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Wonderland world of words on academies
• FOR all her desire for “honest debate”, Karen Buck’s letter (Face facts over Pimlico, June 22) evades the question I asked: will New Labour give community comprehensives such as Pimlico the same spending boost as the academies and then compare results?
Westminster’s organisation and scrutiny committee on June 20 ignored the results of their own consultation, in which 70 per cent of respondents wanted Pimlico to continue as a community comprehensive, and is toying with the idea of a “co-sponsored academy”.
In true Alice in Wonderland style, they say they want it “to continue as a comprehensive but not have comprehensive status”. Words mean what Westminster City Council want them to mean!
Despite their claim to “engage with parents”, academies and trusts reduce parent representation on the governing body to mere tokens: in fact, this was one of the advantages of academies and trusts cited by councillors and by Heath Monk, the academies tsar from the Department for Education and Skills.
So, whatever the rhetoric, parents are seen as too troublesome to be given a real say in the running of schools.
We can’t make a fair judgment on North Westminster Community School in the final year of its existence in 2005, when the council had already sentenced it to death. Nor is anybody arguing that comprehensive schools are perfect. However, privatisation is not the answer: the huge sums poured into academies could be better spent on improving the resources and teaching in existing schools.
Even Westminster City Council, who want to hand all public services to the private sector, want to “co-sponsor” an academy so they can have more than one seat on the governing body because they recognise the need to have a say in admissions.
They know that academies (in discussion with the DfES) can set their own admissions criteria and will overtly or covertly select their intake to make sure it boosts their results.
As to Karen’s remarks about my grasp of the “facts”, “mud-slinging”, and “a campaign [of] untruths and innuendo”, readers can judge for themselves whether these are not just a rhetorical cloak for a weak argument.
Far more worrying for those who wish to defend comprehensive education is the apparent consensus between New Labour and the Conservatives of Westminster City Council on dismantling the two remaining comprehensives in the borough.
PADRAIC Finn
Secretary, Westminster National Union of Teachers
q I read Karen Buck’s letter with interest, especially that she “had to tolerate a shockingly poor experience at North Westminster and a deeply unsatisfactory start to Paddington Academy over a period of almost a year and a half”.
This would be worrying to any parent and it makes me as a Pimlico parent even more
adamant that I do not want Westminster City Council to turn Pimlico into an academy.
Yet Karen isn’t just any parent is she? I would like to think that she would use her position as an MP to put this experience to good use by supporting other parents who will potentially be in the same position. If she needs a reason to be involved then I’m sure there are parents in her constituency who send children to Pimlico.
So Karen, why not use your first-hand experience of how Westminster has implemented these academies, and use your influence to avoid another academy fiasco in Westminster?
How about joining us at the lobby of the Westminster Council Cabinet meeting on July 9.
name and address supplied
• WESTMINISTER City Council’s primary concern is to ensure Pimlico is turned into a successful school as quickly as possible. The overview and scrutiny committee process is vital to this and our role is now to advise the Cabinet.
Alongside the views of parents, pupils, teachers and others connected with the school, the council must consider a number of wider issues for schooling in Westminster as a whole.
The council has to consider which option will improve teaching, pupil behaviour, attendance and strategic planning at the school.
Other considerations include the security of investment in new buildings and the impact on neighbouring schools of changing Pimlico.
Westminster’s One City agenda has pledged to ensure all our schools are provided with high quality teaching and all parents have confidence in the education offered to their children.
The committee will now advise the cabinet of what it sees as the best way forward for the school.
CLLR TIM MITCHELL
Chairman of Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee
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