A primary school in Birmingham has become the latest to join a growing tide of strikes and industrial action by teachers opposed to the privatisation of schools through the Academies programme.

Staff at Montgomery Primary school first took action in December when NASUWT, NUT and GMB members were on strike and the school was closed.

The school is in one of the most deprived areas in Birmingham and is one of the schools on Gove’s hit list of ‘underperforming schools.’ In reality, like most of the schools being targeted it is a school handicapped by the effects of poverty on its intake, which is doing its best to improve.

Today the picket line was even bigger than previously with over 100 people there, including parents, students and members of the public.

Teachers and parents recognise that what is needed is an investment in support and resources to improve the school – not flogging it off to the highest bidder.

With three outstanding schools in the area, teachers believe they could offer support through the local authority to Montgomery who received a ‘satisfactory’ in their last Ofsted report of 2009.

As usual many of the school governors are sitting on the fence, with Councillor Victoria Quinn (Labour, Sparkbrook) saying she would ‘oppose the idea of academies in theory.’ She added they were trying to buy time by looking for a sponsor themselves but that the Department of Education has the power to appoint one.

DavidRoom, deputy general secretary of Birmingham NUT argued there was no pressure on the school to become an academy.

He said: “There are other means of supporting schools and raising standards.”

The unions have asked for further negotiations and parents have handed in a petition calling for proper consultation signed by more than 700 people, but both have been ignored. The purpose of this is to avoid giving people a public forum where they can voice their opposition and expose the councillors and governors who back this sell-off.

The head-teacher and majority of the governors believe that if they refuse to become an academy then Education Secretary Michael Gove will send in Ofsted and fail the school. This is what Gove is relying on – bullying schools into becoming academies.

The determination showed by the staff and parents in Montgomery school in Birmingham and Downhills School in Haringey show that there is alternative to this.

Schools need clear structures linking parents, students, teachers and the governing body together to improve standards of education. Academy status takes school out of Local Authority oversight, meaning that specialist services become more expense and are quickly ditched, as the sponsor focuses on boosting league table rankings.

Private sponsors have no incentive to improve support for students with the most problems, since their investment in the school is calculated on its ability to produce a direct profit, or reinforce a business’s ‘community-friendly’ credentials.

The withdrawal of the White Paper on Higher Education shows that mass opposition can achieve results. So far schools have been left to fight Academy proposals alone – this is a strategy doomed to failure. We need to make the campaign against Academies part of the wider resistance to cuts and austerity.

Only in this way can we bring our maximum collective strength to bear against those who are determined to tear up our social inheritance and flog it to their rich friends.

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