Councillors urge schools to pause academy process

Senior Labour member says consultation to be extended by two weeks

Governors of two primary schools will be asked to pause the process of joining an academy trust to allow more time for public engagement.

Benfield Primary School and Hangleton Primary School, which make up the Orchard Schools Partnership, started a consultation about joining the Eko Trust last month.

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At a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting on Thursday (19 October), Labour councillor Jacob Taylor said that the consultation, which was due to finish yesterday (Friday 20 October), had been extended for two weeks.

Labour and Green councillors separately proposed motions at the meeting of the full council, asking for a pause in the process.

And the Greens called for a ballot of parents to establish whether they supported the proposals.

Green councillor Sue Shanks recalled how parents and the council opposed plans to convert Hove Park secondary school into an academy.

She said: “One of the proudest moments of our (Green) first administration, when I chaired the children’s committee, was supporting an impressive community campaign at Hove Park School where the governors were proposing an academy.

“I’ve still got the t-shirt with ‘Gove Must Go’ on it. We ran a parental ballot through the local authority which was overwhelmingly against – and the governors dropped the proposal.”

Councillor Taylor, who chairs the council’s Children, Families and Schools Committee, said that Labour had a number of concerns.

They did not believe that the proposals were in the best interest of staff, parents or children at the two schools, with his party focused on “strengthening the family of schools across the city”.

One of the problems facing primary schools in Brighton and Hove is the large number of unfilled places which have hit budgets.

Councillor Taylor said: “Schools leaving to become academies will not solve this issue – only co-ordinated action by a strong local authority can do that.

“Indeed, a fragmented system, with more schools outside of the local authority, makes it harder to properly co-ordinate a city-wide approach for school place planning.”

Councillor Taylor said that the Local Government Association concluded last year that academies did not perform better than council-run schools.

He said that he had asked the schools to hold a ballot but they had refused. He said that he would continue to ask.

Labour councillor Faiza Baghoth also backed a pause in the process of joining the London trust.

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She said that people had contacted her about the consultation process, saying that the meetings were poorly attended as they were held during the day when most people were at work.

Councillor Baghoth said: “The consultations themselves have been described as short and brief and that they were unable to have a proper discussion because they were not well informed in good time.

“The consultations were said to be more of feeding them with information that everything will be wonderful after the trust takes over.”

Conservative councillors voted against both Green and Labour motions, with Councillor Emma Hogan saying that the schools were already part of a federation and urging the council to await the consultation outcome.