A governor has accused union leaders of trying to “blackmail” three Lewisham schools over a controversial plan to turn them into academies.

Talks broke down last week between the Prendergast schools and staff unions amid the “nightmare” dispute, which has seen around 3,000 children miss out on lessons.

Governor Ian Duffy, who works in communications for BP, wrote on Twitter that the National Education Union (NEU) was “cynical and malicious”.

Teachers began nine days of strikes last week after governors voted to turn the schools into a multi-academy trust (MAT), despite their own consultation finding most respondents opposed the plan.

Governors have accused the NEU of stirring up “ideological” dissent over the plan, most recently during a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in, on Tuesday, May 23.

Niall Hand, headteacher of the Prendergast Ladywell School, told presenter Adrian Chiles there was “ideological opposition” to “a relatively modest change”.

“They are basically labelling anyone that opposes this as ‘ideological’,” complained parent Claire Hallam, who is fighting the plan.

“It’s a nasty way of phrasing things. I’m not ideologically opposed. When they announced this, I did tonnes of reading.

“It’s really rude to suggest that people who oppose it don’t have a proper point of view and haven’t done their research.”

“Unrealistic”

“I think what everybody accepts is that the worst outcome for any of our schools in Lewisham is for them to join a big, national academy chain,” said Andy Rothery, chair of governors.

“I think that will risk the character, culture and ethos of the schools.”

He claimed converting to a small MAT was the governors’ way of trying to avoid that.

Currently run as a federation (the Leathersellers’ Federation), the schools share one governing body.

According to Mr Rothery, governors are volunteering around 300 hours per year, compared to the usual 50 or 60, because they have so many schools to oversee.

“The governors over the past five years have been putting in extraordinary amounts of time,” he said.

“They just can’t continue doing that. It’s just not sustainable.”

Mr Rothery said becoming a MAT would give each school its own board of governors.

Without that change, he claimed, governance will eventually deteriorate.

If a school gets a bad Ofsted score for governance twice in a row, he added, it can be forced to join a large MAT.

News Shopper: Staff began nine days of strike action last week over plans to turn the Leathersellers' Federation of schools into a multi-academy trustStaff began nine days of strike action last week over plans to turn the Leathersellers' Federation of schools into a multi-academy trust (Image: Prendergast NEU Reps)

Opposition

But parents opposing the MAT scheme claim the same argument was advanced for a previous attempt to academise in 2015.

That was fought off by the community and the schools’ performance got better, not worse.

Mr Rothery accepted that, but said it was due to “a small handful of governors that make an outsize contribution”.

Expecting them to continue doing that, he said, was “unrealistic”, and the schools were struggling to find new governors “able to give that sort of time and effort”.

According to the National Education Union (NEU), 99% of its teacher members at Prendergast oppose academisation.

More than 1,200 people also signed a petition calling for parents and staff to be given a vote on academisation.

That call was reiterated on BBC Radio 5 Live by a mum-of-three, who said governors should “put it to the parents.”

The schools have publicly guaranteed that there will be no reduction in staff through redundancies or non-replacement.

They have also guaranteed that pay and conditions will be unaffected for current or future staff.

News Shopper: Talks have faltered after school governors suggested that they should be able to proceed with the academy conversion and staff should meanwhile be banned from strikingTalks have faltered after school governors suggested that they should be able to proceed with the academy conversion and staff should meanwhile be banned from striking (Image: Prendergast NEU Reps)

Failed Talks

But parents fighting the plan say those guarantees are “meaningless”.

They say once academisation is complete, the schools could be vulnerable years down the line to a takeover by a corporate entity which could asset-strip, reduce staff or worsen pay and conditions.

Academisation also removes local authority oversight and disadvantaged students generally have worse outcomes in academies.Unions met governors last week to discuss setting up a working group to investigate alternatives.

But governors wanted to begin the academisation process while the working group was still investigating, and wanted unions to guarantee there would be no further strikes next year.

The NEU said it does not sign no-strike pledges and members were “left with no alternative other than to continue our campaign of industrial action.”

Both sides say they are willing to return to negotiations, but each told the News Shopper they would not budge on the demand that further strikes be ruled out.