Massive crowds at 125th meeting of North miners
Jul 13 2009 by Neil McKay, The Journal
Teachers march
A SENIOR local politician yesterday accused teachers fighting to save their school of "jeopardising hundreds of millions of pounds worth of government money."
Joe Armstrong, chairman of overview and scrutiny at Durham County Council, spoke out as banner-waving teachers from Belmont School Community Arts College marched through the streets of Durham as part of the Miners’ Gala parade.
They were protesting at a decision by the county council to close their popular and successful Durham City School and merge it with another, less successful school, to form a privately sponsored academy.
Coun Armstrong said: “I am 110% in favour of academies. All these people are doing is putting at risk hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked by the government for building new schools in County Durham.”
Staff members at Belmont, who marched behind the Chester-le-Street Riverside Brass Band, have already staged two one-day strikes over the plan.
Coun Armstrong’s comments appear to add weight to a claim made by Jerry Bartlett, deputy general secretary of the Belmont teachers’ union, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), that the local authority did not even support the academy plan itself and was being coerced into it by the government.
He said: “Representatives of Durham County Council suggested that the authority is being forced into converting Belmont School Community Arts College in order to qualify for funding to improve other schools in its area.”
Simon Kennedy, NASUWT Regional Organiser, who joined the marchers on Saturday, said: “NASUWT members employed at Belmont are deeply committed to their community school and the pupils. It is an important part of the community, it is one of the top five per cent achieving schools in the country, and they don’t want it privatised. They want to remain public servants.”
David Williams Durham County Council’s director of children’s services, insisted: “Our plans for an academy in Durham City will bring huge educational benefits for young people as well as massive investment running to tens of millions of pounds in new school buildings.”
