PLACARD-WIELDING parents protested outside a Monk Bretton school which they feel is letting their children down.
Monday’s protest was the latest in a campaign about St Helen’s Academy, on St Helen’s Way, which has also seen them meet up with local MP, Dan Jarvis.
The group is hoping to raise awareness about its issues with Academies Enterprise Trust, which runs the school and which they say has failed to improve its ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted rating since taking over despite a high turnover of staff over the past two years.
AET describes ‘a number of inaccuracies’ in what the parents are claiming and has described work underway to improve the school.
Leonie Gleadall, from Preston Way, Monk Bretton, was chairman of governors at St Helen’s until July last year.
She has led the protest after a number of parents contacted her with their worries.
Leonie, 38, said: “It goes back from when AET room took over. Since then we have had three Requires Improvement Ofsted results.
“Once the first had come in you might expect some improvement to take place. Obviously it hasn’t and not only that, we have got evidence of parents being lied to and children being let down.
“They describe robust safe guarding policies but they contradict themselves.
“We are tired of our children being let down by AET, who blame each consecutive headteacher they appoint - and we have had five headteachers in the past three years, with four of those in the past two. Each time AET bring somebody new and blame them when parents start complaining.
“Ultimately the accountability lands with AET.
“We met with Dan Jarvis MP last week who offered his support and said he would try to speak to the chief executive.
“We also have a public meeting organised with the National Education Union (NEU) on February 28 which will hopefully confirm the state of play for the teachers too.
“We want to make it categorically clear that this is not the doing of the teachers, who come to work and do their best for the children. It is the senior management, the executive head and AET who make us feel like we are being lied to.
“This protest began three weeks ago because a lot of grumbling parents started approaching me with their concerns, even though I haven’t been chair of governors since July because they wanted a paid governor on the payroll.
“I reckon today’s turnout is fantastic considering 75 per cent of the parents at school work during the day.
“We want to let staff know we are behind them and let them see we support their efforts. We want to be taken seriously and let AET know we are not going to stop if they just sack the headteacher. AET are the ones who need to leave. They have proven time and time again they cannot raise the standards here.”
A spokesperson for AET said: “We are aware of the concerns that are being raised, and are investigating in detail the claims that have been made. Whilst there are a number of inaccuracies in what has been claimed, we are absolutely committed to resolving any issues and moving forward so that everyone at St Helen’s can focus on providing the very best education for all our pupils.
“Our programme of work to improve St Helen’s includes: growing the leadership team to include a lead teacher from every phase; providing opportunities for our more experienced members of staff to work with the senior leadership team to focus on core areas of improvement; and introducing additional targeted support Year 6 pupils. We are also working closely with the Department for Education and Barnsley Council and keeping them appraised of the tailored support that we are providing to the academy.”
