Copland challenge under Equalities Act

The Anti-Academies working party at Copland Community School have sent the following letter to Muhammed Butt and Michael Pavey, councillors and representatives of the parties and independents contesting the local elections:

I am sending this letter on behalf of Copland’s Anti Academy Working Party. We believe that there has been a lack of proper consultation over the future of Copland Community School. We believe that the people who have been appointed by you to run our school do not have the interest of the children of Copland at heart. The running down of the school library is evidence of this but there are many more examples that we could give.

You chose people to run our school who do not represent our school community. We believe that what you have allowed them to do is in contravention of the Equal Opportunities Act of 2011 which states that “a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”. We believe that you and the Interim Executive Board (IEB) of Copland School have failed to do this.

We refer in particular to the Somalian Community at Copland School. No effort was made by the IEB to consult with this group. Our anti academy group translated our literature into Somalian and other languages but the IEB did not. When this was pointed out to them they belatedly put a notice on the school website saying that parents could use Google translate to read their literature. When they did this Google translate did not have the ability to translate into Somalian. We did translate our literature into Somalian and we have had support from Somalian parents and from a representative of the Somalian Community in Brent. 

The Equal Opportunities Act 2011 states that a public authority must “encourage persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low”.  Neither you nor the IEB at Copland School did this. 

We have another proposal for Copland School. Lycamobile have expressed an interest in sponsoring our school. Their proposal is generous. The representatives of Lycamobile with whom we have met are more representative of the people of Brent that those who make up the IEB. We want all parents to be informed that there is another option for Copland School. We believe that our option will be more beneficial for the children of Copland School than ARK Academy. If you promise to have a fair vote and our proposal is not chosen we shall accept ARK Academy. If you do not then we shall consider legal action.

 

Mr Shyam Gorsia