Tuesday 2 July 2013

Parents urged to fight Copland's forced academisation

This letter is being distributed to parents of Copland students about the strike:

Dear Parents

Some people locally and nationally want to force Copland Community School to become an academy. They lie to you that this is in the interest of your children.

WHAT LIES ARE THEY TELLING YOU?

1 Results will improve. But academies do not do better in GCSEs than other schools. They actually do worse. 

2 Academies are in the interests of the children. But academies fiddle their exam results by permanently excluding more vulnerable young people, especially children from ethnic minorities, than other schools.

3 Extra funding. The days of bribes to convert to academy status are over. Under forced academisation there is no new money despite fact that the budget problems contributed to our failure by Ofsted. 
 
4 Parents should have a choice. But parents have less say in the running of academies than of other schools. Why for example was there absolutely no consultation with parents about the decision to impose an IEB on Copland?

WHAT TRUTHS ARE THEY HIDING FROM YOU?

There are many fantastic things about Copland. Many of our students get good GCSE and A Level results and progress to universities including Oxford and Cambridge. Copland should be upheld as a model of good community cohesion. At Copland we have low levels of pupil exclusion, unlike many academies. We take in more students who do not speak English than local academies. Academies would rather not have these students as they will affect their GCSE results but they fit in very well at Copland. We do loads of extra-curricular activities which really benefit the students. For example many of our students are signed up with football clubs. Raheem Sterling who now plays for Liverpool is the most famous one in recent years. Incidentally if we did become an academy it is likely that much of the land that the PE Department uses will be sold to make a profit for the academy sponsor.

WHAT DO WE NEED?

We need your support. Sign our petition and ask others in your community to sign it as well. Write to your councillor and MP. Get involved by contacting Tony Deady (parent governor) on 07952361792.

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