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Confirmation academy consultation is a sham
• ATTENDENCE at the council’s “consultation” meeting concerning University College London’s proposal to run the new secondary school at Adelaide Road has confirmed that the entire consultation process has been a sham.
I attended three of the “consultation meetings” which preceded the council making its indicative decision in July that it would proceed with UCL as a preferred sponsor.
At not one of those meetings did the council solicit views as to whether parents would like a privately-run academy, let alone did it ask for views on a UCL-sponsored academy, despite the fact they have apparently been in discussions with UCL for some two years.
Nor as far as I am aware did anyone attending the meetings suggest that they wanted an academy run by UCL, a university which has absolutely no experience of running a comprehensive secondary school.
What was apparent from those meetings, however, was that there was strong support for a school south of the Euston Road and strong support for a Church of England school wherever it was located. (A petition of some 1,900 signatures was subsequently presented in favour of the latter). There was also strong support for a locally run community school.
On Monday October 8, the Council sought on the one hand to portray its consultation process as full, fair and consistent with a UCL-sponsored academy while on the other hand Councillor Keith Moffitt (Liberal Democrat leader of the council) made an extraordinary claim that “real parents” who supported or would have supported the UCL bid were “intimidated” from attending the meetings by the fact that there was so much vocal support for the other options, thus presumably rendering the views obtained at the consultation process unreliable.
I myself am a real parent. I also support the Church of England bid. While passions from the “south of the Euston Road” parents certainly ran high at one of the meetings, there was absolutely no intimidation from anyone. On the contrary, what I witnessed was democracy in action. One would have thought that at a time of general political apathy the councillors would have been glad to have some genuine political debate. But then again, it is apparent that genuine debate and democracy is the last thing they want on this issue.
If it were otherwise, they would not have ignored the overwhelming support at the meetings for an open and fair competition whereby competing bids could have been subject to public scrutiny.
ANDREW WARNOCK
, NW2
It’s right to recruit talent
• LET me oppose those who object to UCL, wanting to encourage the talented pupils.
These past 15 years I have been recruiting patent agents, one of the elite professions.
They handle cases in the Munich Patent Court that are worth more than a million pounds to the parties involved.
My clients keep asking me to find the most talented professionals.
This country stands in the reputation highs for our leading professionals so we should steer the brightest pupils into the hard subjects like maths and physics to prepare them for the tough road to academic standing.
There is no shortage of mediocrity to do the soft options.
At least three of the Conservative team made it to Oxford from the ordinary grammar schools and are right to encourage achievers.
Unlike countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA and Canada we have little in natural resources so our prosperity depends heavily on the work of our professional classes
HUNTLY G SPEN
CE Hampstead Gate, NW6
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