How long before we see a Free School bid for Bacton?

Bacton Middle School is preparing to be next in the line of Suffolk Middle Schools to see a free school bid. In what has become an all too familiar patten a “committee of parents” has been formed to fight the move to two-tier education.

The EADT quote parent Julie Mitchell as saying:

It seems different meetings are getting different answers. Everybody is getting very angry, it’s not moving forward at all.

“It’s very frustrating at the moment and people are concerned about teachers leaving the middle schools. The teachers may leave for secure jobs. “

I’d like to think they would listen to people. People are saying it’s a done deal – it’s already been decided. There’s nothing wrong with what we have now.

“We want them to look at other options – the all-through school option.

“At the end of the day we want Bacton to stay open. We are fighting for their education,

Then there is the familiar claim that every other area had more money for a move to two tier:

Mrs Mitchell said other moves to two-tier were better financed than Stowmarket and Stowupland’s.

All this sounds depressingly familiar. It is perfectly clear that Suffolk County Council are consulting on how to implement the move to two tier having decided on this strategy  years ago and having nearly finished a countywide move. As Education Portfolio holder Graham Newman points out:

Only 1% of schools in England are middle schools compared with 10% in the 1980s

If past experience is anything to go by it won’t be long before the same people “opposed” to two tier are , effectively, proposing a free school within a two tier system.  As Mitchell says "at the end of the day we want Bacton to stay open”. The only remaining question is who will come along and try to open the school? Seckford? A Swedish company?