[Education For Tomorrow: No 100, 2009]
How we fought the closure of Sinfin Community School
and the opening of the Derby Academy
In October 2007, Derby City Council announced that it intended to close down Sinfin Community School and replace it with an academy, later to be known as 'The Derby Academy'. Despite union opposition, in May 2008 The Council signed the Expression of Interest document with the DCSF and the private sponsor, Derby College, prepared to take over the school from September 2009 onwards. The governors were passive bystanders. However, in January 2009, Derby City Council abandoned its academy plans. The future of the school is still uncertain — it may become a National Challenge Trust or it may remain as a Community School. However, anti-academy campaigners in Derby have still achieved a significant victory.
At the beginning of the anti-academy campaign, opposition to the Academy was confined to a handful of trade union officials and staff at Sinfin Community School. By the end of the campaign, thousands of Derby residents had opposed the Academy either in meetings or in writing; the governors had publicly opposed the academy plans and the teacher unions had taken eight days of strike action and been on continuous action short of strike action for eight months.
The Council's public consultation returns showed that 89.8 per cent of people who responded opposed the closure of the school and the opening of The Academy. Only 6.5 per cent of the respondents supported the academy. Many more people, who didn't participate in the consultation, signed a petition opposing the academy.
How was this turnaround achieved? There were several factors which were crucial to our success.
Taking the campaign into the labour movement
Before we went public with our campaign, we took it into the Labour Movement. From October 2007 — February 2008, we concentrated on winning the arguments on Derby Trades Council against the Academy and ensuring that the Midlands TUC had a policy of opposition to Academies in Derby, via a resolution moved successfully by Derby Trades Council. The significance of this is that academies are part of the New Labour Project not just nationally, but in cities such as Derby. Trade union activists in Derby needed to be won over to the argument that academies are not an attempt to improve education for working-class children, but represent an attack on the working class, and should be seen as part and parcel of the privatisation of services such as Health, Children's Services and other local authority and national services on which working people rely. We spent as much time at the beginning of our campaign arguing and lobbying City Council meetings about the Local Education Partnership (LEP), the network of contracting and sub-contracting which is the vehicle for the privatisation of local authority provision, as we did academies. By doing this, we hoped to achieve the support of trade unionists outside the Education Sector — which happened.
The importance of industrial action
NASUWT took seven days of strike action (one of which was jointly with the NUT) and was on continuous action short of strike action for eight months. This was crucial to making Sinfin Community School and the proposed academy a major issue in Derby and also convincing the school governing body to abandon support for the academy proposals. In November 2008, the governors wrote to parents explaining why they now opposed the academy. The first point they made was:
'It seems apparent that the overwhelming level of staff opposition to the proposals is likely to lead to lengthy and intractable disputes that will damage the quality of education in the short to medium term. The governors have publicly criticised the strike action but are not in a position to prevent further action. In addition, if large numbers of staff leave as they appear intent on doing it will also destabilise the recent improvement trend and future prospects.'
Building as wide a coalition as possible of community groups, parents and trade unions
In February 2008, Derby public sector unions inaugurated Derby Against Privatisation, which quickly became a community group, led by community activists. Derby Against Privatisation held a crucial meeting In June 2008, attended by over 100 local residents who voted unanimously against the academy proposals. This kick-started the anti-academy campaign. Opposition to the academy and Education privatisation was a key feature of the trades unions' Derby May Day Rally in 2008 and by December 2008, many of Derby's community groups, Sikh temples and mosques were organising members against the academy and in defence of their community school.
A non-sectarian alliance of trade unions at school and local authority level
This was crucial in achieving victory. A very large amount of campaigning and lobbying was carried out, particularly but not exclusively by NASUWT, NUT and UNISON members, and no single union took precedence over another. Derby Trades Council produced joint campaigning material which all unions used, alongside individual trade union branded material. A Joint School Works Committee coordinated school trade union reps and the unions co-operated in ensuring that trade union speakers were available for media interviews. In the current competitive climate of teacher trade unionism, we consider that unity in Derby was one of our successes.
Derby NASUWT Branch Executive Committee
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