Teachers at Stevenage’s Barclay School have gone on strike for a second time over the imminent takeover of the school by an academy trust.
Barclay staff – who are members of the National Education Union – first walked out in December and did so again this morning over plans to transfer the school to Future Academies Trust on February 1.
The forced move to academy status has come after the school was rated inadequate and placed in special measures by Ofsted in 2016.
However, an April 2018 Ofsted inspection found the school had made significant improvement and progressed to requires improvement, with elements of good.
More than 2,700 people have signed a petition on change.org calling for Barclay to be kept under local authority control.
Labour councillor Joshua Bennett Lovell joined those on strike to support their campaign, telling the Comet: “Over 200 members of our community and the Barclay family came together this morning to show our commitment and support to keeping Barclay a local community school.
“We are yet to hear anything from the Education Secretary regarding the 2,600 plus people who have signed the campaign petition, or Future Academies about their improvement plans, despite there now only being two weeks before the stated conversion date.”
“The Education Secretary has the power to rescind the Academy Order at any moment, and I demand at this stage that he avoids ripping our community apart, and revokes Barclay School’s academy order.”
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