Potential Falmer Academy

There has been talk of turning Falmer into an Academy, with private funding of £2 million from Jon Aisbitt, a city financier and member of the Times Rich List. If and when this is agreed, the government will inject a further £27 million into the school.

This would enable Falmer to replace the old school buildings and improve resources like classroom equipment, the school might even take on new teaching staff. It might also attain a specialist status in business and enterprise.

However, we are still concerned about Falmer becoming an Academy for these reasons:

• Will the building be built around the working pupils? This happened to children at COMART and it contributed significantly to the schools declined.
• How big will the new building be? Part of Falmer’s attraction is the space around the school. As an Academy, the school grounds might be reduced from their current 21 hectares size to a meagre and DfES minimum of 4.2 hectares. This would be a massive loss.
• If the school site is reduced in size, what will the Council do with the rest of the land? Are they going to sell it off to developers? Will they be building a 1,000 space car park, as has been suggested?
• What will the school's curriculum be? Academies have powers to set their own curricula, and we hear, for example, of schools incorporating creationism to the detriment of evolutionary theory as just one example of a 'weird' alterations to the national curriculum.
• Whilst we support vocational education, we also want to make sure that the school thrives across the curriculum so that children who want to achieve academically can, and that children are also encouraged in a wide variety of sporting, and cultural pursuits. We want these options to be open to children from the area, and for them to receive the support at home and school that they need to achieve their potential and to be fulfilled, happy and productive members of society who care about their community.
• How much will parents be encouraged to be involved with the school? Academies can limit parent involvement on the governing board. Local parents want to be heavily involved. They want a good proportion of parents on the governing body of the school. They want to feel that the school is working WITH their community and not working ON their community.
• Academies are the intended panacea for schools that are failing, and yet Falmer has a ‘satisfactory’ for its latest Ofsted report, and is 'improving'. Why are they doing this to Falmer School? There is concern that this will disrupt and undermine the school's recent improvements.
• There is also concern that this is linked in some way to a new football stadium at Falmer. The decision for the stadium has not been taken, but the idea of a stadium being built in the area is worrying, especially if the school is also to be rebuilt.
The way that the Council behaved over the SAR process does not instill confidence in parents already uneasy at the idea of Falmer attaining Academy status. If the Council does go ahead with these proposals, we do not think they will listen to the concerns of local parents. So far, they have not consulted with or contacted parents in the Moulsecoomb and Bevendean area about the Academy, and the decision is to be made in the Spring.

Parents from this area need more information.

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