William Tyndale Primary School clashes with Islington Council over move to go it alone
‘I’m all right Jack’ fears for academy
Published: 25th February, 2011
by TERRY MESSENGER
GOVERNORS at a primary school are on a collision course with the Town Hall’s education chief over the idea of turning it into Islington’s latest independently run academy.
William Tyndale Primary School in Sable Street, Barnsbury, is seeking information on how it can gain independence from council control.
But the borough’s education boss, Councillor Richard Watts, is hoping to persuade teachers, parents and governors to reject the idea, claiming it will divide attempts to help disadvantaged children.
“Islington Schools have to think very carefully before they go down the road of being an academy and they have to take into account not just the needs of their own pupils but also all children in the area,” said Cllr Watts.
Alisdair Smith, national secretary of the Anti-Academies Alliance, has vowed to leaflet parents outside the school in protest.
Schools have been tempted to apply for academy status because the freedom it brings means that they do not have to pay a percentage of their budget to the council.
As an academy, William Tyndale would run its own financial affairs and receive funding from the government directly without having to go through the Town Hall as a middle man.
But Cllr Watts said that around 7 per cent of school budgets was levied for the vital purpose of funding borough-wide schemes for schools, including support for disadvantaged children.
He said: “We don’t top-slice money for the sake of it. We only do so to provide schemes which can only be provided for by the council, for example, sport for vulnerable families. And if schools opted out of the system it would put some of those schemes under real threat.”
Mr Smith, who lives in Upper Holloway, said: “It smacks of, ‘I’m all right, Jack – we’ll take our money and leave the rest of the local authority with less’, and I’m deeply unhappy about that.”
William Tyndale chairman of governors, Professor Jonathan Weber, told the Tribune yesterday (Thursday): “In common with many schools around the country, we are in a position of trying to get information from the LEAs [local education authorities] and from other schools which have decided to take academy status and from schools who’ve thought about it and rejected it.
“All schools will be under some sort of obligation to discuss it at a governors’ meeting. It’s new legislation and one has to address new legislation if only to decide to throw it out or not. It’s very early days.”
Cllr Watts claimed that some of the
“top-sliced” money from schools has been spent on building improvements with “millions of pounds” going on work at William Tyndale.
And he warned: “Because those works are being subsidised by money which could be going to other schools, it would create a real difficulty.”
The pooled cash is also used to send in advisers to help some schools improve standards.
Academies don’t have to conform to national agreements on staff pay and conditions and have a greater say over their curriculum.
The government believes independent schools are better motivated to excel.
Primary schools including Pooles Park in Finsbury Park and St Peter and Paul’s in Clerkenwell expressed an interest in taking on academy status in the summer.