Friday, November 07, 2008

Greens help save Addington High and Westwood Language School from closure


Well what a U TURN! Rumours had started to circulate that Addington High was going to be left alone in the councils’ revised schools shake up; but Westwood, being saved came completely out of the blue.

The flyer attached to this post lists the public meetings that had been organised by Croydon Save our Schools – it’s a good thing we didn’t print thousands of these.

Essentially, a group of like minded organisations - Croydon Trades Council, Croydon Green Party, NUT, NUSUWT, British Humanist Association, the Labour group and a host of other trade unions - formed Croydon SOS to stop this Academy madness in Croydon. It just goes to show what can be achieved if you mobilise and take on this the powers that be.

I am particularly pleased because I was given the task of securing the public meeting at Westwood Girls College. The principal of the school agreed to the meeting on 18th November. We had even secured Green Lewisham councillor Romayne Phoenix for the panel.

Additionally, having had discussions with experts in the field of discrimination, Croydon Green Party submitted a letter of concern about Equalities Impact Assessment to the consultation with regard to the planned closures (four schools closing – two super Academies opening) with reference to Westwood – a girls school.

Arguably, the council appear to be testing the water with regard to their plans for school closures and where they come up against resistance they shift their attention. The audacity of this Tory council is breathtaking.

So, the fight isn’t over. The council seem to be hell bent on this programme of madness and another school is now are being earmarked for Academy status. They have now shifted their attention to Archbishop Lanfranc . Looks like the council are simply going through the alphabet??

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