Council set to free schools

7:03pm Tuesday 8th July 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Bradford Council wants to relinquish control of two more of its secondary schools to help them improve.

The Council’s decision-making executive has been recommended to sanction the closure of Rhodesway School in Allerton on August 31, 2009, and allow it to reopen as a city academy the following day.

Rhodesway recently emerged from special measures. Inspectors say it is now a “satisfactory and improving school”.

Councillors will also be asked to approve the publication of proposals to close Wyke Manor School and High Fernley Primary School from August next year to allow the district’s first through-age academy to open on the High Fernley site.

Bradford College will be the sole sponsor of the school, provisionally named Appleton Academy. Bradford’s successful Dixons Academy has been lined-up as the school’s principal educational partner. Dixons Academy is also the sponsor of Rhodesway.

Once closure proposals are published, a six-week consultation period will take place.

Wyke Manor has been under- performing and is only half full.

Councillor Colin Gill, the Council’s executive member for services to children and young people, said: “These proposals offer both Wyke and Rhodesway the opportunity to close and re-open as new academies.

“Wyke has already been working closely with Dixons Academy and this has already had a positive impact on pupils’ achievements and we believe Dixons can also help to accelerate improvements at Rhodesway.”

Councillor Ralph Berry, the Labour group’s education spokesman, added: “We would hope that people would support both proposals. I understand there has been full consultation with staff at Rhodesway.

“On Rhodesway clearly there has been a lot of work done but we should not stop there. We have taken the decision that the Dixons’ proposal is a way of providing high quality education to a community that has not had access to that.”

Coun Berry added that Dixons’ possible involvement with both schools would help the “desperate situation” in which Bradford found itself in the league tables.

However, the proposals have met with resistance from some quarters.

Resident Carol Wilkinson, who lives next to High Fernley in Hedge Nook, has collected a petition of more than 60 signatures calling for the Appleton Academy proposal to be moved.

Mrs Wilkinson said residents had “great concerns” over the increase in traffic, safety, lack of parking and loss of green belt land to the development.

She said she believed next Tuesday’s meeting was a “foregone conclusion”, adding she expected the proposals for the development to be passed. “I think Wyke Manor should stay where it is and they should do it up,” she said.

Chris Cheetham, a history teacher at Rhodesway, has campaigned against the school changing in status.

Mr Cheetham said: “We have got 97 per cent of staff against the academy here but no-one is listening.”

Councillor David Ward, the Liberal Democrat group’s education spokes-man, said the Government had an “obsession” with turning schools into academies and said he wanted to see the schools remain under Council control.