Robert Blair School

• YOUR article (Parents’ concern as dozens of teachers quit, April 28) deeply saddened me. It is always very difficult when a school community becomes divided.

The distress expressed was troubling. All the more so as I believe that parents in criticising school policies, governors and the head have a point about the policies but are having a go at the wrong target.

Until three years ago – as recent as that – community (Islington Council) schools like Robert Blair had a formal degree of accountability to parents. A substantial part of the governing body was made up of democratically-elected parent governors.

Governing bodies were under a formal obligation to communicate with parents – they once had to hold a general meeting with parents at least once a year.

Another large part of the governing body, about a quarter, was made up of governors appointed by the council – so appointed by Islington – and, as any councillor will tell you, parents are voters. When Ofsted inspected they called a meeting of parents.

Now, parent governors survive – just – but greatly reduced in number. Islington only gets to nominate, not appoint, a single governor. Ofsted does not meet parents.

Governing bodies are no longer accountable to parents or the local authority. Instead, they are accountable to Ofsted and the Department for Education. Robert Blair will not be the last school where the consequences of this will be felt by parents.

If the governors and head of Robert Blair fail to implement Ofsted directions, then the school will be forced to be an academy, and the governors and head will be gone, with the school accountable to an academy trust. The best thing governors and head can do in such a situation is seek to be the lesser of two evils.

With the funding cuts in the pipeline, and the Fairer Funding Formula only ‘fair’ in the way the poll tax was ‘fair’, parents in other schools will soon be having a “Robert Blair experience”. Governors find themselves in a cruel dilemma. Parents are sidelined – by the government. As is Islington.

DAVID BARRY
Former chair of governors at an Islington school