Get Involved Now!

There's a meeting of the Parent Stakeholders Group on Tuesday 28th November, 7pm at Hove Town Hall. These are the people who were supposed to be representative of our interests through the process of the Secondary Admissions Review.

It is vital that we now have our views heard by the Parent Stakeholders Group. This meeting is our first opportunity to change the Review, and time is short. We only have until January 12th to get our voices heard and the sooner we start the better.

The Parent Stakeholder Group consists of about 23 parents and carers from across Brighton. However, only one person on that group, Claire Jackson, was from the Coombe Road/Bear Road area; her child goes to St Martyns. As far as we can tell, she was brought onto the Parent Stakeholder Group very late, in mid-September 2006. We wait for confirmation on an actual date.

There was no representative from Moulsecoomb/Bevendean on the Parent Stakeholders Group during the entire process of this Review so far.

The bottom line is that we don't think our views were represented on that group, or on the Working Group, which consisted of:

• Councillors: 2 Labour, 2 Conservative, 1 Green Party, 1 Liberal Democrat
• A parent governor from Cardinal Newman
• 4 representatives of the Parent Stakeholders Group who came from Preston Park, South Hove, Central Brighton and Hanover
  
• 3 local authority officers

After the meeting on 12th January 2007, the Working Group will send their proposals to "The Child, Families and Schools Committee" who will make the final decision about the Secondary Admissions Review and therefore the admissions process in 2008.

Please try to come tomorrow. We want to get our voice heard by the Parent Stakeholders as soon as possible to impress on them our fears for our children's future, but also for the future of our community, if the only choice for our children is Falmer.

I hope we will see some of you there.