Queens Park Community School is currently balloting on a possible conversion to a Cooperative Trust Academy. A group of parents have put forward their views:
Message to All Parents
and the QPCS community from Parents with deep misgivings about conversion to
academy status:
14 May - 2012
Many parents, long
term enthusiastic supporters of QPCS, are deeply concerned at the prospect of our school
becoming an academy.
Our main concerns are:
o Academies are less
democratic than the current arrangements, and rules regarding oversight of
governance and finance are significantly less rigorous than for Local Authority
schools.
o Academies are not
required to follow national guidelines for Teachers’ pay and conditions. While
we do not suggest conversion would impact teacher remuneration or conditions
immediately, there are no guarantees that fair pay and conditions for teachers,
who are the bedrock of QPCS, can be secured.
o Brent schools –
including those within the Local Authority and those with academy or foundation
status – currently work together with the Council to address borough-wide
educational issues. There is no certainty this will persist long-term as
academies develop independence, to the detriment of the school community.
o Conversion to an
academy may put the current QPCS ethos at risk because it is impossible to
guarantee that future management teams will maintain values of inclusion.
o Any financial gain
to the school will be short term: we shall be averting a crisis now only to
encounter one in a year or two
o There is no
guarantee we will get the large sum stated at the meeting with parents.
Recently, the Financial Times pointed out that the Department for Education
has overpaid £120 million to some schools converting to academies and those
schools now face a repayment crisis – the “bribe” has been overestimated and is
not sustainable. What’s more, a recent Government consultation paper suggests
that the cost of academies is already £600 million more than estimated.
Consequently, there is now no guarantee that schools converting will receive
any additional funding at all. If the money stops next year, QPCS will have
cast itself adrift in a potentially dangerous situation.
We are trying to find
another way through this crisis and will meet the leader of Brent Council, Ann John,
this week. We will ask Brent to explain its future policies and funding, and whether
it believes it can offer an effective alternative strategy to the academies. We are also
taking a letter of opposition to the Department of Education on the morning of
Friday 18 May, and have also asked the secretary of state, Michael Gove, to meet us.
QPCS been transformed
by the efforts of the current and previous head teacher, with tremendous support
from the teaching staff, the governors, pupils and parents. We are now concerned that our
high-performing and immensely popular local school is being driven down this road
just because our governing body feels it has no choice.
We are also concerned
that many teachers feel bad about the situation, even though they may vote for
conversion in the face of threatened redundancies. Brent has not been regarded
as the best borough in providing services to education. But the pressure
should be on provision of better services, not privatizing the schools in a world where the
comprehensive ethos is thrown out of the window!
