Oppose the academy proposal at Impington Village College

Henry Morris developed the concept of the Village College in Cambridgeshire. He believed that education was a lifelong experience and that schools should be firmly rooted in their communities. Impington Village College with its grade 1 listed Bauhaus ‘Gropius Hall’ is iconic within the Village College movement. This powerful vision for education in Cambridgeshire is being dismantled.

No longer governed as public bodies, academies are set up as independent charitable companies and constituted in the same way as commercial companies. The relationship between schools and their communities is being transformed by Michael Gove¹s policy where school governance is handed wholesale to unaccountable Academy Trusts. These Trusts will ultimately have a free hand to do as they please, even transfer schools to management by education companies, with only the consent of the Trustees who have no obligation to consult with parents, staff, students, the community or even the school governors.

Smaller schools and those in poorer communities, often requiring a more diverse range of services, will find it more difficult to ‘go it alone’ as academies. Money is being ‘top sliced’ from Local Authorities to fund academies and this is leading to the break up of the county-wide provision and planning of services, which will have a damaging effect on those who are most in need.

We invite everyone who values accountability and fairness in education to sign the petition opposing the proposal for Impington Village College to become an academy.

We are also collecting signatures requesting an extension of time to the consultation on academy conversion – petition link here:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/extension-of-consultation-for-academy-proposal-at-impin.html