|
|
 |
| |
We’re still in the dark as academy crunch looms
• WE'RE reaching a crunch point for consultation over whether any new school in Camden will be an academy, but we still don’t have crucial information that is vital to the consultation.
When the Government proposed the Education and Inspections Bill, they said that all new schools would be Academies or Trusts.
But, facing a Labour rebellion and opposition from the Liberal Democrats, a concession was made to get the bill through – High-performing authorities like Camden would be allowed put forward community schools into a competition. It wasn’t much of a concession.
We’ve written to Camden’s Director of Finance asking whether he’s seen any evidence that having an academy would get more money than a community school.
The reply offered no opinion about that, but it does say that he “anticipates that as much information as we have on the matter will be presented as part of the BSF report to the executive planned for 25 July”.
We believe that this information – whether one route is millions of pounds cheaper than another – is vital information for all participants in the consultation.
But according to the Director of Finance the first time members of the executive will see it is in the report of July 25 when they have to make decisions about which route to follow.
So when will other participants get the information? Only after the decision is made by the Executive?
We need answers to these vital questions before the public consultation meetings of May 24, June 5 and June 11 if the consultation is to have any validity at all.
We request that the decision is deferred at least to the executive meeting in September and only after people have definitive answers on these funding questions.
KEVIN COURTNEY
and Hugo Pierre
(Camden NUT)
• ELEANOR Sturdy’s letter attacking Fiona Millar’s criticisms of City Academies (Could do better: harsh critic of academies found wanting, May 10) is unconvincing and also leaves out many key points.
The National Audit Office report that she relies upon has some serious flaws. It fails to acknowledge that academies have not performed as well as local authority schools backed by the Excellence in Cities initiative. CASE and others have called for a level playing field so that community schools should be allocated equivalent funding to academies. Otherwise, the case for academies can never be proved.
Ms Sturdy also does not mention that the NAO report found that Academies‚ sixth forms have been poor. Sixth form standards are a particular strength in Camden and we want to keep it that way.
Finally, Ms Sturdy does not address why it is acceptable for a group of unrepresentative sponsors to control academies rather than genuine local stakeholders such as parents, teachers, local business people, and those nominated by a democratically elected council.
LUCY ANDERSON
Chair, Camden Campaign for State Education
Lupton Street, NW5
• FIONA Millar and Francis Beckett might think that city academies are failing (Must do better: how academies are failing, May 3) but you only need to glance over the border into Haringey at the Greig City Academy, run by the Church of England, to see that academies can be highly successful at turning around some of the worst schools.
Greig City (re)opened in 2002 and is now one of the 100 most improved schools in the country.
I would agree that academies have a mixed record but much of this is to do with the individual sponsor. In the hands of an experienced organisation they can work very well. Camden has much to gain from creating an academy as long as it chooses a reliable sponsor with a proven track record. Who better than the Church of England?
JENNIFER DAVIES
Name and address supplied
• IT may be that “scores of Camden’s most influential educationalists” want another community school in Camden (Big Guns declare War on city academies plan, May 10).
However, as a Camden parent living in the real world I can say that hundreds of Camden’s parents want more choice in the secondary system and would prefer a school run by the Church of England.
How will an eighth community school increase the diversity that we have been promised by both the council and the government?
KATHRYN PARKER
Ardwick Road, NW2
•
THE only accurate point in Elizabeth Jones’ letter is that “it would be good to have a school here that would reflect our own diverse population” (Bad school situation looks set to get worse, May 3).
She accuses local Labour councillors of jumping on a bandwagon when they call for a secondary school south of Euston Road. But our councillors have for many years been the only politicians in Camden who have fully understood the difficulty facing families in this area when they find there is no secondary school provision for their children in the borough They were calling for a school to be built here long before the current campaign was born.
And to describe the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme as a bandwagon shows a worrying lack of understanding of its importance.
More than £200m of public money is being pumped into Camden’s secondary schools over the next decade; BSF is the largest ever investment in state schools. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Camden.
Spending that money on a school in the wrong location, which will not meet the greatest demand for places in this borough, which threatens the future of three highly-rated special schools and for which there is very little support across the borough, is at best a misguided mess, and at worst, a huge betrayal of the children of Camden.
EMMA JONES AND POLLY SHIELDS,
Millman St, WC1 |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
