A blind pig in a poke?
NAME: No Academy in Midhurst or Easebourne
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release – 10:00 Tuesday March 25th, 2008
A blind pig in a poke?
Confused about proposed change to an Academy for the Rother Valley? Do you know all the details you should? Do you know to whom you have the chance to respond and when?
NAME regards it as totally unacceptable that important decisions that will affect generations and could have a negative effect on the communities involved are being rushed through pell-mell, with inadequate information, and via a series of "consultations" so overlapping that one could legitimately wonder if the process is deliberately intended to confuse.
"We now have two booklets that do not cover anywhere near all we really need to know to make truly informed responses," said NAME spokespersons Janet and John Newman. "A new building apart, what information are we given about how ULT will provide a better education than a good local authority can? The booklet simply states aspirations with which we would all agree and which are not new. There is no detail, for instance, about how the curriculum will change – which surely we should know, if we are to be able to agree that things might be better. What information is given about a considered analysis of the effect of change on communities? How can a headlong rush be justified when the decisions involved are so important? Have even the county councillors been fully informed of all the issues involved?"
Curiously, one of the few details we are given in the second booklet, which interestingly was available to the public only the day after the opportunity to discuss change with local councillors at Lodsworth, is that "A key characteristic of the ……. Academy will be it work in partnership with schools from the independent sector as well as the public sector". The expertise of a selective private boys’ school with small classes, even Winchester College, is not obviously well matched, let alone central, to the very different skills required in a mixed comprehensive.
Neither booklet publicly states where the new Academy will be sited. Surely this is of critical importance to Easebourne, Midhurst and Petworth, and NAME demands that all of these communities be properly informed and consulted before any decision is made.
There are presently two overlapping consultations – the WSCC consultation, which closes on 8th April, and that run by DJB Consultancy, which closes on 10th May. It is vital that as many people as possible, both for education and community reasons, respond to both, so that the authorities have to make a decision based on knowledge of what local people really think.
NAME plan to hold further meetings in both Midhurst and Petworth so that as many as possible can come and find out and discuss what is really afoot and what effect the proposed changes will have – in so far as the authorities have told us enough to know. These meetings will be on:
Monday 31st March 7.30pm Garden Room, Grange Centre, Midhurst
Wednesday 2nd April 1.00pm Methodist Church Hall, Midhurst
Thursday 3rd April 7.30pm Leconfield Hall, Petworth
'All enquiries to Simon Boxley.01730 821464 http://namecampaign.blogspot.com/'
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release – 10:00 Tuesday March 25th, 2008
A blind pig in a poke?
Confused about proposed change to an Academy for the Rother Valley? Do you know all the details you should? Do you know to whom you have the chance to respond and when?
NAME regards it as totally unacceptable that important decisions that will affect generations and could have a negative effect on the communities involved are being rushed through pell-mell, with inadequate information, and via a series of "consultations" so overlapping that one could legitimately wonder if the process is deliberately intended to confuse.
"We now have two booklets that do not cover anywhere near all we really need to know to make truly informed responses," said NAME spokespersons Janet and John Newman. "A new building apart, what information are we given about how ULT will provide a better education than a good local authority can? The booklet simply states aspirations with which we would all agree and which are not new. There is no detail, for instance, about how the curriculum will change – which surely we should know, if we are to be able to agree that things might be better. What information is given about a considered analysis of the effect of change on communities? How can a headlong rush be justified when the decisions involved are so important? Have even the county councillors been fully informed of all the issues involved?"
Curiously, one of the few details we are given in the second booklet, which interestingly was available to the public only the day after the opportunity to discuss change with local councillors at Lodsworth, is that "A key characteristic of the ……. Academy will be it work in partnership with schools from the independent sector as well as the public sector". The expertise of a selective private boys’ school with small classes, even Winchester College, is not obviously well matched, let alone central, to the very different skills required in a mixed comprehensive.
Neither booklet publicly states where the new Academy will be sited. Surely this is of critical importance to Easebourne, Midhurst and Petworth, and NAME demands that all of these communities be properly informed and consulted before any decision is made.
There are presently two overlapping consultations – the WSCC consultation, which closes on 8th April, and that run by DJB Consultancy, which closes on 10th May. It is vital that as many people as possible, both for education and community reasons, respond to both, so that the authorities have to make a decision based on knowledge of what local people really think.
NAME plan to hold further meetings in both Midhurst and Petworth so that as many as possible can come and find out and discuss what is really afoot and what effect the proposed changes will have – in so far as the authorities have told us enough to know. These meetings will be on:
Monday 31st March 7.30pm Garden Room, Grange Centre, Midhurst
Wednesday 2nd April 1.00pm Methodist Church Hall, Midhurst
Thursday 3rd April 7.30pm Leconfield Hall, Petworth
'All enquiries to Simon Boxley.01730 821464 http://namecampaign.blogspot.com/'
Labels: Academies
posted by West Sussex Teachers' Association at
10:10 AM
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