As a former student at UCL, I have only good memories of my time there. Its academic reputation is still rightly recognised around the world.

However like many parents and governors in Camden, I am dismayed that UCL has decided to join the government’s ‘academy’ programme by agreeing to sponsor a school in our area.

Academies are independent schools. They are effectively given in perpetuity to the sponsors in return for minimal sums of money or, in UCL’s case, none at all.

They are not bound by the legal framework that protects pupils’, parents’ and teachers’ rights in maintained state schools.

Sponsors have full control of academy governing bodies, which can exercise considerable freedom in areas like admissions, special needs, exclusions and, teachers pay and conditions.

The ‘funding agreement’ which dictates how they can run the school, is a confidential commercial contract negotiated behind closed doors between the secretary of state and the sponsor. Local people have no say in this process.

Camden has a strong track record of schools that work collaboratively, whether run by the local authority or voluntary aided. We also have no ‘failing’ secondary schools or schools with results below the government’s floor targets, which the government says should be the trigger for an academy.

However most have diverse intakes with a significant proportion of children from challenging backgrounds. They are well supported by governing bodies, representative of parents, teachers and other members of the local community , that are focussed on school improvement and play a vital role in keeping that collaborative ethos alive.

Most of those schools would also benefit from the sort of extra funding, input and support from academic staff and students that UCL boasts, in its latest glossy brochure, will only be available to its own school.

Bringing an academy into this borough will undermine the local family of schools and pose a direct threat to the schools nearest to the proposed site of the new academy.

UCL has already made it clear it would prefer not to abide the admissions criteria that apply to most Camden schools, nor will it commit to the School Teachers Pay and Conditions guidance that applies to all other schools.

The process by which UCL was ‘given’ this school was wholly undemocratic. The local authority refused to hold an open competition for the new school, largely because UCL stated publicly that it would refuse to enter, preferring to be simply ‘given’ the school in a backroom deal between the council and the Department for Children Schools and Families.

That decision is currently subject to a legal challenge supported by the Camden branch of the Campaign for State Education. The support of London students will be vital in our campaign to ensure that all our schools can continue to improve while remaining publicly accountable to the communities they serve and the tax payers who fund them.

Fiona Millar
Vice Chair
Camden Campaign for State Education

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