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 So here we are with a new LibCon coalition government and Michael Gove (mainly privately educated - scholarship) as the new Education Secretary. Ed "bully" Balls is, like the inelegantly named Department of Children Schools and Families, no more. Unfortunately, Fiona Mactaggart, the anti-grammar school (Cheltenham Ladies' College educated) Labour MP for Slough retained her seat. Nevertheless, in general it seems like good news, but we would be foolish in the extreme to believe that there is now little threat to St Bernard's.
The Expression of Interest is now sitting in Michael Gove's in-tray with a big tick in the "No" box in response to the question about whether the governors of St Bernard's support the application.
Several FaCT members have written to Mr Gove recently and we await his response. Chris Beer, a parent governor and member of the FaCT Executive Committee, wrote to Mr Gove some time ago and received a reply from Mr Gove's office back in February 2010 which stated:
"We want to emphasize that there is no threat whatsoever to existing grammar schools. They are excellent schools, and we support their right to exist where parents support them." This is certainly good news. Mr Cameron made similar comments in an interview published in the Daily Mail a day before the election when he stated the following: "I will accept that I got it wrong in the row on grammar schools. They are excellent schools, all 164 of them, and under the Conservative Party they will prosper and flourish."However, the Conservatives want to make it easier for schools to turn themselves into Academies. We will have to see how the legislation for this is framed and whether it changes the complex rules, including parental ballots, that currently prevent the governing bodies of grammar schools from dropping their academic selection criteria without legal challenge. We also need to see what the Conservatives mean when they say they support grammars "where parents support them". The obvious question here is Which parents? There are a number of possible answers. The parents of children currently attending St Bernard's would almost certainly be opposed (though there has been no attempt to ballot them). In the case of a merger with St Joseph's, however, perhaps the parents of the children at St Joseph's would also be consulted. This might yield a rather different result. How about parents at feeder primary schools? As you can see, the Conservative statement is not as clear as it could be. Policy aside, there are of course some obvious practicalities to consider. The new government is currently preparing an emergency Budget. Given we are in a country whose national debt is rising at over £5,000 per second, we may well see major cuts to the school building programme. This could mean that St Joseph's receives no funds for rebuilding works. It may well also mean that the funding to build a new Academy on St Bernard's site is just not going to be available. However, this will continue to leave Slough Council (still Labour controlled) requiring more school places and the Diocese still seeking to extricate itself from funding two schools in Slough. Put these two together and it's not difficult to conclude that the Diocese's "plan B" might well be to sell the St Joseph's site to the Council and turn St Bernard's into a non-grammar. In the short term, we need to ensure that Mr Gove rejects the EoI. With the best will in the world, however, it seems unlikely that he is going to have time to consider it any time soon. We could easily find that there has been no progress by September. St Bernard's will then find itself again in the invidious position of having to tell prospective parents that the school may become an Academy but nothing is certain. The number of applications will continue to fall. Make no mistake, getting rid of the Labour government has certainly helped our cause. However, there are still many threats to St Bernard's; it is far from safe. To discuss this article, join our mailing list. |
