'Academy plan' strike shuts schools for second day

Two Catholic schools in Lancashire have again closed as staff return to the picket line over plans to take them into academy trusts.

Dozens of staff at Corpus Christi Catholic High School in Fulwood, Preston, and Cardinal Allen Catholic High School in Fleetwood are taking a second day of strike action.

The National Education Union's Lancashire branch secretary Ian Watkinson said industrial action was the last resort but stressed that his members were worried the change would "put jobs at risk".

The Diocese of Lancaster said it regretted the latest walkouts and insisted the plans would guarantee "high quality Catholic education".

When a school becomes an academy, it leaves the control of its local education authority and joins a trust or sponsor.

Academies have more flexibility than schools operating under a council umbrella – including an option to deviate from the national curriculum in some areas and to set their own admission arrangements and term times.

But Watkinson warned: "It's taking money out of the school, it puts jobs at risk - support staff jobs at risk in particular."

He told BBC Radio Lancashire it was "valuable funds that should be being devoted to pupils and those funds now are at risk if they're going to run a new Catholic Academy."

Emma Lord is a teacher at Corpus Christi where she is also a representative of the NASUWT union.

She said: "It's so important that we keep the money that we get for our children and for our pupils.

"We've been asking for lots of answers to questions and they have failed completely to convince us that this would be anything other than a disaster for our amazing school."

Tasneem is a pastoral support officer at Corpus Christi and has two children at the school.

She said: "The diocese want to take a 5-7% cut off the top [of our budget] which is going to take about £400,000 away from our school."

She said she feared this would result in a "drop in quality of education".

Tasneem said she had specifically chosen the school to suit her children's needs and stressed that it had been "immense" for her son, who has special educational needs.

As a pastoral support officer, she said she was worried the extra funds the school currently spends on children who need it "won't be there anymore".

She said the school was "so special", adding "I worry about our children's future."

A spokesman for the Diocese of Lancaster said: "It is of regret to the diocese that the members of two teaching unions have decided to take strike action.

"Our sympathy lies first and foremost with pupils who will lose two days of education and for parents who will be inconvenienced by this action, which we consider to be unnecessary.

"It is our belief that academy trusts will guarantee high-quality Catholic education throughout the Diocese.

"We know this to be true from experience because the majority of our schools in this area have already joined their trust family and are flourishing.

"We are conscious that some unions are opposed to the creation of academies in principle, whether forced or voluntary.

"Nevertheless, the conversion of schools into academies is both the policy of the government and that of the Diocese of Lancaster."

He added: "We sincerely hope that staff will reconsider their position."

Both schools, which previously held strikes in July, were due to reopen on Wednesday.

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