On 25th March 2009, Sheffield Council's cabinet considers a report from officers. The report summarises the history of the debate so far and tells councillors of the responses from the consultations and recommends that Parkwood School formally closes on 31st August 2009.
The report also refers to the findings of an investigation into Edutrust by the Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), which looked at the financial management of the organisation. As a result of the findings, Edutrust agreed to make major changes and its Chair, Lord Bhatia, has resigned.
Ballot
The letter below, from the Electoral Reform Society which carried out the ballot, confirms the official result.
Area panel
The issues of Parkwood School's proposal were debated by a large panel at a special joint meeting of the Burngreave and Southey / Owlerton area panels on Thursday 2nd October 2008.
The matter will now go to the Council's Cabinet on 10th December.
Council decisions
Sheffield City Council has decided to give parents a vote on Parkwood School and a ballot is to be held in the Autumn. The council said,
“To make sure that any ballots are free of bias, neither the local authority or the school governing body will run the ballots. Instead, they will be managed independently by an organisation with established expertise, such as the Electoral Reform Society.”
Earlier moves
Sheffield City Council's Cabinet met on 27th February 2008 and approved moving on to the next stage. The report to Councillors asked them to approve officers to sign and submit an Expression of Interest for an Academy. There will also be further consultation and the issue will come back to a future meeting, as reported in the Cabinet minutes.
The North Sheffield Anti-Academies Alliance asked a number of questions at this meeting (extract from the minutes below). They also presented a petition of 300 signatures at the full Council meeting on 5th March even though Councillors did not debate the Cabinet's decision. Again, the official record of the council minute about the petition and the questions asked are here.
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report to Councillors
Report on the outcome of a Neighbourhood Commission at Parkwood High School to Sheffield City Council.
You can also download a Word version below.
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Cabinet minutes
Minutes of Sheffield's Cabinet meeting on 27th February 2008.
Consultation documents
Parkwood High School issued a brochure (below) containing the school's perspective on becoming an Academy. It also invited people to respond to the consultation questions.
The link below it is an analysis of the responses to the consultation.
Caution:
Although the analysis of the responses to the consultation document indicate a strong desire to explore becoming an Academy with Edutrust, the findings should be treated with extreme caution given that the response rate is very small and is predominantly from teaching staff with only a limited number of parents expressing views.
There is also a report of consultation responses from pupils.
