4:45pm Friday 27th January 2012
By David Hardiman
Anti-academy campaigners will hold a march tomorrow to show their opposition to plans by the Government to force four Haringey schools to become academies.
Demonstrators will march from Downhills Primary School in Philip Lane to Haringey Civic Centre in Wood Green High Road in the protest organised by the Haringey Campaign Against Academies.
The school is currently undergoing an Ofsted inspection – ordered by Education Secretary Michael Gove last week after parents and teachers launched legal action against the Department for Education over the plan.
The school had been given a deadline of January 20 to commit to the change and find a sponsor, or face an interim board of governors being imposed, but the current governors argued that was illegal and threatened a judicial review.
Campaigners wanted a chance to prove the school has improved since it was given a ‘notice to improve’ by inspectors last January, and last week, the Department of Education sent a letter to Downhills saying it wanted to “avoid litigation”.
When Ofsted inspectors visited the school last September, they found “significant improvements” had been made, including the replacement of poor teachers.
About 600 people turned out for a public meeting at the school two weeks ago, where a succession of speakers — including Tottenham MP David Lammy — criticised Mr Gove.
Three other schools – Nightingale Primary School, in Bounds Green Road, Wood Green; Noel Park Primary School, in Gladstone Avenue, Wood Green; and Coleraine Park Primary School, in Glendish Road, Tottenham – have also been warned they could face conversion to academies.
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