Teachers’ £7,000 trip to the seaside
As education budget cuts loom, school staff head for conference at luxury Brighton hotel
Published: 27 May 2010
by TOM FOOT
FIFTY managers and teachers swapped the staffroom for a luxury hotel in Brighton to discuss the future of a Highgate school, the New Journal has learned.
At a total cost of £7,000, staff from Parliament Hill School stayed overnight in the Grand Hotel, described as the “epitome of luxury” with “stunning sea views” on the Sussex seafront.
Gourmet dishes on the hotel’s dinner menu on Friday night, as the teachers arrived, included Sussex “Upper Dicker” chicken, griddled English asparagus and oysters.
The trip coincided with warnings that all of Camden’s schools will have to tighten their belts and insiders said some staff were reluctant to take part, feeling the meetings should have been hosted in north London.
One source at the school told the New Journal: “All schools at the moment are looking for examples of waste – we might have one here.”
Parliament Hill headteacher Sue Higgins said: “I am delighted and proud of the commitment shown by school staff by giving up so much of their free time on Friday and a significant portion of their weekend to attend this residential conference.
“By holding a conference at the weekend we have been able to negotiate a preferential rate [£140 per head], and book speakers to attend at no cost to the school, allowing staff to focus on planning to continue the excellent education we provide.”
A Camden Council spokesman said funding for the trip was raised independently from the main school budget and that closing the school for a traditional inset day – when teachers come into school but pupils don’t – would have potentially been more expensive.
It was called so that the school could discuss forthcoming “changes to the curriculum”, brainstorm on the use of computers, and discuss expansion plans under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, a government scheme which the New Journal revealed last week could be threatened by cuts ordered by the new government.
Ms Higgins is hoping that BSF funding will transform Parliament Hill into a “national centre for excellence
and innovation”, with improved sports facilities, a student “wellbeing” centre and a training facility.
New Education Secretary Michael Gove has vowed to review the spending and there is a fear that those projects not yet signed off could be axed.
The previous government introduced a “fair funding system” based on deprivation called the Direct Schools Grant that increased funding to Camden by 8 per cent.
Andrew Baisley, secretary of Camden National Union of Teachers (NUT), said: “We just don’t know what’s going to happen to this review because we are not sure what Michael Gove is going to do. School budgets are very uncertain. We haven’t heard from them on this particularly – but we have got a new administration in Camden that has promised to protect the schools’ budget.”