A petition organised by Sandown Bay Academy parents in an attempt to secure the future of the school was today (Thursday) handed to the Chief Executive Officer of Academies Enterprise Trust (AET).
As previously reported by Island Echo, the Trust is proposing to merge Sandown Bay Academy and Ryde Academy with the potential of closing down the Sandown site altogether.
On Tuesday afternoon hundreds of people formed a protest outside The Fairway-based school. On the same afternoon a number of staff were given their notice.
Councillor Chris Whitehouse, who leads on education for the Conservative Administration that took control of the Council last Thursday, has said:
“I handed the petition personally to Mr Julian Drinkall, the head of AET, and told him that there were an additional 1,300 online signatures. We left Mr Drinkall and his seven senior colleagues from AET in absolutely no doubt about the passionate opposition of Sandown Academy’s parents, students, staff and local community to the planned closure of their local secondary school.”
The Leader of the Isle of Wight Council, Councillor Dave Stewart, who chaired the meeting at County Hall in Newport, adds:
“We had a very frank and robust discussion about AET’s plans, the reasons for them and why there has been a lack of openness and transparency in the funding of the school, the challenges it faces, and AET’s plans for the future. We remain determined to do all that we can to deliver secondary education in Sandown and have tasked officers with working up a short paper setting out the different options available to us, and there are such options, to ensure that the children of Sandown have their own local secondary school.”
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Cllr Chris Quirk, former Chair of Governors of Sandown Bay Academy, has reinforced the message saying:
“As a governing body, we were kept totally in the dark about these plans being secretly developed by AET. I was truly shocked when the news emerged a week ago and remain absolutely committed to securing the future of our local high school here in Sandown.”
Cllr Whitehouse concluded:
“Students, staff and parents have run a fantastic campaign so far but I urge them to keep on going to keep up the pressure by lobbying the Regional Schools Commissioner, Dominic Herrington. The top priority here is what is best for our children, whether already students or those whose parents would like them to attend a local school in the future.”
