Couple furious at grandchildren’s school split up
This is why as grandparents we are so upset about the whole thing, it’s affecting the children’s mental health Anne Fahy
AGOSFORTH couple are furious that two of their grandchildren have been split up after a random allocation placed one at Gosforth Academy and another at the yet-to-be-finished Great Park Academy.
Peter and Anne Fahy have lived in Gosforth for 56 years and their son and daughter studied at Gosforth Academy. They have another three grandchildren currently attending the Academy, and thought that 13-year-old cousins Blake Fahy and Serena Midas would be a shoe-in, due to the fact that they both live within 700 metres of the school.
However, that hasn’t been the case, after Serena was given an offer at Great Park Academy after a random allocation tie break service was used to allocate places due to Gosforth Academy being oversubscribed.
The tie break has led to protests from parents who feel that it is unfair, and a petition was launched with the aim of challenging the Gosforth Multi-Academy Trust, which manages both school, on the “unfair” admissions procedure.
Peter said: “They’re two cousins both in the same place. One has gotten in and the other hasn’t, I can’t see any logic in it whatsoever.
Anne, 76, added: “We know Gosforth is oversubscribed, but this isn’t fair. We’ve lived in Gosforth for over 50 years and it’s always been done by distance, but now it’s not, and it cannot be fairer to just give places to random people.”
Grandparents-of-seven Peter and Anne are not only worried that Serena will be split up from her friends, but that her years of learning French and Spanish have been wasted.
She has studied Spanish since primary school and French for three years, but at present, only German and Mandarin are offered at GCSE level on Great Park’s curriculum.
Peter said: “They haven’t studied Mandarin or German so it’s a whole new ball game for them. They will only have the choice of these two languages at Great Park, compared with four at Gosforth Academy, where they can carry on the ones they’ve already started.”
Anne also fears the impact that such “disruption” will have on her granddaughter’s mental health, and said she was “hysterical” when she found out she would be separated from her friends. She finished: “These children who are moving up now, these are the lockdown children.
“When they left primary school, they missed out on signing shirts and having a water fight because we were in lockdown. Then, when they started middle school we were locked down again so they did home schooling.
“They’ve had a lot of disruption, and now they’re getting it again with the random allocation and the languages. This is why as grandparents we are so upset about the whole thing, because it’s affecting the children’s mental health.”
The Gosforth Trust, which runs both schools, acknowledged the frustration and said that this is the first year they have used the tie breaker.
They blamed delays in building and an “unprecedented growing number of students” for opening up its first cohort of Year 9 students in 2024.
A statement from the trust read: “We want to assure our parents and carers that we use a fair and transparent process that is applied impartially.”