Moves to do away with elected parent governors and abolish individual governing bodies at more than a dozen schools in Plympton and Plymstock have resulted in a backlash from many parents who are angered by the proposals.
Westcountry Schools Trust (WeST) announced the plans recently and this has led to more than 750 people signing an online petition on change.org to fight the plans.
WeST is a Multi-Academy Trust with 27 schools under its wing, including Plymstock School, Coombe Dean, Hele’s and 10 primary schools in the area.
Under what is planned it would also leave each of the schools in the Multi-Academy Trust without its own individual governing body.
In a letter to parents, carers, staff and existing governors, WeST’s chairman of Trustees, Iain Grafton, said:
“WeST has grown from two to 27 schools and that has started to challenge our current system of local governing bodies. At present, several local governing bodies are struggling to recruit a full complement of governors and others are struggling to recruit clerks.
“To deal with these risks, trustees have considered a number of options from retaining the status quo to dissolving local governance mechanisms. After considerable debate, the Trustees believe that WeST would be best served, at this stage in its development, by a system of hub advisory boards which will replace local governing bodies on September 1 2022.
“Trustees recognise the significant personal investment that many governors have made in our schools, and I would like to thank you for the time and commitment you have given to our pupils and staff. I very much hope that you will want to be part of what comes next.”
However, Mr Grafton’s letter has gone down like a lead balloon with a significant number of parents who have come together to fight the plans tooth and nail.
A spokesperson for the parents’ group said:
“Parents across the Trust are upset that any accountability or link between governors and local schools will be lost alongside their right to elect parent governors. Also staff will no longer have a governor either. To make this worse, many long-standing governors across the trust were not even shown the courtesy of being informed that they were being dismissed prior to this (letter) being sent out. It is a power grab pure and simple.
“Parents, staff and communities across WeST are organising to overturn this decision and with 17,000 children in a WeST school across our locality we think this is going to be a big public interest story.”
“We believe that every school is a special and unique place which evokes pride, develops identity and inspires loyalty for a lifetime. If WeST has got too big to value each school then WeST is too big”
Explaining the proposed replacement scheme Mr Grafton said in his letter:
“The Board proposes to establish four hub advisory boards. All hubs will have between six and eight schools, at least one of which will be a secondary school. Schools within each hub will be geographically close, in order that the hub may maintain links with the broad community that the schools within the hub serve.
“The Board wants to create hubs which add value to the work of the Trust. Trustees recognise the important role of our school communities in influencing the direction of the Trust.
“With this in mind, the Board intends to invite interested parents, staff and local business people to apply for a seat on a hub advisory board. The Trust will consider the skills and experience of everyone who applies and will select just over half of each hub’s members from them. The chair of the hub advisory board will be elected from this group.
“In addition to this group, a number of seats equal to the number of schools within the hub, will be appointed. Parents and carers from each WeST school will be able to apply to serve on their hub. Again, the Trust will consider the skills and experience of everyone who applies and will select from them.
“This group will support the hub in thinking about the communities served by the hub schools. The Trust Board is clear that these elected members are not representatives of a particular school but will have the interests of WeST and all its 14,000 learners at heart.
“Each hub advisory board’s remit will be to consider and advise the Trust Board on matters to do with curriculum, community involvement and safeguarding. The Trustees are very clear that they wish each hub advisory board to act as the eyes and ears of Trustees. Hub advisory boards will have no decision-making powers.”
The headteacher of each school within each hub will serve on its advisory board.
Mr Grafton concluded:
“The Trust has considered carefully the advantages and disadvantages for the proposals for the operation of hub advisory boards and would now like you to give your views on the proposed route ahead, or suggestions on constituting the hubs differently.”
Involved parties were able to take part in a consultation with an initial closing date of March 28, but this was later extended to April 4.
In a statement issued in support of their petition the group of parents pulled no punches in their response to Mr Grafton’s letter, saying: “We believe that every school is a special and unique place which evokes pride, develops identity and inspires loyalty for a lifetime.
“If WeST has got too big to value each school then WeST is too big. We entirely reject the premise that WeST bureaucrats are better placed to decide who should govern our schools.
“We do not believe that the children’s interests are best served by batch governing multiple schools in a one-size-fits-all homogenised and centrally-vetted politburo.
“Good governors know the school area, the children, the families and the staff. These governors are in-tune with the challenges and opportunities and passionate about working with the leadership team to help make that school the best it can be for the students.
“Therefore we think that WeST’s decision to sever the link between school communities and their governors is an abhorrent power grab by a faceless organisation desperate to steal school’s voices and identities to create one for itself.
“Schools need to be more accountable to children and families, not less. This will make it even more difficult for parents and staff to question and change practices which are not in the best interests of the children”
“WeST needs to stop its creeping increase in controls on member schools and we demand that the system of each school maintaining its own local governing board is retained as a minimum.
“The stated reason for this power grab is that some schools don’t have a full complement of governors and others cannot appoint a clerk. It seems perplexing that WeST haven’t actually advertised any of these crucial vacancies to parents across the Trust or anywhere else in order to try and fill them – why is this?
“It also seems quite illogical that the answer to not having enough governors is to sack every experienced, long-standing and effective governor across the Trust. It is clear this argument doesn’t stack up.
“No bureaucracy ever gives back power. We must make a stand now for our local schools or they will be subsumed into this faceless entity that nobody chose.”
Individual parents have also been having their own say by posting additional comments alongside their support of the online petition. One parent remarked:
“I think it’s important to have school governors that are linked into every individual school. This sounds like a bureaucratic watering down of the safeguards for our children in schools.”
Another stated:
“Schools need to be more accountable to children and families, not less. This will make it even more difficult for parents and staff to question and change practices which are not in the best interests of the children. This move is indicative of the further corporatisation of state education.”
A further remarked:
“If you receive taxpayers money to provide services you should have proper systems to be held to account by the public and by your service users or their families. This is a basic premise of public service and WeST appointing their own choice of governors flies in the face of this principle.”
Parents with children at small WeST schools are particularly concerned about the adverse impact of the proposals. One said:
“Our primary is a tiny village school and I cannot see how it can be effectively represented in this way.”
Another endorsed this, adding:
“Every school is different. Each school has to have its own identity. A small village school will get lost in these hubs.”
Parents now eagerly await WeST’s response to the consultation and their response to the petition against the overall proposals.
(story courtesy of the Plympton Podcast)
