‘School closure decision a borough-wide scandal’
PARENTS CLAIMING THEY HAVE BEEN ‘MISLED’
EDUCATION chiefs in Kirklees have been condemned for the “utter mess” that surrounds their decision to close a Huddersfield secondary school.
Following pleas by parents for clarity over where pupils from Almondbury Community School (ACS) will be educated next year, education bosses were accused of botching the process and failing to reassure those affected.
Leader of the Conservative group, Clr David Hall, himself a teacher, said the situation was “an utter mess.”
And he accused the Labour-led administration of presiding over “a borough-wide scandal.”
The council’s decision to close ACS continues to rumble on, with parents confronting councillors as their children face moves to schools not of their choosing.
Despite ACS parents being told that they have “the right to preference a place at any school” – including King James’s in Almondbury, Netherhall Learning Campus, Newsome High, Honley High, Shelley College and North Huddersfield trust – many schools are now full.
That means some children face lengthy walks, or journeys on multiple buses, to reach either Newsome High or North Huddersfield Trust, which is in Fartown.
In deputations presented to a meeting of full council in Huddersfield Town Hall, parents with children at ACS said they had been “misled” over school choice and had no catchment school to apply to.
They said their fears had been ignored and dismissed.
One mother, Cass Watson, said: “My child has no idea where her education will be completed, and to what standard.”
She said only badgering by parents had resulted in a meeting, set for tomorrow, with education officers to discuss next steps.
“We felt let down during the consultation period. Now we feel neglected and bewildered by the lack of information available.
“Promises were made by the Cabinet. They have been broken by this Cabinet.”
Beth Atkinson Fry said parents faced a “significantly limited” choice and asked: “How can the council justify that the numbers still add up?”
Clr Carole Pattison, who took on the portfolio for learning, aspiration and communities in May, said she was aware of anxiety around the re-drawing of catchment areas and sought to reassure parents.
She said an application had been made “to government departments and the Schools Adjudicator” to get catchment areas changed.
She added: “We will change the admission limits. We are in negotiation not just with Newsome and North Huddersfield Trust, but with King James’s and Netherhall.
“All children hopefully be some certainty.”
In a stinging condemnation of the Cabinet, Clr Hall said: “It does seem to me that
will given this has almost transformed from what was a local matter to a rather a borough-wide scandal.
“We have heard that children are without priority admission areas [and] that schools are blocking applications from certain parents.
“The message that the Cabinet seems to be giving is, ‘Don’t worry, because we can allocate a school that is more than an hour’s walking distance away and which has recently been assessed by Ofsted as inadequate’.
“I have rarely seen such a botched operation.”
He said Cabinet members had ignored opportunities to rethink their decision and to slow the process of the school’s closure.
And with the rapidly approaching October 31 deadline for parents to present their options, he was not reassured by what he had heard.
“The decision parents will be making on behalf of their children is one of the most important they will ever make.
“If I was a parent, that would not give me any reassurance whatsoever that the Cabinet actually knows what’s going on with this issue.”
He advised council leader Clr Shabir Pandor to convene a private meeting of the Cabinet this week, with senior officers “first of all as a damage limitation exercise and secondly to try and find a way out of the utter mess they have created in this part of Kirklees.”
In a sometimes testy exchange of views, Clr Pattison roundly rejected suggestions that some pupils were being blocked from applying to their school of choice.
But opposition groups continued to pour scorn on the council’s decision to close the school.