community ousts 'Conman'
WORKERS, JAN 2005 ISSUE
The campaign by local parents and trade unionists against turning a local school into a city academy scored a notable success this month, when its private sponsor withdrew. McEntee secondary school in Walthamstow, north east London, was to become part of the government city academy programme with £2 million from fashion millionaire Jasper Conran, and £24 million from the public purse. In return for his stake, Conran would have gained effective control over the school and its curriculum through powers to appoint senior staff and a majority of governors. In return for handing over the school, public money would meet ongoing running costs!
McEntee School, north east London, where teachers and parents have scored a success in the attempt to privatise it into a "city academy"
Parents and campaigners were furious at the effective privatisation of their school, which was to entail closing it until 2007, leaving pupils to travel to other schools around the area. The campaign targeted Conran, planning a picket of late night Christmas shoppers outside his Oxford Street Debenhams store with placards which read "Give £24 million to all our schools not to Jasper Conman". But before the campaigners could get on the tube from Walthamstow on 2 December, Conran pulled out, saying: "We have come to the conclusion that this is not right for us." A parent of an 11-year-old McEntee pupil said, "If he hadn't pulled out we were planning to visit his stores around the country until he changed his mind". Now Waltham Forest local education authority — itself run by a private consortium EduAction — says it is in talks with a religious group, the United Learning Trust, to take over as sponsor.
The small handful of existing academies is beset by problems and controversy. Greig Academy in Haringey is on its third head teacher in less than a year; King's Academy in Middlesbrough teaches creationism in science lessons (Blair said this was up to them); Bexley Business Academy in south London has received a highly critical Ofsted report; and the sponsor for a new academy in Enfield, north London, the Oasis Trust, declared that "the example of Jesus Christ would pervade every aspect of school life".
