Riot at Salford Oasis Academy MediaCityUK over redundancies

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wojtek

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Joined: 8-01-11

Nov 10 2011 05:41

Quote:

"It was wild…It was like St Trinian's!" Oasis pupils
Last Tuesday the former Hope High School, now known as Oasis Academy MediaCityUK, exploded as pupils discovered that over a dozen of their teachers were to be made redundant.

Salford Star: SALFORD OASIS ACADEMY MEDIACITYUK RIOT OVER REDUNDANCIES

According to the Star, NUT members have since voted 'overwhelmingly' for strike action:

Salford Star: OASIS ACADEMY MEDIACITYUK TEACHERS VOTE TO STRIKE

'Oasis Community Learning', which owns the controversial academy as well as thirteen others, appears to have somewhat of a reputation:

Quote:

Oasis hit the headlines in October 2008 when it was reported that 150 pupils had ‘rampaged’ through the corridors of the new Oasis Academy Mayfield in Southampton. The pupils complained that promised improvements to the curriculum had not been delivered. The academy was created from the merger of Woolston and Grove Park schools and teachers complained that the split-site arrangements meant that contact with pupils had been lost. They also said the school’s management had been “arrogant” in refusing to listen to their views. Staff threatened to ballot for industrial action unless urgent changes were made to the way the school was organised. John Denham, the local Southampton MP and the former Communities Secretary, questioned whether the sponsor had the experience to run the school.
Ruth Johnson, the school’s principal at the time, who had claimed the incident was ‘very serious but exaggerated’, left the school less than a term after it had opened.

Oasis was chosen to run two Academies in Southampton over a bid from a consortium of local colleges, universities and businesses, even though the council’s own assessment found that the consortium was more likely to raise standards. A survey of local parents also favoured the consortium.

Oasis Academy - National Union of Teachers

Daily Echo: Ofsted inspectors called into Oasis Academy Mayfield

ernie

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Joined: 19-04-06

Nov 10 2011 11:49

Brilliant!

wojtek

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Joined: 8-01-11

Nov 12 2011 11:28

At the same time as making teachers redundant, Oasis are looking to recruit a chaplain*.

Quote:

Oasis Chaplain in Salford at Oasis Hub MediaCity
(Full time - including developing a church in partnership with the United Reformed Church as part of the Oasis Hub)

Job Vacancy - Oasis Chaplains in Bristol and Salford

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This week, Salford Star has received an anonymous letter, obviously from someone well placed within Oasis Academy MediaCityUK, formerly Hope High School. It contains a whole string of allegations about the school's management, including bullying of staff, profiteering by the school sponsor, exam corruption and sexism.
We can't prove whether any of it is true because academies appear to be a law unto themselves. Outside of local council control, and - we found out this week - outside of the control of the Charities Commission (even though a charity), it's virtually impossible to hold these schools to account. Yet they receive vast amounts of public money.

NORTH WEST ANTI ACADEMIES CONFERENCE

*the dude who founded Oasis is an evangelist, albeit a dissenting one.

Wellclose Square

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Joined: 9-05-08

Nov 12 2011 11:57

Yes, his holiness Steve Chalke parachuted into Woolston School... sorry, Oasis Academy Mayfield, after the mini-riot there.

wojtek

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Joined: 8-01-11

Nov 23 2011 21:49

So the strike went ahead yesterday, but there didn't seem to be any more co-ordinated action between the teachers and students.

OASIS ACADEMY MEDIACITYUK SALFORD SHUT DOWN

Entdinglichung

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Joined: 2-07-08

Dec 7 2011 09:27

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15862

Quote:

Teachers at an Oasis academy have said they will continue to strike for four more days in the next two weeks, following last week’s national strike.
The strike action is in response to 13 planned redundancies – 10 of them teachers at the school - which unions say are being pushed through without proper consultation.

News of the planned redundancies to a fifth of the teaching staff led to a pupil riot at the school a few weeks ago, following which ten pupils were excluded.

The Christian group Oasis is one of the largest multi-Academy sponsors in England, with 14 Academies currently open and more in development.

Anti-academy campaigners say that the number of senior managers in Oasis has soared over the last year, with 42 staff in the Oasis chain on more than £60,000 per year, between them taking home at least £3,120,000.

Unions NUT and NASUWT voted last month to take the strike action.

Debs Gwyn a former NUT representative at Media City said: “Relations with Oasis were strained from the start of the Academy project. The staff were told by the then Director of Children’s Services, Jill Baker, that unless we accepted academy status the school would close.

“When Oasis issued their proposed academy structure in 2008 they were planning to make 18 teachers (nearly 25 per cent of the teaching staff) redundant. The unions negotiated four voluntary enhanced packages and no further job losses.

“When the academy opened in September 2008 there were hardly any policies available to or agreed by the unions. We were promised a new build by 2010 but the school is not moving into its new premises until September 2012 at the earliest.

“It became clear to me that Oasis had a business model of how they wanted their Academies to operate and they did not consider local factors or characteristics of the predecessor school.”

The school said in a statement to parents: "We will continue to meet the teaching unions to try to fully resolve the issues."