Parents have welcomed a delay in Penrith’s Queen Elizabeth Grammar School joining a new multi-academy trust.
The brakes have been put on the process following the publication of a damning report from a wing of the Department for Education.
It unpicked how public money from grants had been spent at the school, which has left it facing a £1.5 million payback to the Educations Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA).
Campaigning parents, who had already raised concerns about the merger with the Egremont-based West Lakes Multi Academy Trust (WLMAT), have held discussions with new headteacher David Marchant, who joined the school in September.
In a statement, parents said: “Full transparency and accountability should have been the foundation of this process from the start, so it’s vital that they form the basis of a new consultation and that all options for dealing with the financial crisis of the school are genuinely explored and considered in depth.”
QEGS has been served with a notice to improve — which puts how it spends money under government scrutiny.
Parents said: “We remain concerned that a condition of the ESFA Notice to Improve is that it is taken over by WLMAT. We have written to the chief executive of ESFA requesting that the condition is removed, because the future of QEGS should not be determined by the £1.5 million liability created on the watch of the governors and previous head. This is particularly the case as joining a MAT is irreversible and ends the school’s independence.
“What’s important is going forward with openness and a standard of governance that means such mistakes can never happen again.”
Martyn Worrall, the new chair of trustees, has told parents and carers that it had “paused” the process to join WLMAT and pledged a new consultation.
Over the next fortnight, discussions will take place about the consultation which is expected in the new year.
