Star Academies reportedly walked away after assessing the Leytonstone school’s poor financial position and ‘budget deficit’
By Marco Marcelline
A multi–trust academy based in Blackburn has walked away from a deal to bring Connaught School for Girls under its control.
The news comes just after staff had just completed a nine-day strike in a bid to stop the transfer plan. The National Education Union (NEU) had served notice for an additional three weeks of strike action beginning on 14th November. The move would have marked the third multi-day strike action by the NEU at the Leytonstone school this year.
In a letter addressed to parents, headteacher Linsey Hand said that Star Academies had stepped away from the transfer plan after considering the school’s poor financial position and “budget deficit”.
Hand called the decision a “setback” though assured parents that the school would “continue its improvement journey” and “leave no stone unturned in its pursuit of excellence”.
In the school’s latest summary of accounts, dated to 31st August 2022, the school, which operates as a standalone academy, said it had £8,994,967 in total funds. In that accounts summary, the school’s trustees concluded that Connaught School for Girls has “adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future”.
The trustees added that there were “no material uncertainties about the Academy’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Going concern is an accounting term for a company that is deemed financially strong enough to meet its business obligations and stay afloat for the foreseeable future.
The company accounts also reads that an employee within the school’s finance department committed invoice and VAT fraud, by issuing fake invoices to the value of £13,997.
The Echo asked Connaught School for Girls to provide a more recent summary of accounts, and for the size of its reported budget deficit but we did not receive a response.
NEU members had earlier told the Echo that a takeover by Star Academies would lead to potential job losses, detrimental pay, and increased workload as well as “exam factory conditions for students, increased stress, and a top down, restricted and prescriptive curriculum.”
In the letter to parents, Hand said the school would “continue to have discussions with NEU representatives around plans to eliminate the school deficit and make plans to ensure we are able to spend more money on learning resources and activities for… students.
“We will now focus on ensuring all students attain challenging learning goals this year after the disruption they have experienced and providing students preparing for their GCSEs with further support and intervention in the run up to the mock examination period”.
The letter also said the school would “explore opportunities to achieve financial savings in a sustainable way”.
Glenn Kelly, the London NEU regional officer said: “The NEU are pleased that the threat of forcing our members into a Multi academy trust with Star Academies is no longer to go ahead.
“We [NEU] note that it took having to issue a new notice for another three weeks of strike action to force the employer into urgent talks and for this announcement to be made.”
Kelly further stated that the NEU was “looking” to add a further four days of strike action that would take place on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th December if there was no resolution to “the issue of the school trying to force staff to prepare, deliver mark and assess up to 25% more lessons a week”.
In order to give the school “time” for a new resolution, the NEU agreed to suspend the action that it had planned to start on the 14th November.
Connaught School for Girls is due to attend talks with the NEU at employer and the union are due to attend talks at dispute resolution service ACAS on 13th November.
The strike action, if it goes ahead, would occur on 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 28th, 29th, 30th November and 1st December.
Blackburn-based Star Academies, which describes itself as “one of the country’s leading education providers”, currently runs 37 schools around the country, including Eden School for Girls in Walthamstow. The academy trust runs a mix of Muslim faith based schools and non-faith schools and academies.
Staff at Connaught School for Girls had won two concessions as a result of strike action. The first concession is that there would be no compulsory redundancies under a transfer to Star Academies, while the second is that teaching and learning responsibility (TLR) payments will be made permanent. TLR payments are made to teachers when schools ask them to take on extra responsibilities beyond what they are required to do.
Star Academies and Connaught School for Girls did not respond to requests for comment.
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