PROTESTING parents at a Monk Bretton school will take part in a meeting with the local MP and the leader of an education union on Thursday.
Parents of children at St Helen’s Academy, on St Helen’s Way, are hoping to raise awareness about their issues with the school, amid concerns about the management style and the way it is run by the Academies Enterprise Trust.
The parents say AET has failed to improve the school’s ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted rating despite numerous changes to school staff over the past two years, including five headteachers in the past three - four of those in the past two - according to former chairman of school governors Leonie Gleadall.
AET describes ‘a number of inaccuracies’ in what the parents are claiming and has detailed the work underway to improve St Helen’s.
A meeting between parents and the National Education Union was set to take place last week, but was delayed due to the snow.
It will now take place on Thursday at West Green WMC in Monk Bretton, at 6pm.
Protest leader Leonie expects Barnsley Central MP Dan Jarvis, who has already spoken to the group about the issues, and NEU leader Kevin Courtney to be there.
The parents’ concerns led them to stage two protests outside St Helen’s over the past two weeks.
They have also been collecting a petition, which has gathered more than 400 signatures online with paper copies too.
An AET spokesman has previously described how the trust is investigating in detail the claims.
