Author: Wendy Varley
Education Reforms: Response to Beynon Letter in The Independent
Friday, 18th April, 2008 at 5:24 pm, Isle of Wight
Many thanks to Island parent, Wendy Varley for sending in her response to Steve Beynon’s letter in The Independent this week. Ed
The appearance in yesterday’s The Independent of a letter from Steve Beynon, Director of Children’s Services at Isle of Wight Council, taking issue with the article they ran on 13 March about the schools reorganisation begs the question: if he was unhappy with the article, why did he wait a month to raise it with them?
Back in March Beynon told teachers that the council had complained to the The Independent, but as The Isle of Wight County Press reported last week (11 April, p3):
….
The paper said on Wednesday it had received no complaint regarding the story. A spokesman for the IW Council admitted a letter rebutting several points in the Independent article was drafted but not sent because of an administrative error.
That’s quite some administrative error that it was only spotted a month after The Independent’s article appeared, when the CP happened to enquire. So now that Beynon has finally sent his letter to The Independent, what does he say?
Education letters: Fight on Wight over closures
Thursday, 17 April 2008ISLE OF WIGHT REPLIES
I would like to take issue with your article “Save Our Schools: Fight on Wight Over Closures” (EDUCATION & CAREERS, 13 March). You say that money is a major reason for our plans to reorganise education on the Isle of Wight. In fact, the reorganisation is solely about improving results. While the council does want a fairer distribution of resources between schools, we have made it clear that all money released during this process will be used to improve services for the children.Our proposals for closing almost half of the 46 primary schools are very much a first draft. There is room for manoeuvre and the number of eventual closures may very well be nowhere near as drastic.
The assertion that thousands of people have attended rallies outside council buildings in Newport is false. To date, there has only been one rally in Newport and police estimates were a maximum of 1,200 people in attendance.
The comments I made that appear to be critical of the leadership of heads were made in response to a question about why the issue of surplus places and very small schools had not been addressed by the education authority before. I was describing how we had arrived at our current position and was not at any point critical of schools or heads.
It is incorrect to say that many teachers “summoned” to a meeting to hear the potential fate of schools wept openly. Besides the emotive use of the word “summoned” (this was the second meeting to which head teachers were invited and they were already aware of the proposals), no heads “wept” openly, to our knowledge.
In fact, the majority of heads support reorganisation and many are critical that the step has not been taken sooner.
Furthermore, the council’s press office has not been “put in the unusual position of highlighting deficiencies in the island’s education system to justify the need for change.” Council policy is that school reorganisation is necessary to improve unacceptable standards.
The press officer’s comments were to give the writer, Steve McCormack, an overall picture of the options and the reasons for them. They were given in response to a question about whether the reorganisation was to tackle surplus places and save money – and they were not “unprompted”.
Steve Beynon, Director of children’s services, Isle of Wight
We expect the journalist will have a right of reply, but for the thousands (it’s a number between “hundreds” and “tens of thousands”) of people who attended the three (yes, three: 25 January, 26 January, 15 March) rallies in Newport it will be a surprise to hear Beynon claim that there was only one.
Those who heard Steve Beynon, David Pugh and Alan Wells speak at the public consultation meetings and on Isle of Wight Radio might have got the impression that the reorganisation is not solely about improving results.
And it would be interesting to know what headteachers think about Beynon’s recollection of the January meeting when the list of proposed school closures was distributed.
What do you think?
Read the original article from The Independent
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April 18th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 8:05 pm
That’s a pretty feeble response given that, as Wendy points out, he’s had a month to think of it, in which case you might expect it to be more accurate. You can imagine the exchange in class:
“Beynon, your homework’s late!”
“Sorry sir, the dog ate it.”
“What! Again? You really must try to control that dog of yours Beynon. It’s a Pug isn’t it? Nasty yappy little things, and if the smell’s anything to go by, he’s been widdling on your shoes again, too. Don’t sit yet down yet, Beynon - this maths of yours is appalling; you don’t even seem to be able count up to three yet. There were at least six demonstrations altogether - yes, I know you have to use both hands. How do you expect to get a decent job when you leave? I suppose you’ll just have to go into local government, like the rest…”
April 19th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 7:04 pm
What Mr Beynon, Director of children’s services, Isle of Wight has failed to include in his homework are facts. He goes on and on about “plans” but no figures are drawn out either are their justifiable answers to anybody’s questions teacher or parents involved in the closure of schools. Quotes from the police about how many people were available for rally against the closure; what a joke quotes from the IOW police force. Is that the only emergency council on the island capable of being a watchdog of the Council’s actions. What has Beynon to say about alienating the young community and furthermore if he is the Director of children’s services, did he conduct a survey by the children asking them if they felt that the schools they were attending lacked or made them unhappy, after all it is thier services that he is sworn in to gaurd and regulate. Seems Beynon hasn’t only not done his homework but he doesn’t even know what his job is. I move that someone either ellect a person who has children (does this guy even have children) to be elected as director of children services. Education is paramount no matter what level but as you can see from an un-educated man his childhood may have been just as deprived as he is making it for younsters on the island in the hopes of filling the holes in his pocket and others on the council.
April 19th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 7:36 pm
I’d heard he has got kids, and also that they don’t live on the Island or go to school here. Might be wrong.
April 19th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 8:30 pm
Nice one, Wendy. Nice one, James. (More pugwash..).
Oh dear, more things that don’t ring true - or is the Island’s Education Service really not aware of the number of official rallies/demonstrations that took place to protest at its proposals? ‘Tell us your views,’ they said in the glossy brochure (adding, in invisible ink,’as long as they fit with ours.’)
Mr Beynon states that the re-organisation is not about money but solely about improving results. How come then that, as I understand it, those currently in charge of the project at County Hall have been seconded from the following depts:
i) Finance
ii) Property & Premises?
And the sad thing is that those who set up the present system & Middle Schools really did have impressive backgrounds in Education, with high-powered academic qualifications and deep commitments to educational reform.
April 20th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 11:50 am
As usual a somewhat selective account but what one has come to expect. The reasons for the Council’s actions as stated by SB (improving results) are correct but what has never been explained is how the reorganisation proposed by the leader, being a mixture of Options 1 and 3, will actually achieve this.
Concerning rallies: I am aware of 6, two of which were in Newport but I must assume that the director was on the mainland at these times and probably missed the reports on BBC, Meridian news various national newspapers and the internet.
Regarding what happened at teachers and headteachers meetings (no apostrophes as the meetings did not belong to the teachers). What happened at and after these has been reported by many of those present, apparently risking future work to keep parents and the public informed.
There is no mention of the constantly changing data during the unofficial consultation period, the numerous conflicting statements made by leading local politicians or the disregard of the three options originally set by the council and the choice of a hybrid solution formulated by the leader at the last moment which officers are now trying hard to explain and justify.
April 20th, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 5:27 pm
I see that ‘Gladys’ Pugh is now berating fellow councillors for failing to hand in their own homework, a compulsory 300-word essay on ‘what we did last year’. Gladys has handed in hers, of course, and like all swots, wants to improve her position by pointing out all the others who haven’t (I imagine the voice of Elizabeth Bott, saying “Pleath thir, I’ve finithed mine!”).
But what is in her report, I wonder? Has she ‘fessed up about the number of pork pies she had to come up with to get anyone to come to her party, a dismal affair where the girls in blue frocks bagged all the trifle, and the ones in red and yellow tried to stop them by throwing bread rolls, but without any effect? Will it explain how much trouble she had with her arithmetic on the question of spare places, which everyone else found so easy, and how Mr Knight, the headmaster, had to give her some special coaching? Or will she just go on pretending that she was doing really well and how much everyone liked her? I think I can guess…
April 21st, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 3:13 pm
I particularly like this bit;
“Our proposals for closing almost half of the 46 primary schools are very much a first draft. There is room for manoeuvre and the number of eventual closures may very well be nowhere near as drastic.”
By this, I assume he means that just because they have decided to do something deeply undesirable, don’t worry, maybe they will change their mind. In fact, he only said it to give himself the opportunity to change his mind. By the way, when you say something is drastic, does this not infer that it is by definition undesirable?
April 21st, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 5:27 pm
You’ll note he says ‘ARE very much a first draft’.
That’s a bit worrying, considering that the council has already voted on these plans which, it would now appear, are still in the back-of-envelope stage!
The whole business of threatening something drastic (that’s bad drastic, BTW), only to remove some of the threat later, and expecting us all to be grateful, is an old Stalinist tactic. I suppose it worked then, but you’d think we might have moved on a bit by now. Perhaps we should refer to our departing chief executive as ‘Uncle Joe’ from now on…
April 21st, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 6:11 pm
Re point 8, I think he is referring to the original proposals (bear in mind The Independent’s article which he’s arguing about was published on March 13th, pre the council vote).
April 21st, 2008 (4 weeks ago) at 9:16 pm
I take your point, Wendy, but why then did he say ‘are’ in a letter written a month later? Carelessness, probably, but that encapsulates the problem - if he can’t count or get his tenses right, should he be allowed anywhere near the education brief?
April 24th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 9:26 am
[…] 24th April, 2008 (5 seconds ago) at 9:26 am (5 seconds ago), Isle of Wight Good to see some responses in today’s Indepedent newspaper by two residents of the Isle of wight, Wendy Varley and […]
April 26th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 5:56 pm
Excellent letters, Wendy and Rupert. Good to see the story being kept alive in the national press. I suppose we’ll have to wait another month for Mr Beynon to sharpen his pencil and tear another sheet out of his exercise book to reply with…
Some readers may have noticed that my piece about Gladys Pugh (item 6 above) has found its way into the CP, except that the editor has seen fit to change her gender, and edit out the bits that rather relied on her girlishness (thus destroying most of the insult).
Dear old auntie CP - they must know that they can’t be held responsible for the content of published letters, but somehow they still can’t quite bring themselves to print anything that might offend our masters in County Hall, however foolish their behaviour. Or perhaps they just thought I’d made a mistake!
April 27th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 4:06 pm
It’s a little bit worrying, to say the least, if the editorial team of the CP feels it is within their rights to change actual words in letters sent for publication.
I can understand them editing letters down in length, but to actually alter the language is a little bit suspect.
It naturally brings into question the publication of other people’s letters published in the newspaper.
April 27th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 11:31 pm
I agree entirely, Sal, but I’ve got used to the CP editing the humour out of my letters. Some years ago, Barry Field (our then MP) used parliamentary privilege to make some remark that would have been libellous if made outside or in print, so I wrote about this, saying that “it wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on”. The double negative was too much for the editor, who not only removed the second one, but used the now lifeless phrase as the heading!
What does annoy me is their reluctance (or inability) to investigate anything to do with County Hall. The pressure groups have been spending a fortune recently on advertisements pointing out the flaws in their education reform arguments, all of which could (and should) have been investigated and reported on by the CP’s own staff. However, they are either too deferential or too lazy to do it - as Laurie Say pointed out nearly 40 years ago: “The County Press prints all the local news that’s fit to write, like births and deaths and marriages, and what Woodnutt said last night”
April 28th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 12:04 pm
re Sal’s comment - to actually alter the language is a little bit suspect.
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LOL - you want to try writing to the sun newspaper.
they routinely rewrite letters.
the worst thing is that, like the iwcp in regard to mr pickett, they edit out applebanana’s wry wit and substitute leaden alternatives.
anyway, i’ve more or less given up writing to the sun since they stopped paying by postal order for each letter so i could no longer use a variety of names.
now they pay by cheque and only for one special letter in each issue (£50 - which would come in handy, tho’ i’ve yet to be picked for this richly remunerated rôle on the letters page)
April 28th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 3:56 pm
Just catching up here. To be fair James (your point 14), the CP did investigate the Beynon letter (or lack of) and challenge the council on it.
So much news, even at national level, is about responding to press releases, or reacting to events. Just watch any news bulletin and try and find anything that doesn’t come into those categories. Investigative journalism is quite a rarity unfortunately.
April 28th, 2008 (3 weeks ago) at 5:57 pm
I know I’m biased, but I just feel that the CP missed an opportunity to call Pugh and Co to account, preferring to leave it to the pressure groups to take (expensive) paid space in their paper. The issue roused lots of public indignation, of course, which gave them plenty of free copy, so I expect it was trebles all round at the Wheatsheaf!
As it happens, I wrote a cutting but carefully worded letter about Pugh’s relationship with the truth, in time to appear in the last issue before the Council vote. It didn’t get published, of course. I noticed, too, that when Charlotte Hofton wrote a deliciously barbed report on some earlier Council proceedings (also about education) that it got held over ‘for reasons of space’. My last CP was in about 14 bits, so I’m not sure how space is at a premium!
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me…