Dear Burngreave Messenger
As a parent at Fir Vale school I am very concerned about the school’s interest in becoming an Academy. No official contact has been made with parents about this, but such a drastic step should not be considered without the full involvement of parents and the local community. I understand that the school will probably be asking parents to write in (during a three week “consultation” period) if they have issues or concerns but I (and many other parents) feel that this is not adequate in terms of consultation and we would like to see public meetings, open to all (students, parents, staff and the local community included), with all sides of the issue put to us so that the school community as a whole can make the decision.
Academies are being pushed enthusiastically by the coalition government as a way of making schools independent of local authority control, but I would point out the following:
Parents would have no democratic control over the future of the school. The school’s “independence” would consist of dependence on central government funding – and this is in a period of unprecedented cutbacks in public services.
Opting out of local authority provision means that the school would have to find money for all the services the local authority currently provides (special needs support, teacher training, admissions etc)
This would leave the school looking to the private sector to provide these and other services (meaning private firms will be making money out of our children’s education to an ever increasing degree).
There are many potential risks to the academy experiment: What if a school decides to cut staff pay? What if it decides to change the curriculum? What if a private firm wants to take over as a sponsor of the school? All these things have happened in other academies. Many parents locally feel proud of Fir Vale and the achievements of its pupils. It is a popular school with increasingly good exam results. Becoming an academy is a risky jump into the unknown. It sets schools up in competition with each other and has not been proven to improve standards or results.
I have been talking to other Fir Vale parents about this issue, as we are very worried about how this could affect our children. Over thirty of us have so far signed a petition to the headteacher asking for full scale consultation before any decision is made (in fact no one asked has not signed). Obviously, we are at a disadvantage as secondary school parents rarely get to meet each other at school gates. This is why I am taking the opportunity of writing to the Messenger to make people in Burngreave aware of this.
Please make your voice heard.
Yours sincerely,
Julia Shergold (Parent of Year 7 student at Fir Vale)