Tottenham

Downhills School in Tottenham were on strike today (22nd May) against plans to turn it into an academy, despite a 91% vote against it by parents. After a picket line of about 40 people in the morning, teachers, kids, parents and community supporters had a picnic. At lunchtime the support workers, who are balloting for strike action at the moment, came to the park to support the strike.
As Downhills kids ran and tumbled around in the glorious sunshine, I talked to teaching assistants and asked them how long they had been at the school. “You could say forty years, because I went to Downhills myself!” one told me. Others told me how their children attended Downhills and said that the school is not failing the kids.

Downhills Primary School, in Tottenham, North London, is fighting a strong community campaign against attempts to turn it into a sponsored academy.
Participation in the campaign has been huge. “I haven’t seen anything like it since the eighties,” said one mother looking at a packed meeting of over 600 people.
In January, more than a thousand people marched through Tottenham in support of the four Haringey primaries which are under threat of being handed over to academy sponsors, including teachers from all over London. They have shown support to other schools across the country which are rejecting academy status.
Parents, carers, teachers and governors at the school say that they are up against a system which is highly undemocratic. They were shocked at an unexpectedly harsh judgement that they were “inadequate'”by Ofsted, though recognise that this inspection, rushed through on the request of education minister Michael Gove, was a highly political one. 

The following is the text of a leaflet that North London members modified from the Local's original statement, and was handed out by SolFed members in Deptford and Tottenham soon after the riots:

The fury of our estates is what it is, ugly and uncontrolled. But we all knew these riots were on the cards. Britain has hidden away its social problems for decades, surrounded by a brutal picket of cops. Benefits are being cut, social and advice centres closed, rent and unemployment is rising. People who have always had very little now have nothing, nothing to lose.

And even when the great and the good are put on notice, with the blatant police fix that is the Mark Duggan case, the media and politicians would have been as silent as ever if all that had happened was a vigil outside a police station.

With media sources blaming “anarchy” for the unfolding violence in London and across England, the North London Solidarity Federation felt a response from an anarchist organisation active in the capital would be appropriate.

Over the last few days, riots have caused significant damage to parts of London, to shop-fronts, homes and cars. On the left, we hear the ever-present cry that poverty has caused this. On the right, that gangsters and anti-social elements are taking advantage of tragedy. Both are true. The looting and riots seen over the past number of days are a complex phenomenon and contain many currents.