Mother challenges academy plan school closure

Last updated at 14:19 19 July 2006


The latest legal challenge to the setting up of academy schools reached the High Court today.

It is being brought by a mother who has two children at the popular St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School in Islington, north London.

In February last year, the school's governing body published a proposal to discontinue the maintained school and replace it with an academy, set up and sponsored by the London Diocesan Board for Schools.

In March this year, the independent Schools Adjudicator approved the closure of the school - which is the decision now under attack at the High Court in London in judicial review proceedings.

Academies are state-maintained independent schools set up with the help of outside sponsors who pay up to £2million towards the cost of conversion in return for control of the school's governing body.

Lawyers for Hayley Powers argue that the "draft funding agreement" presented by the Diocesan Board weakens the rights and protections currently enjoyed by parents and pupils at the school.

David Wolfe, counsel for Mrs Powers, told Mr Justice Wilkie at the start of a two-day hearing today that the challenge was not to the "principle of academies", but to the process by which the decision to close the school was made.

The judge is being asked for a declaration that the Adjudicator acted unlawfully in approving the closure of the school and for an order quashing the approval.

Recently a father won the first round of a legal challenge to plans to close his son's maintained school with a view to it being converted into a sponsored academy.

Rob MacDonald, from south London, was given permission by the High Court to seek a judicial review of Merton Borough Council's decision to close his 15-year-old son Callum's school, Tamworth Manor, and another school, Mitcham Vale.

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