Letter: It’s been a failure

Academies were established by the Labour government to improve the performance of ‘failing’ schools by converting them to specially funded academies under a private sponsor.

We see from last week’s reports that Coun Robert Light and his cohorts clearly did not understand this concept and have managed to successfully reverse that process by converting the former highly successful Birkenshaw Middle school managed by the Local Education Authority (LEA) into a failing Academy managed by Sharon Light, Robert Light, Lesley Surman and the rest of the parents who resisted the democratic wishes of Kirklees Council to reconfigure the local schools.

All this was achieved by the spending of millions of taxpayers’ money and we end up with a school placed 2,354th out of a total of 3,079. This was a complete waste of time and money and not much effort if the Ofsted report is to be believed.

A worse position than Whitcliffe (1,853rd) and Batley Business and Enterprise college at Howden Clough (1,425th) where the pupils currently at BBG would have attended under the Kirklees proposals.

There is no admission from the Chairwoman of the Board of Governors, Sharon Light, that the Ofsted results were as a result of bad management but surely this is implicit by bringing in someone from another Academy Group with the level of competence to put things right?

The required action should have then been for the existing governors to resign en masse.

The trouble with the existing lot is that they actually believe all the rhetoric they uttered in setting up the school in the first place.

Perhaps someone could enlighten us about what percentage of teachers at BBG are fully qualified and identify the costs per pupil in relation to LEA funded schools.

The fact that BBG is in 2,354th place out of 3,079 is a complete travesty showing the failure to deliver even average education for the pupils who attend.

Dennis Miller

Oxford Road

Gomersal

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