A former Brighton head teacher has added her voice to those hoping to give children from Whitehawk a better schooling.
Jill Clough “applauded” Curtis James and the Class Divide campaign group for their work to tackle the injustices affecting children from the area.
Dr Clough gave up her job running an exclusive independent school to take on the East Brighton College of Media Arts – known as CoMart – starting in January 2001.
Having lifted the school out of “special measures” within a year, she left in March 2003.
The school had been placed in special measures by the official education watchdog Ofsted after an inspection before her appointment found the school to be inadequate.
Just over two years after she left, in summer 2005, Brighton and Hove City Council closed CoMart, in Wilson Avenue.
It was originally named Stanley Deason High School when it opened in 1972 – after a former mayor of Brighton and long-serving councillor – before being rebranded Marina High from 1997-99, the CoMart.
It saddled with debts as an exodus of pupils coupled with an expensive “PFI” or private finance initiative deal saddled the school with a deficit and the need for radical job cuts.
Dr Clough, now an author in Cumbria, said: “I left my post as the principal of East Brighton College of Media Arts when I realised the entrenched snobbery in the city would never acknowledge that all children are potentially marvellous.
“It’s adults who shape them, ignore them, make excuses or have faith in them. I am very sad to see that nothing seems to have changed.
“I had been successful in two previous schools (I still have letters from parents, students and staff) but within six months of arriving I was being treated by my fellow heads in Brighton as if I were inadequate, because only ‘inadequate’ people would associate themselves with the school.
“I discovered from CoMart students that this was an all too familiar experience for them. Still, staff and I together got the school out of special measures in a year.
“Nobody was interested. At that time, my union, the Association of School and College Leaders, was utterly supportive of me. I wonder what they are thinking now.
“I applaud Curtis James for all the work he has done over the past years, through Class Divide, to draw attention to the injustice still rampant in Brighton.”
Selective re-telling of the history here – from her comments at the time, and she was not shy in going to the press then, it is clear the problem was the council failed in supporting her, having already bungled the PFI contract. Plus ça change – a Labour council’s incompetence shutting a school in the east of the city…
It doesn’t sound like she has actually read the proposals or the concerns raised. I haven’t heard anyone objecting to Whitehawk being added to the catchment for V/DS. Curtis James, who also no longer lives in Brighton, is only interested in seeing division across communities and doesn’t care if the facts get in the way – bit like Trump.
In fact, Jill Clough and Curtis James both live in Cumbria. Village life must be very slow up there.
She’s not here and seems to not have been involved for a good 20 years. That says it all really.
An unfortunate intervention from a person who was struggling with her personal issues at the time. Never shunned by other head teachers, quite possibly the reverse.
I really do not think it necessary to criticse Ms Clough as being out of touch. I was a teacher at CoMart for a only a few years but I can say that Jill Clough gave the school a sense of pride – which Brighton & Hove really couldn’t deal with. The PFI plans were obviously not for CoMart but something else. The brilliant teachers dealt with many troubled pupils – the school took most of the excluded pupils from other Brighton schools. When it closed, CoMart had excellent GCSE results, considering the pupil population – over half the pupils had specialneeds of some sort. The school was always earmarked as a problem for the City & it was hard work, certainly, but staff knew it was on the up. Brighton & Hove weren’t prepared to wait. Every adult who was there at the end knows Whitehawk children deserved more & still do. It still hurts.
The issue isn’t how good or bad she was at her job or how good or bad the schools were but her experience as a head teacher in Brighton was 20 years ago. The city has changed a lot since then.
And even then her ‘weiging in’ appears to only be a sentence supporting someone else with zero comments of her own about what she would do about catchment areas to reduce social injustice.
The comment before mine?