On Saturday over 500 people marched from Downhills Primary School in Tottenham to Haringey Civic Centre in Wood Green. Downhills is one of four primary schools in the borough faced with forced academisation by education secretary Michael Gove.
The marchers included staff, parents and pupils from the schools, joined by local residents and trade unionists from across North London. They were there to give an answer to Tory lies that schools like Downhills are failing their children and that putting the running of such schools into the hands of private companies is somehow a solution to the challenges that inner city schools face.
The demonstration made it very clear that people in Haringey are proud of their community schools - and that Gove and the Tories have no idea or any real concern for these challenges. But they are ideologically committed to academies and to putting them in the hands of their friends in big business like Tory golden-boy Lord Harris the Carpetright millionaire.
In truth though very few primary schools have become academies, and most significantly the private company who has been proposed to take over Downhills has no experience in running a primary school with the kid of social and ethnic make-up of the schools in Haringey. In fact academies have been proven to have no better record than local authority run schools; without a doubt it is proper funding not privatisation-by-another-name that schools like Downhills need.
It was no accident that the march ended with a short rally on the steps of the council offices - the marchers were clear that what they wanted was a community school run by elected representatives of the community - and not for profit.
Singalong with Downhills: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJgqGZydwOY
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