliffe" school site the other being our local park!

Obviously we would welcome any new facilities being offered, but not at the price of losing our local secondary school. Also a lot of the houses are in disrepair with old style metal windows, no central heating and some residents have no inside toilet. A very large majority are on benefits, why would we want a leisure centre in place of things we desperately need when most of us wouldn't even be able to afford the cost of using it.

A "survey" was held of residents. People were paid to visit every house with a questionnaire to find out which of the two sites we preferred. But it was "Hobson's choice", you either voted to lose your school or a large chunk of the local park. There was no third choice of "neither site" (even though it had been agreed at a meeting of residents and council officials that this should be included in the survey).

The result of this rigged survey was a narrow majority for the school site and the council have now announced it as their "preferred site". But many questions are left: There is a primary school on the same site! What will happen to that? What will happen to Adult Education and Community provision at Wycliffe? The council has no answers for this.

Yet again the Labour Council have trampled all over the needs of local people and it will not be forgotten.

Jan 2000

Colditz or Superschool? Dec 1999 news.

A Leicester school was turned into Colditz when Education Minister David Blunkett visited Leicester last week. Gates were locked, security patrols in the grounds and loads of coppers at the entrances.

The reason being he was officially opening the "Super school" created when the City Council shut 6 schools in deprived working class estates in Leicester.

The authorities obviously feared a reaction from the local community on Braunstone where a campaign has been waged to save Wycliffe School. The Wycliffe Action Group (WAG) and Socialist Party members found out about his visit and decided to oblige with a demo.

When someone attempted to find out the timing of his visit the council told them that they couldn't divulge details because of a "security threat" from the IRA! More like they were worried about the "W.A.G."

This was proved by the fact that earlier the same day Blunkett officially opened a "Space Centre" near the University, where there was no security at all. Incidentally, there was a protest waiting for him there as well: Socialist Students organised an anti fees protest complete with "Fat Cat" and "Tony Blair" look-alike.

Meanwhile, back at the "SuperSchool", we managed to intercept Mr Blunkett on his way in. He didn't take kindly to our requests to wind down his car window so we could talk to him. So we passed on a letter from Parents to his travelling companion Patricia Hewitt MP.

We managed to get TV coverage and to make the point that the consequences of his and the council's decision on school closures have been a large number of children still out of school for a whole term now. The council have made a concession to allow some of the children from Braunstone into an alternative local school, but others are still being told they have to travel across the city.

We will continue to put pressure on the council to solve this mess and we will continue to stand for the reopening of a local school on Braunstone.

UPDATE: CAMPAIGN AGAINST SCHOOL CLOSURES LEICESTER Dec 1999

Parents, pupils and SP members in Leicester occupied the Director of Education's offices in protest of School closures.

Many attempts have been made to acquire local places in schools of our choice other than the "Super School" our LEA insists our children should attend so we decided to go and visit the top man.

We arrived at the offices to be told the Director of Education was on annual leave. Whilst the receptionist was being briefed on where all the other assistants were (usually out of town, in meetings, on leave, off sick or numerous other places they all happen to be when we would like to speak to them) we just happened to make our way through two security doors and up five flights of stairs into the Directors offices. There was a bit of resistance from a have-a-go hero but a couple of bruised ribs later we were in.

We were very politely requested to return to the main reception on the ground floor, where a member of staff would speak to us. Most of us were very tired after our long journey up to the offices so we declined their kind offer. A go-between was (unfortunately) having to go up and down all those stairs to liaise between the two parties.

Miraculously the Director of Education suddenly returned from his annual leave and agreed to speak with one parent, but eventually came to speak to us all after we refused his invitation. He but also told us that we would be arrested if we did not leave his office.

The object of the occupation was to request a supply Teacher for two hours a day for the pupils that had been attending the Wycliffe annex for this past term. We intended to leave as soon as our request had been granted. This was refused, however we did obtain an agreement that he would have a meeting with parents and pupils a couple of days later.

We asked him to leave the room so we could have a private meeting to discuss our next move. Many of us did not relish the idea of being carried down five flight of stairs, so we did leave under protest with a police escort, outside to the waiting media.

Nearly 2 years after the start of the camp to keep our secondary school Wycliffe within the community of Braunstone our children are still not receiving an education even though the LEA (Leicester Education Authority) are receiving funding for them. Government officials instructed the Labour run City Council to review education in Leicester using raising educational standards as the justification, they closed 6 school and 2 6th forms all situated on deprived working class estates. The LEA said our school was too small to be viable although all 6 schools are community colleges catering for all age groups. Through our campaign we managed to gain some concessions including keeping Wycliffe open for an extra year for 3 year groups taking GCSE's and SATs we also got free transport for those pupils that wanted to attend the so called super school which is just 2 buildings used as one. Since the start of term pupils determined not to be dictated to about what school they should attend have been turning up at Wycliffe every day demanding teaching staff and resources from the LEA. This has constantly been refused on the grounds that places were available at the superschool.

Parents and pupils had no choice in which school they would attend up until 2 weeks ago the LEA were threatening legal action but as parents undeterred by this they have had to relent. Direct action has now forced the LEA to offer alternative schools. For our campaign this is a small victory but ultimately we still want a local secondary school on the estate. However the campaign is far from over as even though we have been offered places at other schools the LEA are not as yet prepared to issue free bus passes. In effect my child can now attend a school of our choice but I cannot afford the £10 a week bus fares out of my single parent benefit. All children should be able to attend a school of their choice and receive free buses this will never be achieved until we have socialism.

Leicester Branch news Sept 1999

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AT WYCLIFFE SCHOOL

On the first day of the new term around 80 parents and pupils from Braunstone in Leicester carried out their threat of a civil disobedience. Despite massive opposition from the local communities, Leicester City Council went ahead with its plan to shut 6 secondary schools and build a new "Super school". Yet at one of the closed schools the campaign is still not over.

Tracy Woolman and Sue Hubbard, parents of Wycliffe children describe the latest events:

One of the concessions we have gained from our campaigning was to have Wycliffe remain open for a year as an annexe of the "super school" for three of the five year-groups that would have been at the school.

27 children from years seven and ten along with parents attended the Wycliffe site on Thursday, despite "instructions" from the LEA to go to the superschool. We understand that only about 14 from year ten obeyed the council!

We went into the college, sat in the community lounge and demanded to see the principal of the new school to arrange for teachers to be brought to Wycliffe to teach our children. Eventually she did turn up to try and talk us round to attend the new school but it didn't work out that way! We went through the motions of a meeting with her, then stated that we would be returning to Wycliffe every day and demand teachers for our children.

There was a lot of media coverage with the Leicester Mercury, Radio Leicester, East Midlands News and Central News and now the Times educational Supplement.

The atmosphere amongst the parents and pupils was great. Everybody is so determined to stick together and fight regardless of the consequences. The response has been amazing, and makes the last 18 months of campaign very worthwhile.

All the parents agreed to carry on the next day or until it was agreed to let the children stay at Wycliffe. We are preparing for a long campaign, and are arranging for the children to get some activities and work while we wait.