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D-day looms for Pimlico
Floundering comprehensive will learn its fate at Town Hall next week
CITY Hall chiefs will finally decide the fate of floundering Pimlico School next week.
The struggling Lupus Street school faces a series of possible outcomes at the meeting of the Children and Young Persons Overview and Scrutiny Committee on June 6, including conversion to a city academy, complete closure, or even a rumoured merger with the Quintin Kynaston school in St John’s Wood.
A damning Ofsted report saying the school had “inadequately progressed”, citing weaknesses in teaching conditions and “inadequate” support from Westminster City Council, landed Pimlico in Special Measures in January.
Now the Department of Education and Skills has issued a final ultimatum – either Pimlico improves by December or the government will intervene.
The council confirmed it has received five proposals from sponsors wanting to turn Pimlico School into an academy or a trust – a course of action that parents and school board members have strongly opposed.
The proposals include interest from Absolute Return for Kids (Ark), which sponsors the King Solomon Academy in Paddington.
Under the academy system, the school would no longer be accountable to the local authority, leaving Quintin Kynaston as the last council-controlled school in Westminster.
Julie Jones, deputy chief executive of Westminster City Council, insisted the board would “consider all options” about the school’s future at the meeting at City Hall next Wednesday.
But parents at the school are concerned that any change will be a bad one, and have called on officials to “preserve Pimlico” as a comprehensive. |
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