Furious parents occupy the lobby of venture capitalist firm.

Guido | 14.03.2008 21:56 | Education | Social Struggles | London

On Wednesday parents from Pimlico School decided that petitioning and letter writing just was not getting them anywhere. For months they have been campaigning against the take over of their school by Venture Capitalist firm John Nash. Their views have been ignored by Westiminster council so they decided to occupy the offices of Mr Nash instead. The lone security guard made a pretty halfhearted attempt at trying to remove them and their banner from the building. An unbelievably smarmy executive from the firm by the name of David Johnson came out and tried to reason with the protesters with some of the weakest arguments in the history of debate. Having achieved nothing other than making a tit of himself on camera he scuttled back to hide in his office. At this point one of the neighbours who was unconnected to the firm or indeed the building tried to intervene by attacking a woman by the door and then my camera. Fortunately for him there was no damage thus negating the need to take retaliatory action on his front teeth. Then the cops showed up and were informed by the protesters that this was a simple case of trespass and therefore a civil matter. After consulting the regular occupants of the office the Police listened to the protesters concerns and then left them to it. Mr Nash must have wisely decided that getting parents from the school he is trying to acquire arrested was a PR disaster too far. So a successful occupation, no arrests and serious cause for concern for an office located on the ground floor of number 25 Buckingham Gate….oops.

Its very well handing out leaflets in the rain...

...but its warmer inside and there is only one security guard.

Nauseating suit Mr David Johnson intervenes...

...and completely fails to win hearts and minds.

Then Mr Haveagohero shows up....

...and assaults a woman by the door before attacking yours-truly.

This prick has serious issues to deal with.

The Police show up....

...and listen to the parents concerns...

...before leaving them to it. Result!

TEXT FROM PROTESTERS CAMPAIGN LEAFLET:

Despite overwhelming opposition by parents, students and staff, Westminster is pushing ahead with its plans to turn Pimlico into a City Academy. Westminster plans to hand the school to a sponsor called Future, a charity set up by venture capitalist John Nash. In return for an investment of only 2 million pounds Westminster intends to sell Future a brand new 35 million pound school and a site worth many millions, on a 125-year lease!

The Academy can:
a) Impose a new head teacher without consultation with parents and staff.
b) Change (i.e. worsen) the pay and conditions of teaching and non-teaching staff.
c) Appoint the governing body with only token parent and staff representation.
d) As a result all democratic accountability is lost.
e) Change future admissions criteria.
f) Operate outside the education law.
g) Opt out of key aspects of the national curriculum.

Academies in Westminster have been a disaster, consistently failing to live up to any of their promises. They have seen 70% of staff leave, and experienced (“expensive”) replaced by inexperienced staff on short-term contracts.

JOHN NASH and FUTURE
In his bid to take over Pimlico School, John Nash appears to be making use of his close links with the Conservative group that controls Westminster council. He is a party donor and has sat on various policy review bodies with Westminster Councillors.

FUTURE gives grants to organizations involved in supplementary extra-curricular activities.

FUTURE has no experience of running a large inner city comprehensive secondary school.

The Save Pimlico School Campaign intends to fight these plans at every opportunity.

We need your help to defeat them. Our website is: www.pimlicopsa.org.uk

Guido
e-mail: guidoreports@riseup.net

Additions

gender bias?

15.03.2008 11:34

for some indication of where John Nash is coming from its worth having a look at this link to the website of his company Sovereign Capital. if you scroll right down to the bottom there is actually a woman in the team- classic!

http://www.sovereigncapital.co.uk/team.html

Sovereign Capital are also involved in funding firms that want to bid for NHS contracts

hildy

15.03.2008 17:27

A film of the above action and the wider issues will be released soon on the next issue of Reel News. The previous issue also carried a short film on the subject. You can see the trailer here:

http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Guido
mail e-mail: guidoreports@riseup.net

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Cor blimey, nice one, what a sexy copper,whoes the idiot in the red?

15.03.2008 08:35

Cor blimey, nice one, what a sexy copper good result,
whoes the idiot in the red?
should have been arrested,
looked like a spoilt drunk rich boy yob to me.
Should be ashamed of himself

green syndicalist

Padraic Finn

15.03.2008 20:45

Pimlico School was put into Special Measures in Novermber 2006 as a ruse to give Westminster City Council contol of the school.

Council Leader Sir Simon Milton then announced that the school was going to be handed over to one of his mates and a donor to the Tory Party, John Nash of Sovereign Capital and his recently formed charity, Future. If this is agreed by Minster for Schools Jim Knight, (who refused to meet the Save Pimlico School Campaign, preferring to hand responsibility to the unelected Lord Adonis) then Nash/Sovereign/Future is to be given total control of the school, a £35m new building paid for out of our taxes and a 125 year lease on 4 acres of the most valuable land in Europe.

Meanwhile the school got its best ever results in 2007 - 50% A-C grades, is about to come out of special measures and recently got an "excellent" verdict on the 6th Form from Inspectors who said the staff were great, the students held them in high regard and that if they were going into teaching, they would want to work in Pimlico.

Since taking it over from the Inner London Education Authority in 1990, Westminster City Council have hated Pimlico School because of its liberal ethos and that it takes pupils from out of the borough and so have starved it of funds. Ten years ago parents, staff and students fought off a previous attempt to privatise the school under a New Labour PFI scheme which would have given over 25% of the site to luxury flats.

Like their Mayoral Candidate, Boris Johnson, Conservative Westminster City Council don't want black, asian or white working class pupils in their schools but want to create academies for the middle class incomers attracted by their housing policies. Anybody remember the "Homes for Votes" scandal??

Padraic Finn
mail e-mail: padraic.finn@btinternet.com

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