Unannounced Visit to the Parent Stakeholders Group

Two parents, paid a surprise visit to the Parent Stakeholders Group (PSG) meeting this evening, Tuesday 28th November.

They met our representative, Claire Jackson, a long-term resident of Coombe Road, and passionate about the area. She pledged her commitment to represent the Ward on the PSG.

They then asked if they might speak to the Group on behalf of the parents of Coombe Road School. Gil Sweetenham requested they leave the room while the members of the PSG made a decision. The Stakeholders Group was kind enough to give them the opportunity to present their views.

This is the speech they gave:




"This message is from the parents and children of Coombe Road School. Our parents come from a wide catchment that includes Bevendean and Moulsecoomb.

"You have spent the last eight months or so dedicating your time to this Secondary Admissions Review and have worked hard to put together the proposals that were made by the Working Group at the beginning of November. You acted as representatives for your Wards in a system which should encourage debate and negotiation in order to achieve a solution. We respect your efforts on behalf of the City.

"However, throughout the process our School received no information from the SAR; our school received no request for a member to join the Stakeholders Group; our school was not included in the public meetings held during the second half of the summer term; no representative from our Ward was present at any meeting throughout the process; and no parent received any correspondence direct from the LEA or the Council regarding focus groups or the Parent Stakeholder Group. Had we been aware of our lack of representation, we would have made every effort to rectify it.

"Our lack of representation is dismaying on its own. In addition, we are dismayed at the results of the SAR, which left us with a choice of the two worst performing schools in Brighton; although now it seems that we will only have one choice, and that all children from our Wards, areas not represented in the process, will be sent to Falmer school. More galling still is the fact that our Ward abuts the areas within the catchment for two of the best performing schools in Brighton. The parents in the next door catchment area are blessed with the best outcome for their children, who have a great start to their secondary education, and a promising future.
This review is unjust to our children. It is unfair that they be so easily banished from the privileges that a good education brings. The new Falmer fixed catchment amounts to social exclusion, ensuring that Falmer school never receives the comprehensive intake that might enable it to flourish.

"The results will be a longterm ghettoization of our Wards. Who would choose to live in a catchment area that leaves their children with a substandard education? We want our communities to flourish, to grow, to change and improve, but this sounds the death knell on that possibility. Our children deserve opportunities to learn, and to become valuable productive members of our society. These proposals, blatantly unfair, do not promise the best for our Wards, or ultimately for Brighton and Hove.
There is no even distribution of deprivation and disadvantage. This is a further disenfranchisement of people already shamefully excluded. I urge you to rethink the proposals and to request that the review place a higher value on social justice.

"Thank you."