Campaigners plan online meeting as academy threat grows at Brighton school

Campaigners are holding an online meeting as they try to halt plans to turn Moulsecoomb Primary School into an academy.

But time appears to be running out, with three potential sponsors currently in talks with the office of the regional schools commissioner Claire Burton.

A decision is due this month on who will take on the school, with The Pioneer Academy, a multi-academy trust, the only one of the three to have been named so far.

The other two are understood to be the Chancery Education Trust and Schoolsworks Academy Trust.

Councillors were given an update on the school’s future during a virtual meeting yesterday (Monday 8 March).

Most – if not all – councillors want Moulsecoomb Primary to remain a local authority “maintained school” in the Brighton and Hove City Council family of schools.

And Green councillor Hannah Clare, who is due to speak at the campaigners’ meeting tomorrow (Wednesday 10 March), said that parents were asked if they wanted the school to become an academy – and they said no.

Councillor Clare said: “Ninety-six per cent of parents said no when we asked them – and we have to keep that at the front of our minds. We will continue to fight on the basis of what the community said.”

The academy row started after an inspection by Ofsted in April 2019. The official education watchdog published its report in May 2019 and said that the school was inadequate – a verdict that has been much criticised locally.

Last month Brighton and Hove News revealed that shortly after three Ofsted inspectors rated the school “inadequate”, one of them, Timothy Rome, joined The Pioneer Academy as a regional director.

After Moulsecoomb Primary School’s Ofsted report was published, an “academy order” was made, and the regional schools commissioner started trying to find a sponsor for the school.

Once made, academy orders are revoked only in exceptional circumstances and the decision is the responsibility of the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

The story so far and the next steps were set out in a report to the council’s Children, Young People and Skills Committee.

It said that New Horizons Academy Trust was on track to run the school until just before Christmas 2019 when Brighton and Hove News reported that the trust had pulled out.

The report to councillors said: “The school and council became aware, through a press article, that New Horizons Academy Trust had withdrawn from becoming the academy sponsor for Moulsecoomb Primary School.

“Neither the school nor the council were notified of this by either the Department for Education or New Horizons Academy Trust.”