Democratic Accountability ignored by Colleges and Academy Wannabies

Adrian Pettitt's picture
 2
What happened to accountability?

Later this month, European elections take place and next year we will vote in a general election but who is running education in Brighton & Hove?

At Hove Park School the Head and a small group of largely unelected governors are ignoring the views of staff and parents and attempting to convert a popular and successful local authority community school into an academy . At City College, Brighton & Hove, the senior management has been accused of telling a ‘string of lies’, failing to keep up to date with the college’s pension contributions and running the college into a £1.5M financial crisis  and is now making staff redundant and closing much needed and successful courses for adults and young people . Who are the people making these decisions?

The Head of Hove Park School has never lived in Brighton and brought in his senior managers from his previous school – an academy - in Portsmouth. The Principal of City College, Brighton & Hove, was previously the Vice Principal of the Barnfield Federation in Luton – an organisation run as a business and made up of the Further Education College and several school academies - which, it now emerges, claimed nearly £1 million in government cash for students it had no record of teaching and failed in its duty to make a proper use of funds .

Last year,Whitehawk Primary School, in Brighton, became an academy with City College, Brighton & Hove, as its sponsor. Hove Park School’s Head was providing ‘mentoring support’ to the school while the Principal of City College was a member of its Advisory Group . It now appears that City College’s Assistant Principal – responsible for announcing the crisis and redundancies to the press – is also a member of the governing body at Hove Park School .

How do we hold these people, who seem unwilling to listen to staff, parents and pupils yet intent on making such momentous decisions about Brighton & Hove’s education, accountable?

Stanley Deason

 

 

 

 
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Comments

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 15/05/2014 - 09:09

The Brighton Argus reports that the College's finances is being "scrutinised" by the Skills Funding Agency.

The local press also has a story (page 3) that the proposed studio school sponsored by City College has been delayed by a year because the DfE required "stronger governance".



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