Parents who attended the meeting on Monday would have been amazed at many things that happened, but aside from the sheer smugness and single minded attitude, one that seems to be causing the most upset currently was the comments made by Cllr Burt regarding the references made to the loss of faith in the council due to the actions and style of a number of individuals – and mention of a senior officer convicted of a disgraceful crime.
Please see attached letter as an example of how people are feeling:
CC Neil Davies, Rodney Chambers
Sir,
You may remember that I was amongst those who spoke at the above meeting. In previous meetings I have noted that you are often the voice of reason and whilst you obviously don’t always agree with what is being said you can normally be depended upon to at least see that things are dealt with in an even handed and appropriate way.
I was therefore stunned, and frankly disgusted when you, through the chair, reprimanded Mr Simon Hall for talking about the man who was the architect of the academy proposal as being recently convicted of a disgraceful crime. Note: He did not name DEAN WALLER – although we all knew who he meant, especially those of us who have met him and witnessed him in action at our children’s schools. Mr Hall, after all, was simply trying to explain why he had lost faith in the council and what could be done to help resolve that.
Of course it’s personal – this man abused his position of power, we suspected all along that there was a hidden agenda, but none of supposed it was of such a dark and disturbing nature.
There was reprehensible behaviour at that meeting, but not from Mr Hall.
I think mature reflection will show that your comments were at best ill thought out and at worse inappropriate, shame on you and those who nodded and murmured their conspiratorial agreement.
I think it would be appropriate for you to offer an apology for this publicly, perhaps at the next meeting or perhaps to Mr Hall directly, since it was he who had the courage to mention the “unmentionable” – the council seem happy to pretend that DEAN WALLER did not exist, we as parents of children in Mr Waller’s “preferred category” wish we had that luxury.
I attended the Overview & Scrutiny on Monday evening and was deeply upset by your comments in relation to Mr Simon Hall, a parent of a daughter at Chapter School. Mr Hall did not give the man's name, but we all know this to be Dean Waller, who today received a custodial sentence of 12 months at Maidstone Crown Court. How dare you defend this man - this is the man that possessed over 4000 indecent images of young children, many of which have been described as the most serious kind, the same man that interviewed my 12 year old daughter at Chapter school along with other girls on the School's Council - the same man who oggled my 13 year old daughter when we sat at the second consultation meeting at Chapter School, my daughter referred to him as a 'pervert' as he was looking up her skirt from his position on the stage, we were seated on the front row in the Hall - I defended Waller telling her that she must have been mistaken - how does that make me feel now? How does it make you feel as a councillor for the children's services? How does it make you feel now that he has been sentenced?
Fact – The Childrens Services Dept received a CPA rating of only 2 in each of the past 3 years. A rating of 2 is only “Fair” and it is simply not good enough that we should have to accept this for our children.
Fact – Over and over senior officers of this department roll out the same old tired soundbites. They sound more like politicians then paid employees that should be held to account. “Must do the best for all children”, “Urgent need to address the situation” and “Every child matters” are all well and good but the people saying this are the ones who have got us into this state and are responsible for all that is wrong in the dept.
Fact – Ms Collinson constantly states her own beliefs as if they were fact when, after investigations are carried out, prove to be untrue. An example of this is her statement, verbally at many meetings and also in print that there is an “Absolute requirement” to advertise the post of Principal to the Academy when in fact the DCSF have confirmed that this is guidance only and the decision as to whether the academy advertises or appoints one of the existing heads lies solely within the academies power
Fact – Dean Waller was 3rd in charge of this department and was the architect of the plan to close both Temple and Chapter schools and to re-open them as an Academy.
Fact – He attended both schools on many occasions, not only for the public consultations but also to talk to the staff and on another occasion to talk directly to the pupils.
Fast – Dean Waller pleaded guilty to truly horrendous charges and will now serve 12 months in prison. This man was appointed by this department and allowed to work with our children
Given these facts I should like to know why you believe that it is fair to state in public that a concerned parent who does not trust this department for the reasons above and many others is guilty of reprehensible behaviour. Do you think so little of Dean Wallers crimes? Or are you trying to brush it under the carpet? Do you not believe in the freedom of speech?
You owe Mr Hall a public apology. If this isn’t forthcoming we shall have to question your motives with the local media whom I am sure would be interested in asking you these same questions and printing your response
Our first SOCK meeting back in October last year agreed that we would support the proposal of an academy in Strood and that our campaign would be about the transition between two single sex schools into one co-educational academy.
We therefore were dismayed that at last nights overview and scrutiny meeting the Conservative committee members singularly failed to address anything remotely concerned with the extremely important point of transition, but instead, took the opportunity to gain political points over Labour by attacking them over and over again. Just what is important to these councillors? The future of our children or gaining a political point? Shamefully, for the Conservative members of the committee, last night we found out. They are not interested in our children. Just in scoring political points.
We were also disgusted by the inference that SOCK was being used by Labour as puppets in a political game. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have turned to Bill Esterson on the very logical basis that he is the childrens services spokesperson for Labour and we needed help and advice in appealing against a Conservative led ill-informed proposal.
In our opinion, none of the Conservative councillors are fit to hold their posts and should resign forthwith. A naive view I know as there doesn’t seem to be an ounce of integrity between them.
Regards
Shane Hadley
Chair – SOCK
First of all a big thanks to those who came along to the overview and scrutiny meeting tonight; you witnessed possibly the most bizarre demonstration of how our council handles itself.
They all applauded and congratulated themselves for agreeing with what was being asked for, then poured scorn on those who spoke asking for it.
We said – we want the Adonis letter to become part of the decision part of the council minutes then we could support it – they said good to hear that SOCK finally support the academy (shame they never bothered to listen to all the times we said we did), they argued amongst themselves as to if the letter had already been included, agreed that it was, but wasn’t in the decision, but was in the minutes, confused each other about what that meant, and then voted to agree that they didn’t need to do anything – a masterful game of administrative blind mans buff.
This is all despite the fact that at the top of the meeting, in a rare moment of clarity, the officers stated that it didn’t really matter what the letter said since they would not look to enforce it because that would “tether” the new academy into doing something a certain way, which is exactly what Lord Adonis wants and what most of the councillors congratulated themselves on having!.
We heard again, we have to appoint a new principal – so the challenge is SHOW ME WHERE THAT IS WRITTEN, because the DCSF need to look it up as well.
While this was going on we heard one of the most spectacularly inarticulate presentations by a councillor ever, who offered to show us a piece of paper which was apparently a print of a website of a prospective parliamentary candidate, who wasn’t at the meeting, hadn’t been quoted at the meeting and was not in the least bit relevant to anything that was said. 5 minutes of very worthy input there!
The same councillor then sat down and became a heckler in the style of “Statler and Waldorf” (the two old guys in the box on the Muppet show) – how dare she start to tell me what I thought and what I said, how dare she challenge my motivations about the delivery of the petition (note – no reference to what it said or how many people signed it), you want to know what I think (I guess there is always a 1st) – then come to the meetings you were invited to, respond to the mails you were sent, invite voters from your ward to talk to you, instead of sitting down and muttering rubbish to an audience of people too polite and too professional to tell you what an idiot you were making of yourself.
The political speech you made – apparently aimed at some of the committee but in reality a thinly veiled attack on the SOCK campaigners will make an interesting conversation topic when next you hold a surgery for people to come along and talk to you, their elected representative – when exactly is that Cllr Etheridge?
The facts are – we asked Cllr Esterson how to present the 1st part of the petition since we were getting NO response from the people who have a duty to listen to us. – he told us the process and presented for us.
We then deliberately chose one of our own WARD councillors to present the next section for us (a councillor in the same ward and party affiliation as “statler”, who initially declined and the reluctantly agreed to present, then actually at the meeting, found a number of reasons for not doing so including “I might not recognise you (clue look for the people in the SOCK T Shirts) – we approached Cllr Esterson as he walked through the door otherwise it would have never made it to council.
So as to making it political – our hand was forced by the fact that the people who were supposed to represent us failed.
Perhaps it is a deliberate attempt to undermine the campaign – however I do like to believe the in the maxim of Robert Heinlein: "Never assign to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity."
More when we have read the minutes of the meeting and made sense of the double talk.
I close with a reminder, SOCK is business as usual and the next meeting is Tuesday 18th at the school 7:00pm.
Many thanks to those of you who are watching the campaign pages on this site and on the sockcampaign homepage you are obviously interested in how the council progress this situation.
A reminder - we need your support at the Corn Exchange tomorrow evening - we will be there from 6:30 pm onwards - it starts at 7:00pm - once again the council need to see how the people feel.
Hello blog watchers, another month another meeting - as advertised previously on this blog the councils decision has been "called-in" - roughly translated to be "they have been asked to take another look" and once again SOCK have been asked to speak at the meeting.
This is our 1st real chance to give a considered response to the cabinet's decision, as we said it at the time we see it as real progress, but we aren't done yet - we want the council to give us some definite commitment on some things and we will be talking about them at the meeting.
SO - WE NEED YOU TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT AGAIN - WE NEED YOU TO COME ALONG TO THE OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE MEETING ON MONDAY
Details in the following letter from SOCK - please please please keep coming along, we are making progress, this proposal would look a lot different without your help.
Dear Parents
Thanks so much for your fantastic support for the SOCK campaign. The Council were really worried by the 400 plus people that turned up at the main cabinet meeting and we need you to help us worry them again at the next Overview & Scrutiny meeting. This is where the Labour group have called back the decision and it gives them and us another opportunity to state our case. Once again, if we don’t turn up with lots of support they will believe that they have won and will plough ahead with their plans, at whatever cost to our children, currently going to Chapter school. Please come along with your children and support the school. We will be meeting at the Corn Exchange from 6:30pm onwards and the meeting is due to start at 7:00pm
The Council admits that Medway has never before witnessed such a passionate campaign with huge press coverage and interest along with the commitment of hundreds of people willing to give up their time to demonstrate their support. Over and over we have told the council that what they fail to understand is that they are threatening our children and nothing motivates people as much as protecting their children. The Council have to be forced to understand that they will continue to receive very bad press coverage until they meet our demands
As we have already stated, you are all most welcome to attend our meetings which we hold at the school every 2nd Tuesday evening at 7:00pm during term time with our next meeting being on 18th March. If you are unable to attend, send me an email at sock@chapterschool.com and I will keep you up to date with the latest news.
Shane Hadley
Chair - SOCK
I asked the DCSF a question about what the rules were regarding the appointment of a new principal when an academy is formed, since I was lead to believe that it was an “absolute requirement” that the post of principal was advertised nationally.
He is the response I received from the DCSF:
| Thank you for your e-mail dated 19 February, about setting up an Academy. |
| Yours sincerely
Susan Hall |
There is a site that has some more details about academies and the process for setting them up. If you are interested you can take a look at this link
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