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Reasons for concern over academy status
• FOLLOWING your report on Sir Simon Milton’s speech and his plans for Pimlico School I thought I would write to you as a parent of children at that school, and put a parent’s point of view.
Many of us have long recognised the failings identified by Ofsted, particularly in the lack of leadership, and the poor communication endemic in the school, so are not as unhappy as some at the departure of the head, Phil Barnard. We do, however, see that there is excellent teaching going on in the school.
But there are reasons for concern at the proposal for academy status. The turning over of basic issues – admission criteria, appointments of Senior Management Team, appointments of governors – to a democratically unaccountable body seems a deliberate abandonment of responsibility on Westminster Council’s part.
The success of academy schools is still debatable – it is worth pointing out that academies have a record of excluding four times the number of students than non-academy schools, and I wonder where the excluded will end up.
One of the points in favour of academy status is the money that government will inject for capital projects. It is difficult to see why this is necessary, as we have been given to understand that finance for the desperately needed new school building is in place. It seems that the council want to hand over some sort of sacrificial lamb.
After a very long period (10 years at least, by my reckoning) when the governing body, as indeed staff and parents were, was driven by the pro/anti-PFI debate, the news that the future of the school building had been resolved had allowed the governors to concentrate on their work.
The Interim Executive Board has no parental representation, and has sought none that we know of. We have as yet no timetable published for the appointment of a new Senior Management Team, nor new governors. The question of academy status can only delay this. I do not believe that skilled and enthusiastic staff will apply to join a school whose future is uncertain. This can only be to the disadvantage of students currently at the school.
I am sure that the interim board will be doing their best, and I am of course charmed to know that we have a representative from the DfES as an independent member.
The leader of the council has expressed the wish for a ‘fresh start’. We would say that for the sake of students currently at the school, continuity and improvement are paramount. There will be quite enough disruption because of building works without further being caused by major upheavals of internal structure.
I see from the council’s transcript if his speech that Sir Simon was proud of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment’s recent award of four stars for performance and value for money. This is difficult to square with the state that the school has been allowed to get into.
He also says that if the school gets Academy status the school becomes independent ‘but we will still retain a critical role on behalf of parents in challenging and supporting school performance.’ Would that there were evidence that the council had managed to do this before. The school has been neglected by Westminster City Council. Now it’s being dumped.
NICHOLAS RUTLAND
Churston Mansions
Gray’s Inn Road, WC1
• SIMON Milton has been the Conservative Leader of Westminster City Council for seven years, yet for all his regular promises of providing a world-class education for local young people, Pimlico School is in ‘special measures’ and Westminster is bottom of the London secondary school ‘value added’ league table.
In any other walk of life he would have been given the sack long ago. Yet now we are told that he is being tipped for the top job in local government, leading the Local Government Association and representing every local council in the country.
It’s a funny old world… if it wasn’t so serious!
Cllr PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group
City Hall, SW1
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