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Parents spell out their protest message on tents set up outside Pimlico School |
‘WE’LL FIGHT TILL THE END’
Parents storm Pimlico School in further protest against academy
PARENTS and teachers fighting to keep Pimlico comprehensive stormed the school “commando style” on Tuesday, setting up an overnight camp.
The warning to Westminster council was clear: “We will fight you to the bitter end.”
In a covert operation, 10 anti-academy campaigners waited until after dark before scaling the walls of the secondary school in Lupus Street.
The action, inspired by another occupation of the Brent academy site, comes a week after bulldozers tore into the school while pupils were still in the classrooms.
Maths teacher Bridget Chapman, speaking after the one-night protest, said: “We did this to draw attention to the plight of Pimlico School. There was a meeting for parents that evening and we wanted as many of them as possible to get the message that the school can still be saved and can continue as a community school.”
She went on to accuse the council of running a disinformation campaign – misleading parents into thinking the academy is a “fait accompli”.
She said: “There is no doubt that parents have been kept in the dark about the school. All the way along they have been told that the academy is irreversible. This simply isn’t true and we will fight them all the way.”
The council say that they have been open ?throughout the process.
Westminster police were called to the playground along with the deputy headteacher, but they took no action because the seizure was deemed a peaceful protest.
Meanwhile, the campaign has been rocked by news of ruptures to the board which replaced parent governors when the school was put in special measures in December 2006.
Westminster’s director of education Steve Farnsworth has resigned.
Mr Farnsworth, who recommended Pimlico become an academy, will leave the post he has held for little over a year in May to take up a consultant’s role in the private sector.
His move is significant as he is one of three members of the school’s Interim Executive Board (IEB).
The government’s director of Building Schools for the Future, Paul Doherty, also on Pimlico’s IEB, is believed to be leaving his post in April.
Padraic Finn, secretary of Westminster NUT and a teacher at the school, said: “This will create further instability at Pimlico in a difficult period.
“It is more evidence of a lack of Westminster’s hands-off approach to education in the borough.”
Leader of the Labour group Paul Dimoldenberg was quick to join the chorus of disapproval.
He said: “Another week, another piece of bad news for Westminster schools under the Conservatives.
“The Conservatives seem to appoint a new director of schools on an annual basis.
“None of them last very long and this must mean that there is something very wrong and rotten at the heart of Westminster City Council.”
A spokesman for the city council said: “We can confirm that Steve Farnsworth has resigned as director of schools and learning from Westminster City Council. Steve has done an excellent job in driving forward the council’s education policies and we wish him well for the future.” |
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