Fact 1

Rhodesway School has been named among 200 schools nationwide which have made the most improvement in GCSE results between 2003 and 2006 (along with Carlton Bolling College, Grange Technology College, Immanuel, and Challenge College).

Fact 2

According to the Government, its Academy programme is designed to replace “underachieving” or “failing” schools. In order to do this the school is closed down and handed over to an outside sponsor whose knowledge, experience and expertise will somehow lift the school out of the doldrums.

Fact 3

Rhodesway school is scheduled to be closed down and turned into an academy under the control of an organisation called the British EduTrust, run by a London-based businessman.

 

Perhaps the Government will accept that the improvements made at Rhodesway School have been brought about by the professionalism of the staff and the hard work of the pupils.

Perhaps it will conclude that to hand the school over to an organisation with no proven track record in education would be at the best pointless and at the worst disastrous.

Perhaps Bradford Council will now withdraw its support for the Academy and allow the school t

o continue the improvements made by its existing staff and pupils working with the support of the local authority.

If the Academies programme was driven purely by a desire to improve education and had nothing to do with a political agenda of privatisation, we might be able to say Yes, perhaps they will.