Andy Slaughter's Summer Newsletter
Hammersmith has been particularly badly hit by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future budget, MP Andy Slaughter reports in his summer newsletter. 13 schools here have lost all their funding, including Phoenix, William Morris and Sacred Heart, but also special schools and the pupil referral unit. That means a loss of £200 million just in the borough, but kids going out of borough will hear the same bad news.
But this isn’t about saving money, the MP says in his summer 2010 newsletter, it’s about special treatment. Private companies are homing in on H&F, just as developers do, with the aim of setting up selective schools alongside existing primaries. They can attract pupils using generous Government grants. The one going into the Wormholt Tenants’ Hall by the A40 has been gifted £850,000 by the council and is bidding for £8 million from the government. It is evicting the Tenants and Residents’ Association in the process and closing a couple of roads, but who’s counting?
Meanwhile another firm is touting for kids around Shepherds Bush as the TES reported recently. Old pupils, like myself, of Peterborough school in Fulham, are puzzled by this demand for new schools everywhere when it was closed only two years ago to be sold to a private French school, the MP says. Especially since the council is now supporting a massive new school just up the road on a tiny site:
www.saveparsonsgreen.com
The views expressed in this interview are those of Andy Slaughter MP, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hammersmith Today or Neighbour Net Ltd. To read more sign up to Andy Slaughter's newsletter on his official web page.
September 5, 2010
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