Parents unhappy with academy plan
Parents have set up a campaign to fight plans to transform a Church of England secondary school in Northampton into an academy.
The group, who have children attending Unity College, in Trinity Avenue, have launched a campaign called Save Unity College because they believe academy status would cause further disruption to pupils' education.
Education officials at the Peterborough Diocese have submitted an application for the change of status at Unity, which is currently in special measures, that could take effect in September next year.
However, parents criticised the consultation process, saying that it was a sham.
Father-of-two John Henry said: "We have decided that, as a group of parents, we do not want academy status and want the school to remain as Unity College.
"To pursue this will cause further disruption to our children's education. We've already had two, one from the re-organisation of the school system, and the second, removing a headteacher, who joined early to help the governors. The academy status will be the third."
Mr Henry, who is a teacher at a Milton Keynes school and whose son is in year nine, claimed parents did not receive notification from the school about the consultation and some had received newsletters through their homes on the day of a community meeting.
He also said Unity should be given a three-year reprieve to allow the changes set up by current principal, Margaret Gwynne, to have an impact.
The announcement of the campaign comes after the diocese confirmed it had appointed ex-deputy head of Northampton School for Boys, Vanessa Ray, as principal designate, with a salary of up to 125,000.
Mr Henry said: "To go ahead and appoint a new headteacher for a school which doesn't exist, during the consultation stage, is clearly quite incredible."
A Church of England spokesman said the final decision for academy status would be made by Government ministers after the consultation period.
The action group has a website called www.saveunitycollege.org.
There will be a drop-in session about the proposals for parents and the community at the college on January 7, from 6pm to 7.30pm.
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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