Parents calling for their new school at a protest in October last year. Pictured page one: Some of the 200 parents who made their feelings known at the Town Hall on Monday

Parents and teachers and teachers step up their school campaign

Special Report: With hundreds of parents demanding a school for their children the New Journal examines the controversies over the future of education

SCORES of parents have delivered the simple message to Town Hall chiefs: “Give our children a new school – now!”
As our dramatic front-page picture shows, an army of campaigners living south of the Euston Road hit Monday’s full council meeting in force with a bold cry for a new school to be built.
Nearly 200 parents joined the protest, many of them bringing their primary-aged children to the public gallery of the Town Hall’s main chamber.
Emma Jones, one of the campaign’s chief organisers, told the meeting: “Thirty-one thousand people people live in the wards of King’s Cross, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden and Holborn.
“These wards have no secondary school. Far from having a choice, families are out of range of all Camden’s secondary schools. We are last on everyone’s list. Should any child be in that position? Let alone a whole community?
“Everybody knows somebody who has moved away because of this devastating lack of provision. Instead of sitting at the back of the queue and hoping and waiting we have to do something about it.”
Last night (Wednesday) Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson offered his support to the campaign but warned parents not to be bullied into accepting a City Academy to fill the gap.
He said: “I would oppose any sort of Mafia approach by the supporters of City Academies that a new school in the south of the borough had to be an academy.
“I strongly support the call for a new school south of the Euston Road but people should not be blackmailed into accepting an academy.”
The mounting campaign now has the support of teachers at primary schools in the south of the borough.
Fiorella Pohle, headteacher at Christopher Hatton Primary School in Laystall Street, Holborn, said: “Our closest Camden secondary school is South Camden Community School which is a bus ride away and north of the Euston Road. Unless a sibling already attends that school we can not confidently assure parents and carers that their children will get a place as most of our families – although Camden residents – live too far away.
“Families from our school have to look for secondary school places in Westminster, Islington and sometimes further a field due to a lack of a local secondary school.”
She added: “A new Camden secondary school south of the Euston Road would give parents and carers that choice and allieviate a lot of the stress and tensions when they look for a local secondary school to send their child to.”
Although there have been appeals from parents in other parts of Camden, no school campaign has previously sent such a direct message to the Town Hall’s education department.
A sign of the campaign’s organised strength is the group’s professional website www.
whereisourschool.org.uk which has already helped pull together families from across southern wards.
Ms Jones told councillors on Monday: “We have been researching possible sites using our local knowledge.
“We want to work with you, invest in the community by building new school.”
Education chief Councillor Lucy Anderson said she was sympathetic to the campaign, adding that Camden Council would be lobbying the government for financial help.
She also wants any new school to be a community school – not a City Academy. Cllr Anderson told Monday’s meeting: “We very much recognise that this is an important issue. We will be asking the government to be in the earlier rounds of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. It is a major issue but there are other parts of the borough where there is a similar pressure.”
She added: “Islington parents have always chosen to fill up our schools because they don’t like what is on offer locally. Things may change. In overall terms, we are very much taking this issue on board.”