Letter to Lewisham Directorate for Children and Young People from LSFed Prendergast Parents

This first week back at school has been very stressful and stupidly busy as a teacher and union rep. My union's position and proposed industrial action over our federatiojn becoming a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) has been presented in a rather critical and one-sided fashion. I am extraordinarly grateful not just to be sent the following extremely supportive letter signed by over 30 Prendergast Parents regarding how the consultation (James Kerr and I wrote about in previous posts) has been conducted, but also to be given the permission to share it on my blog. 

Dear [Lewisham Directorate for Children and Young People],

I am writing to you on behalf of a number of parents to raise our profound concern about the impartiality of the communication with pupils on the proposed academisation of LSFed Prendergast Schools. It has become clear from the previously confidential governor minutes (released on 18th March after a parent’s FOI request), that the LSFed governors have spent two years developing their proposal and yet, after launching the formal consultation period on 20th Feb ‘23, at no point over the last six weeks have the students been given impartial literature, assemblies or context. This is a shocking dereliction of duty on the part of the senior leadership team and governing body.

Early in the consultation process, several parents wrote letters of complaint to Ladywell head […] In his reply […] he went so far as to quote the DfE impartiality guidelines and yet failed to address the key action point which demanded to know when the senior leaders intend to rectify their error and offer a balanced viewpoint. As per the schools' complaints procedure this has now been escalated to Executive HT […].

Without impartial information from the senior leaders, students have been left grappling to inform themselves on the basics as well as the risks; as per this testimony from a parent from LSFed Ladywell Prendergast:

“At the MATs school council debate, students clearly expressed that they still do not understand what a MAT is or how it would impact them. The approach has been chaotic throughout, for example on Tues 21st March the Head Prefect was left to manage a spontaneous MAT debate attended by 45 students, with 10 mins notice, no resources and without the support of a single teacher”.

There have been many reports like this from parents across all three schools; students are deeply frustrated, know that they are being fed biased information and feel they have no authority or leverage to challenge the senior leadership. The Parental and Community Engagement Policy recognizes “the rights parents have and refers to the processes in school by which parents exercise these rights”, but does not mention students and outlines no mechanism for change or even input should they wish to raise their own concerns via the school council or any other means.

Given how long the leadership have had to prepare for this consultation period there is no excuse for the engagement with prefects/schools councils to be ill judged, the communication to be chaotic, or for lack of age appropriate unbiased material. The fact that younger pupils at Primary level heard about the proposal in partial, off-the-cuff comments is incredible and shows a lack of respect both for them and their parents […].  

Providing an impartial contextualisation is critical not only because it is the students’ education at stake, but also because the LSFed schools may well be facing strike action from huge numbers of teachers and support staff in the coming weeks. If the executive leadership at LSFed schools choose not to contextualise the strikes they are recklessly driving a wedge between the staff, pupils and parents. At the parent information events the governors have repeatedly said that there are very few teachers who are opposed to the proposed MAT when in fact the NEU and GMB indicative vote (carried out mid-March ‘23) indicates that almost all unionised staff are prepared to strike. Is the governing board deliberately misleading parents? It astonishes us that leadership at the LSFed schools, which pride themselves on promoting community cohesion and collaboration, seems to be manipulating the truth for its own purposes rather than working within the community to help us better understand the proposals’ risks and opportunities. When the staff strike parents will be left to explain to their children the internal conflict the schools are failing to address: the staff - the schools’ “greatest asset” fundamentally disagree with the proposal.

Vicky Foxcroft MP is in opposition and The Labour Group passed a motion against the MAT proposal on 27 Feb ’23 (attached for reference). The impact of LSFed becoming a MAT would be seismic for Lewisham’s education ecology and we are appealing to you to intervene in whatever way you can. The students deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. It is their education that would be most affected by the conversion to a MAT, so they must be included in meaningful and balanced discussion. We fear that LSFed schools are deliberately avoiding their duty and wish to mislead our children. This is setting a dangerous example for our young people, and causes upset in the wider community as teachers, parents and alumni are now mistrustful of the LSFed leadership.

We look forward to your reply...