Get writing some more!

[Paul Welsh]

Hi all

Can I please urge you all to get writing some more. The Academies
Bill - http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/academieshl.html -
has already started its progress through parliament and is due to get
is second reading in the House of Lords on Monday. In due course it
will move to the House of Commons.

One matter to write to your MP about is, as I've mentioned previously,
is the fact that the governors of selective academies will be able to
drop selection and parents will no longer have the right to call a
parental ballot to challenge this.

Obviously, MPs and members of the House of Lords who support grammars
will be sympathetic to trying to include the parental ballot
provisions in the new Bill.

However, if like me you have a Labour MP then there is another
amendment to the Bill that may gain more widespread support. The fact
is that academies are only required to have one parent governor. If
Langley Academy in Slough is anything to go by, representatives of the
sponsors make up the bulk of the governors of the current batch of
academies.

However, the new academies will require no sponsor. The question is
therefore who will the governors consist of?

Now is surely the time for academies to have a majority of governors
who are elected by parents and this is the point I'd like you to raise
with your MP or anyone in the House of Lords you can think of.

As I say, this should have wide appeal amongst MPs from all parties.

From our point of view, having a majority of elected governors should
help protect selective academies from going non-selective. True, it's
not guaranteed but the ballot provisions are extremely complex and
ensuring the governors are in favour of selection is the best way of
ensuring that a selective academy stays selective.

I found a very useful web site the other day that you can use to
contact your MP or a member of the House of Lords. Go to
http://www.writetothem.com, type in your postcode and away you go!
It's the sister site of http://www.theyworkforyou.com that you can use
to keep track of what your MP says in parliament and search
parliamentary debates.

[ymco...@aol.com]

I have been writing again, also to Lord Wallace.  Out of the 1200 schools that have applied to become Academies, does anyone know if St Bernards is on that list?

Yvonne

 that you can use
to keep track of what your MP says in parliament and search
parliamentary debates.

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