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Atherton High School campaigner Stephen Hall has pledged a continued fight for a new High School for Atherton on the part of the Atherton Demands Its Own High School group. He said that the group's campaign "..would go on irrespective of any attempts by the Council's Education Chief's to close the current Hesketh Fletcher High School earlier than the July 2012 date agreed by the Schools Adjudicator".
He said such an action by the Council would "have a detrimental impact on the education of all those still remaining at the school" and represented "a step backwards on the part of the Council" which would be "...strongly opposed" by the school campaign group - a proposal to do so having been initially scheduled but subsequently deferred to a future date at last week's Wigan Council Cabinet meeting.
"In contrast to this approach" Mr. Hall said "since the elections and the demise of Wigan's Building Schools for the Future programme, some of us have sought to open up a constructive dialogue with our two local MPs, Andy Burnham & Julie Hilling and with other influential Labour Party members concerned with secondary education provision on the East side of the borough and in Atherton in particular.
"We took this step in order to try and develop a more politically broad-based and non-partisan approach to the current school closure issue and in support of establishing a new high school for our town to replace Hesketh Fletcher when it closes.
"As a result of our adopting this approach" he continued "..the support we now have is quite clearly that and certainly more politically broadly based than we have had previously and all the more likely to succeed as a result of it. Given our mutually agreed starting point is the longer term educational and wider social needs of the people of Atherton and the surrounding area and not short term political expediency or party political point scoring on anyone's part, we are also confident that what we are now calling for will be overwhelmingly endorsed by Atherton's townsfolk. We are also hoping as a result our adopting of the approach we have, that what we are calling for will now at the very least be viewed in a different and less politically partisan a light than previously by the ruling Labour group on the Council.
"We think this approach to this issue is more politically thought out and principled, especially given the current political circumstances, and though by no means guaranteed success, is much more likely to succeed in terms of our achieving our desired objective, than our going down the politically desperate 'Free School' route now being championed by Councillor Norman Bradbury and supported by the existing Hesketh Fletcher School Governors, as an alternative to the current Hesketh Fletcher set up.
"Just like the Academy proposal before it" he said "...the Tory Party proposed 'Free School' legislation, which people need to be reminded is not even on the statute books yet, in reality is nothing other than a mechanism for the privatising and breaking up our existing state education system and is the road to reduced rather than increased funding of our kids' schooling.
"If we genuinely owned and run the thing ourselves as a community, better in conjunction with the local education authority than without out, and had the necessary additional educational expertise and financial resources we need to go with it, then even I might be prepared if all else failed to go down the 'Free School' route should the necessary legislation have also been put in place to enable it - but that would not at all be the type of 'Free' School the Tory party has in mind nor seeks to encourage and set up.
"It is also not that vision of a 'Free School' we would get as a community either under the current Free School proposal for Atherton supported by Councillor Bradbury which would effectively amount to an under funded caricature of such a school. It would equally not be a school owned and run by us a community, but effectively run and likely owned as well by an inexperienced in the field of education, private 'change agency' based in London in partnership with an ill-defined 'Community Consortium' consisting of who knows who, which would not be accountable to us as a community whatsoever.
"The plan for a Free School is likely to fail anyway because whatever proposals are put forward whether to be to the Council in our case, or to the Secretary of State, in relation to a proposed "Free School', they will ultimately need to have the necessary parental and wider community support to get the go ahead.
"I think we can get that for our new school plan at the existing Hesketh Fletcher site, a school which would remain within the current local authority set up, but operate completely differently than in the past. I think we can get it because our non-partisan approach does not set ourselves up against the Labour controlled Council but rather seeks to work in partnership with it and Labour to find a solution amicable for everyone. We are certainly hoping at the very least that by having some influential Labour people on our side now and not just those considered opponents of Labour whatever the issue, will help us get closer to achieving what we have been fighting for than we have been able to do previously.
"The Free school proposal on the other hand which has the much narrower political base of support currently of only the so-called Atherton Independents and is reliant on Coalition Government legislation still to be enacted to get off the drawing board, and which currently doesn't have any school premises to work out of either, well I just don't think the proposal is going to get the necessary parental and community support it would require".
A report and discussion on the state of play in the schools campaign will be one of the agenda items at the public meeting for Atherton Residents at the Jubilee Hall (Junction Crabtree Lane/Stanley Street) this Thursday 30th September, 7.30pm start. Other items on the agenda are a proposed Pretoria Pit Heritage Trail; a discussion on policing and staffing of the police station on Gloucester Street and the 'dissolution of the Atherton Forum' recently and what we might want to replace it with. All Atherton residents welcome.
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