by Keith Richmond
The National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers are calling members out on strike at secondary schools in Tamworth in September to disrupt the start of the new academic year.
It is the latest salvo in the unions’ campaign against controversial plans by Conservative-controlled Staffordshire County Council to close Woodhouse, a popular community high school, and turn it into a new academy run by private sponsors Landau-Forte.
The council is also closing the sixth forms at four other schools – Belgrave, Rawlett, Queen Elizabeth’s Mercian and Wilnecote – and replacing them with a single centre at the academy and outside the local school system.
Carolyn Lang of the parents’ campaign group Hands Off Tamworth Schools slammed the council for “removing choice, democracy and public accountability from education in the town” and NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: “This is a dispute about education provision and ensuring that every community has a good local school. The case against the plans is overwhelming; students, parents and teachers are vehemently opposed to Tamworth’s family of schools being broken up this way.”
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said: “Landau-Forte’s record at the Derby academy gives great cause for concern. We will continue to oppose this proposal which we believe is not in the best interests of local children.”
