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Haggerston School Under Threat |
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News Archive -
News Archive 2005
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Friday, 22 July 2005 |
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Why does the council want to turn Haggerston School into a City Academy?
Haggerston School is a popular and successful part of our community. The top schools inspector stated it was among the most successful schools in the country. Haggerston came third in the borough’s “league table”.
So why does Hackney Council want to force Haggerston School to become a privately-sponsored mixed-sex City Academy?
The government plans to bring in just 200 city academies across the country. So why have Hackney Council and their private “Learning Trust” company that runs our schools, made it clear they want every secondary school in Hackney to become either a City Academy or foundation school? Most councils will not even have a City Academy, but they want us to have four!
Looking around the country it is clear that other councils have run successful schools into the ground so they can sell them off as City Academies.
Turning Haggerston into a mixed school is one way of doing this.
It looks like it’s a two-part plan - first change a popular girls’ school to a mixed school, then offer extra funding if it goes over to being a City Academy.
Whatever the pros and cons of mixed schools, we should oppose this change until the Council guarantee us that they will not make Haggerston a City Academy.
We know we are not alone thinking this. While the Council and the Learning Trust cook up their plans for Haggerston School, Hackney Independent went out to ask people what they thought. In a survey carried out across Fellows Court in June and July, we found 85% of people opposed the Council’s plans.
Why are our Labour council trying to force this change to Haggerston School on us?
It is because they are obsessed with privatising everything and getting rid of their responsibilities for everything from running swimming pools to cleaning our estates.
They’ve already privatised our estate managers, now they want to shift the whole of council housing to an ALMO company.
They’ve got rid of the running of our schools to the private Learning Trust, now they want rid of as many schools as they can to City Academies. Privatising and transferring responsibility from the council is their one and only answer to everything.
Our children are being used as guinea pigs in the biggest change in education since they brought in comprehensives. This time it is not about a fair deal for all our kids, it is about privatising our schools.
We support the Haggerston School parents, pupils and staff and stand alongside them and Shoreditch tenants and residents in opposing the council’s plans. As the girls’ banner in our photo says: “Hands off Haggerston”! Hands off Haggerston Campaign information sheet
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