West End Extra - Letters: Harolds

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 19 October 2007

The horror of Harold’s Pimlico

• AS a parent of a child at Pimlico, the prospect of seeing a good school being taken over by a private trust with little experience of running state schools fills me with horror (Outrage over future plans for academy, October 12).
Westminster City Council has done everything in its power to keep parents in the dark and push through the transfer as a fait accompli. Both Westminster School and North London Collegiate were in the running to take over Pimlico but mysteriously pulled out at the last minute.This is possibly because they guessed that the deal with John Nash had already been done and there was no point wasting time and resources on an alternative bid.
In some cases, academies may be the right solution for failing inner city schools. Pimlico is not such a school.
Despite one bad OFSTED, the school scores above average results for GCSE A-C grades given its intake, and sent three students to Oxbridge last year. It has an inspirational and committed teaching staff.
The very last thing the school needs is more upheaval and the interference of a trust whose motives are at best opaque.
I may be a cynic but perhaps their interest has something to so with the £35m redevelopment plan which could release valuable land for residential development
PAUL BOWER
Address supplied

• IT is a scandal that the famous Pimlico School – a non-denominational community comprehensive – is to be removed from the public sector and handed over to a prominent Conservative party donor.
I am sure Harold Wilson – who opened Pimlico – would not be impressed by this decision.
£35 million of public funds to build the new school and the yearly running costs provided by the taxpayer will simply be transferred to John Nash’s charity, Future.
It is hard to believe that a school with highly respectable GCSE results – the best on record – and good A-level results is presently in special measures.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is grateful for his state education but supports the creation of academies and backs the privately educated Lord Adonis in his collusion with the Etonian Sir Simon Milton to, in effect, privatise the education service.
This is an outrage and a gross waste of public funds.
Where is the evidence that a democratically unaccountable academy will be better placed to meet the needs of the school community than keeping the school in the public sector with an equal injection of cash?
This decision is a betrayal of all sense of decency.
Gary Kirk
Thorncroft St, SW8

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

Your comments: