North West Durham CLP

Working together with Pat Glass MP

PAT GLASS MP ATTENDS SCHOOLS FUNDING PROTEST WITH LOCAL TEACHER

Yesterday afternoon Pat Glass MP attended the Save Our Schools protest rally in Westminster, organised by the teaching unions, with local teacher Mr Mark Edmundson from Consett Community Sports College.
 
The rally was attended by hundreds of MPs, councillors, teachers, parents and school children who came to express their anger and disappointment at the Tory/Lib-Dem Coalition Government’s decision to axe Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme.
 
This scheme would have provided over 700 school rebuilds in communities around the UK. BSF was the biggest single government investment in improving school buildings for over 50 years, rebuilding or renewing every secondary school in England.
 
Consett Community Sports College and Moorside Community Technology College were due to merge to form a new academy in Belle Vue, Consett. However, the £26m funding for the proposed Academy is now under threat; it is currently ‘under discussion’ as part of the Coalition Government’s attempts to cut public spending.
 
The decision to scrap BSF also means that schools that were due to be covered by a future wave of BSF, such as Parkside in Willington, Wolsingham Community College and St Bedes RC School in Lanchester will not get the new schools or buildings they were patiently waiting for.
 
Pat said:
 
“I think it was important to come today and show my support for the hard-working teachers, parents and pupils who need and deserve these new school buildings. This is a shameful decision by the Coalition government, which demonstrates their willingness to put children and young people at the top of the list for their cuts. This decision was not made after careful deliberation of the needs of our children and the value of the projects and it was not a case of the money simply not being there.  This was an ideological choice from a government which prefers to spend money allowing middle-class parents in the South East to open schools in empty shop buildings. I will do all I can to make sure that money for the new Academy in Consett is released. “
 
Pat has asked for an urgent meeting with Michael Gove to discuss Consett Academy but has received no response from him.
 
Local teacher, Mark Edmundson from Consett Community Sports College, said:
 
“We do want a new school. Our worst fear is that we will end up with two separate sites and pupils having to travel between those two sites.”
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told the rally:
“The coalition seems to have made a clear choice about what its education priorities are – and where the resources should go. Not to providing decent schools for all, with good facilities and modern buildings, but to a massive expansion and the creation of so-called free schools, carried out at breakneck speed, with next to no consultation. These reforms are driven by dogma not evidence.”
 
Parents spoke of their horror and disappointment at the Coalition’s decision to scrap BSF and use the cash saved to embark upon an untested ideological experiment- Free schools.
 
Ed Balls MP, Labour shadow secretary of state for education, said the decision to halt BSF was “a complete disgrace”.
 
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