NEU demonstration and rally in Hastings, East Sussex, on March 22 2025

SussexWorld

Transcript

00:00Okay good morning everybody so as Jenny said I'm the lead union rep for all of the members who work

00:06for the University of Brighton Academies Trust and what I wanted to do to start off today is

00:11just tell you the story of how we got to where we are and what it is that the National Education

00:17Union thinks should be happening for the schools in our local community in Hastings. Last year I

00:23was called into a meeting with my head teacher and I was told that there were some fairly serious

00:28spending cuts coming our way. We were looking at not being able to have local supply, we were not

00:36looking at counselling services for students, cuts to provision etc and we asked how on earth

00:41can it be the case that these essential services are being cut in our schools where they are needed

00:47the most. Now it turned out that the problem was not our school or our school leadership,

00:53the problem that we had was that the Academy Trust that runs not only Hastings Academy but

00:58St Leonard's Academy, the Baird, Churchwood, other schools in Hastings was taking a huge amount of

01:05money out of those schools and using it on a bloated central team. We pushed back and we

01:11wanted to say that this is absolutely unacceptable use of public money. An average Academy Trust

01:17takes somewhere between four to seven percent of a school's budget and they use that for central

01:22services, HR etc. The University of Brighton Academies Trust was taking an average of 14 percent

01:29of school budgets and in some cases they were taking up to 25 percent of a school's budget to

01:35pay for their central team in Hastings. What was that money being spent on? Nothing useful, I'll tell

01:41you that. It was going towards bloated executive pay, a CEO on over

01:49200,000 pounds a year who had no discernible impact on the quality of education that our

01:54young people were getting. They were spending nearly a million pounds on marketing. I don't

01:59want posters on the side of buses, I want resources for the students that I'm teaching.

02:04It's an absolute farce. And they were also spending a huge amount of money on external

02:10consultants to come in and give them advice about how they should do their job. I'm sorry but if

02:14you're on a hundred thousand pounds plus I'm hoping you can make your own decisions rather

02:17than spending more public money on external consultants. I will now read Helena's message.

02:24She says thank you to everyone here who has come up today to support our brilliant local teachers

02:30and school staff. I'm sorry that I'm not able to join you all but I want to thank the National

02:36Education Union and our other local teaching unions for their work in exposing the scandal

02:43at the University of Brighton Academies Trust. Under UBAT our local state schools were not

02:50getting the support and resources they needed. Like everyone else I was horrified to hear

02:56the Trust was taking a whopping 20% of the government grant meant for our local schools.

03:02Frontline education and staffing suffered and young people in our community were losing out

03:08as a result. As soon as I was elected as our MP in July I began raising problems with UBAT at the

03:15highest levels with government ministers and in parliament and called for this financial model

03:21and shocking state of affairs to end. The dissolution of UBAT announced in January is

03:27a vindication of what parents, teachers and pupils have been working for. Like everyone else here

03:34I feel very strongly that the voice of our community must be listened to

03:39in the process to determine who will now run our local schools. I will be asking all those involved

03:46how they plan to work with not against the local community to drive up standards. We know that the

03:53current situation is not good enough for our young people and in Hastings we've been particularly let

03:58down by bad academy trusts. Not just UBAT but also Arc Alexandra where over 100 families have

04:06been in touch with me to share issues. In nine months of being our Member of Parliament I have

04:12been inundated with stories from young people, parents, teachers about the ways these academy

04:18trusts operate and let down our town.

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