Beccles Free School: Is the "demand" from parents real?

In their consultation document the Seckford Foundation claim that some 513 people have expressed an interest in the Beccles Free School.

The Seckford Foundation seem very sure of this demand even though they were not actually involved with the bid when it was being collected:

On the basis of the research it has carried out and the feedback from parents and others received so far, the Trust firmly believes that there is a need and demand for a school of the standard of the proposed School. The proposed School received strong support from parents and the community in May 2011 (513 expressions of interest across all year groups).

The four people who were leading the process were Tony Callaghan who the Seckford Foundation disowned yesterday in strong terms after this Blog revealed his online posting together with Aidan McHugh and Mark Chapman who are Beccles Middle School Governors and Melanie Tucker who runs an educational consultancy called MTM consulting in Southwold. For those not familiar with Suffolk geography Southwold is some 15 miles and 35 minutes drive from Beccles. It is also a Town in its own right. Update: It has been pointed out to me that Beccles is however the catchment secondary for Southwold and Reydon  so clearly people in this area do have a legitimate interest.

Now it is interesting to see how the Seckford Foundation describe the original proposers in their consultation document.

The campaign to open a Free School in Beccles was started by a group of parents and community members, all of whom live and work in the town and surrounding villages

I think it is something of a stretch to describe Southwold as a surrounding village to Beccles.
Update: although it is part of Beccles catchment. Certainly this would not go down well in Southwold. It's a bit like saying Woodbridge is a village surrounding Ipswich!  Tony Callaghan apparently lived in Alpington, Norfolk 12 miles and 20 minutes drive away and nearer to Norwich. Of course this is closer than his new home in Florida! So it appears that actually only half of the original team fit this description. Update: I am perhaps being a bit unfair on Melanie Tucker as she has a legitimate interest as a Southwold resident but this still applies to Tony Callaghan.

This sets something of the context for the two main reasons I think that the demand alleged by the Seckford Foundation is significantly higher than the real demand. This has been an issue that has concerned me as this data seems to contradict the situation on the ground in Beccles.

Save Beccles Middle School

In common with several bids for free schools in Suffolk very unhelpfully the bids have become entangled with attempts to save Middle Schools. Something that there is certainly genuine parental support in some number to do.

At least two of the proposers played a leading role in these "save middle school" campaigns and parents at the Middle School were targeted at school functions to sign the expressions of interest for the free school. Now this might be fine but there have been allegations that they were told it was to "save the middle school" and there was no verbal mention of a free school. Apparently a large banner was on display with the words "Save Beccles Middle School" on it.

My earlier blog posting showed that Tony Callaghan has been shown to be lying about the free school bid. In January he was still claiming to be part of the proposers and telling the TES Forums that all middle school staff would be employed - which Seckford's website shows is untrue - and that each child would receive a free iPad.

My view is the involvement of Callaghan and these allegations make the data extremely unreliable and Seckford Foundation have been ill advised to rely on data collected by other people without examining how it was obtained.

Carlton Colville Site


Originally the Free School was meant to be opened at the Beccles Middle School site but there was the small matter that this site had already been promised to Sir John Leman High School who needed it to accommodate children moving to it from the Middle School.

So the plans were changed so that the school would open in Carlton Colville for two years and then move to the Middle School site. Now if you see the map above again you can see that Carlton Colville is not in Beccles. It is 7.5 miles and 20 minutes drive away. In fact Carlton Colville is nearer to Lowestoft than Beccles.

Parents who might have wanted their children to go to school in Beccles at  Free School there cannot be assumed to want to travel this distance to another town. Others have expressed both concerns about the site's suitability - it is currently a primary not secondary school so does not have facilities like science labs - and also about disruption to the school when two years after opening it moves.

This casts further doubt on the demand. It does not seem at all sensible to conclude that demand is transferrable in this way.

A free iPad if you complete our survey!

When I first saw this article on Local Schools Network today I though it might have been about Beccles Free School as a free iPad was mentioned! In fact it is not but it provides yet another even more blatant attempt to show demand by the STEM Academy in London, a proposed 13-19 Academy.

Parents are asked to complete a survey which they can win a free iPad or Kindle if they provide their address. But the survey only has one question which is actually a statement " “STEM Academy would be my 1st choice”. The only possible answer is "YES" and then parents are advised that "by selecting YES you are under no obligation to apply to attend STEM Academy, this information will only be used to assess the demand for places at the school in September 2012 & September 2013 and will only be shared with the Department for Education.”

Given the importance the DfE rightly gives to demand it is perhaps not suprising that groups are desperate to use all means possible to get the required numbers of expressions of interest.

In the Beccles case the data is so flawed and unreliable in my view that the Seckford Foundation should conduct a completely new survey from scratch if they are serious about their claim that if, contrary to our understanding, the desire is not there, then we will have no wish to impose a free school on the community.

Seckford Foundation disown Callaghan but should they withdraw the Beccles Free School bid?

This is the third in a series of blog posts about Tony Callaghan one of the original four proposers and spokesperson for a time of the Beccles Free School. You might want read the first and second parts if you have not already.

Since I published the second post about Beccles Free School a grammar school education "just for middle class children the Seckford Foundation have issued a statement clearly disassociating themselves and disagreeing with the views of Callaghan.

Roger Finbow

Dear Mr Hargrave 

Thank you for drawing to my attention the utterances of Tony Callaghan on the subject of free schools. Mr Callaghan is not known to me, but I understand that he was involved with the Beccles Free School proposal in its early stages. 

He ceased to have any involvement around August last year and I am told he now lives in Canada. 

We are absolutely appalled by Mr Callaghan’s comments; they do not remotely represent the views of the Seckford Foundation and we wish to dissociate ourselves entirely from them. 

The aim of the Foundation in supporting Free School proposals in the county is to support the principle that children and their parents should have a choice in where they are educated, where there is a sufficiently strong desire for such a choice. 

We have consistently made clear that if, contrary to our understanding, the desire is not there, then we will have no wish to impose a free school on the community. 

Yours sincerely 

Roger Finbow 

Chairman - The Seckford Foundation

I am pleased that the Seckford Foundation have made it clear they Callaghan is no longer involved in the Free School. I don't think that he should have any involvement in any school. This view was expressed by a contributor (in fact a member of TES staff) on the forums:

Seckford Foundation claim that he ceased involvement in August and now lives in Canada although in fact it appears to be Florida but back in May he was causing enough embarrassment on the forums for this to be posted:

And he also claims to have accompanied the proposers on a meeting to see Education Secretary Michael Gove:

The difficulty is that Callaghan is still acting like he is involved in it although some seem to suspect he is not any longer:

He however is posting away on the TES forums promising for example free iPads for all pupils at the Free School and that all the Middle School staff would be transferred to the new school was posted just a the the end of January this year:

In their statement Seckford Foundation say We have consistently made clear that if, contrary to our understanding, the desire is not there, then we will have no wish to impose a free school on the community. For some time whilst they were collecting this demand a leading member of the free school team has clearly been deceiving parents and providing a misleading impression of the situation in local schools that seems to be based more on his personal prejudice than reality. As such these expressions of interest appear tainted and suspect. Add to that the change of location and I think there is very real doubt that the demand is there.

There is yet another strongly worded letter in the Beccles and Bungay Journal this week and it seems genuinely difficult to find supporters of this school - which isn't the case with many of the other bids. Mark Bee the Leader of Suffolk County Council and a local councillor has signed the petition against the school as have hundreds of other people.

I call upon the Seckford Foundation under these circumstances to withdraw their bid for Beccles in this round of applications. If they still feel that there is sufficient demand then I would suggest they undertake a completely new and untainted consultation and expression of interest process. And pragmatically it would make most sense to do this for 2014 to avoid the need to move at considerable cost and inconvenience from the temporary site at Carlton Colville.

Indeed Seckford Foundation risk alienating the Carlton Colville community as well as many in Beccles as the Town Council are holding a meeting on 3rd March to discuss options and the they are understood to favour using the site for a Library and maybe a post office, CAB and other community functions.

I also feel that the Seckford Foundation and Tony Callaghan still owe all the local Headteachers and Jeremy Rowe in particular an apology.

The fourth of my posts in this series tomorrow will be about how the Beccles Free School bid could be vulnerable to challenge by judicial review due to two clauses in the Academies Act 2010

Beccles Free School a grammar school education "just for middle class children"

Following my earlier blogpost on the Beccles Free School proposer and spokesperson Tony Callaghan I have been sent some more posts that he made by people on Twitter (thanks for that!). These posts were removed by the TES from their website for breaking the Terms and Conditions.

The posts articulate an incredible elitism that is often suspect by usually unsaid by the proposers of this kind of a school. Callaghan sees this as a middle class school for middle class children:

And you can see from this post with its high regard for private education why the Beccles proposers enlisted the help of the Seckford foundation. Indeed Callaghan himself educated his children privately whilst teaching in the state sector and acting as an NASWUT official:

Now there is nothing wrong with private schools - I myself went to an independent secondary Grammar School although my children all attend state schools. But it does seem notable that at the same time he was organising strike action in state schools his own children were unaffected in a private school.

And Callaghan clearly sees free schools as operating a self-selection process that means that "feral" children (which he amusingly misspells) will not end up there.

Presumably these "feral" children would remain in local "bog standard" schools like Sir John Leman High School that Callaghan seems to be referring to in this post causing further "discipline" problems.

The thing is that as recently as October 2011 Ofsted assessed behaviour at Sir John Leman as "Good" and specifically dismissed suggestions by a very small number of parents that there were issues with behaviour saying 

Inspectors explored each of these issues, but agreed with the large majority of parents who completed the questionnaires and who were highly supportive of the school.

I wrote a more detailed Blog Post about this when the Seckford foundation repeated - albeit in a much less extreme way-  this kind of allegation. The source of these kind of views is now much more clear.

In another deleted  post taking personal credit for saving middle schools in Bedford he describes himself as "heading up" the free school bids in both Beccles and Saxmundham. He also suggest the move to two tier in Suffolk is design to save money. An allegation that seems difficult to understand. This would result in  a "Titan School" in Beccles. He also describes the free school as offering a "grammar school" education.

In fairness to Callaghan he tells it like he sees it. The Beccles Free School is a middle class grammar school for middle class children not those nasty "feral" children who have parents that don't care. They can all stay at Sir John Leman where they are not his problem.

When Gove announced his free school policies many of us expressed concern that they would become elitist projects to introduce further social segregation into our schools. And this is a particular shame for our successful and socially inclusive Suffolk schools. These are schools where the vast majority of local children rich and poor, academic and not so academic, gifted and needing a lot of support all go to school together. But they are balanced and well ordered schools - nothing like the rhetoric of Callaghan.

I have asked the Seckford Foundation to comment on the views of Mr Callaghan. I have already suggested that Seckford have presented a somewhat patronising approach to prospective parents and that was before I was aware of these posts.

The DfE champion free schools as offering improved schools for all but Mr Callaghan is perhaps more honest about it. The narrow curriculum and elitist approach is deliberate. Nice middle class children only are welcome at the Beccles Free School.

More revelations from Callaghan's posts will come later and - hopefully - a response from the Seckford Foundation. I have written to the Chair of Governors asking for a statement.

Revealed the outspoken spokesperson for Beccles Free School

Tony Callaghan
Spokesperson for the Beccles Free School

At the end of January the Chair of Governors of the Seckford Foundation wrote to Jeremy Rowe, Headteacher of Sir John Leman High School and said that his use of Twitter "is not worthy of a headteacher who expects to be taken seriously..." and went on to say that "The future education of the children of Beccles is a serious subject. It should not be trivialised by comments on Twitter."


One of the four original proposers of the Beccles Free School who has acted as a spokesperson for the group is also very fond of discussions online about the future education of children in Beccles.

Tony Callaghan writes regularly in the TES forums. In fact if you have a few hours free I recommend that you sit down with a cup of tea and go to: http://www.tes.co.uk/searchResults.aspx?area=staffroom&author=511247  you will find literally thousands of posts on a wide variety of subjects. Some of these posts express quite interesting views on a wide variety of issues including the education of children in Beccles.

Recently Callaghan who is a controversial figure in the forums posted this about the free school:

In it he accuses "neighbouring schools" of offering "micky mouse subjects to play the league tables system". Quite an accusation and completely without foundation as far as I can tell.

But this is an extremely polite and coherent post by Callaghan's standards. The nature of some of his posts has led other users to suggest that he has regularly had something a little stronger than a cup of tea before writing them.  Here is an example:

Other posts seem somewhat disrespectful in their attitudes to female contributors:

And Callaghan seems to have been carrying out his own consultation on free schools, not in a newsagents this time but in the golf club bar with the Darts Team of the Dog and Partridge public house:

Then there is the suggestion that parents will choose free schools to "protect their children from feral youths" at their "local comp" complete with resident police:

Callaghan is also quoted in the TES admitting to using scare tactics to prevent incompetent teachers being sacked when he was a union official:

Headteachers must be monitored in their dealings with such colleagues. Many heads are frightened to follow disciplinary procedures for fear of adverse publicity or being out-manoeuvred by unions. As a union official, I have used scare tactics myself to prevent incompetent teachers being sacked.

There seems to be some inconsistencies in Tony's own background story. He was previously a head teacher at a St Bedes Roman Catholic Middle School in Bedford. Sometime after he left the school was closed down. Callaghan claims due to the diocese running out of money but eventually after he had left the school was in fact put into special measures due to several years of poor performance and closed for the same reason.

He posts frequently from Florida boasting about how he retired early having received an "enhanced pension". Although bizarrely he not only opposed the recent teachers strike on pensions but also speaks on behalf of the tax payer's alliance.

He was until recently a school governor but actually spoke to the press condemning his own Head for taking part in the 2010 SATs boycott.

This has led other commentators to challenge him on the TES forums:

And another commentator is concerned about the impact of his posts on the free school bid:

It seems incredible given this behaviour by one of the original proposers of the school that the Seckford foundation sees fit to attack the Head of Sir John Leman High School for his much more serious discussions on Twitter. The pot calling the kettle black does not begin to describe this. As a Church of England foundation maybe Seckford can relate better to this:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (Luke 6:41 KJB)

If Callaghan really wishes to support the free school bid perhaps he should disconnect his own broadband line.

Second Post: Beccles Free School a grammar school education "just for middle class children"

Review: How to Set up a Free School by Toby Young

Toby Young the Telegraph journalist who set up the West London Free School who goes by the name of @toadmeister on Twitter has written a book on how to set up a Free School. If you visit the school's webpage you can see a large advertisement for the book on their homepage! I am not quite sure what I think to the Chair of Governors book being advertised in this way but we will overlook that and take a look at the book.

The book is a Penguin special and is short and easy to read. It is typical Toby Young style which is engaging and he tells the story of how he set up the West London Free School with lots of advice and tips along the way.

Interestingly the book reveals that Toby Young and I could almost have been neighbours! At one stage he seriously considered moving to Suffolk in search of a decent school for his children but decided to stay in London and set up his own instead. Maybe he would have ended up sending his children to the school I am Chair of Governors of. Who knows!

I think if Toby had moved to Suffolk though he might be a little less inclined to the view that there is an unlimited capacity for new schools due to  a "population explosion". Not here. We have falling rolls in many areas so a new free school might damage another local school no matter how good that school is.

But much of the advice is practical and sensible and aimed at allowing local groups rather than large corporate sponsors to open schools which are locally run and managed. If all free schools fitted this criteria then I think he would need a much shorter chapter on dealing with opposition.

The chapter on dealing with opposition talks a lot of sense. I wish the free school groups in Suffolk had read and headed his advice. That said it has certainly made opposing them easier because they did not. Toby suggests, rightly, engaging with opponents as soon as possible. What we have seen in Suffolk is a parent group at Ixworth refusing to identify themselves and not allowing people to attend meetings and in Beccles a group that has criticised the Head of a neighbouring school for using Twitter. I am seriously tempted to make a gift of the book to both groups!

I don't think Toby is right in assuming all opponents would be the usual suspects who are always opposed to free schools in principal. I accept there are such people but there might also be legitimate objections to the school as well for a whole host of practical reasons.

The chapter on IES Breckland is very interesting and revealing. Toby describes how they managed to let a contract to the profit making Swedish IES company. The DfE basically did this as a "pilot" underwriting the costs and risk of the EU procurement exercise. This appears to have been the only way such a contract could be done viably and this was one of the reasons WLFS did not go down this route despite Toby describing a trip to one of the IES schools in Sweden that clearly impressed him.

But Toby concludes that he would rather run the school himself and the book is written specifically to enable others to do that. At £2 for the Kindle Download I recommend the book for anyone who wants to set up a free school, oppose a free school or are just curious. You can buy the book at Amazon.

Tesco in Bury St Edmunds advertises for unpaid "workfare" night shift staff

Tesco Stores in Bury St Edmunds are advertising for a night shift worker. The thing is you don't get paid. You just get your Job Seeker's Allowance and bus fare. You can see the advert below:

Interested? Well you might not have any choice. As part of the new Government "workfare" rules people claiming job seekers allowance can be forced to take unpaid work like this. Already Sainsburys and Waterstones have withdrawn from participation in the scheme following a storm of protests which you can read about on the Boycott Workfare site.

The Guardian report today that so far 24 100 people have been forced under pain of loosing their benefits to take unpaid work. As far as I can tell Tesco are the only company that offer the added "benefit" of working a night shift.

Following a flurry of protests on Twitter the job vacancy mysteriously disappeared from the Job Centrewebsite at 0010 this morning. One tweeter asked if the next step would be to bring back the workhouse. Others said they would boycott shopping at Tesco until they withdraw from the scheme in a similar way to Sainsburys.

In case you were wondering, Job Seekers Allowance is the princely sum of £67.50 a week (or £53.45 if you happen to be under 25). Apparently the going rate for this work would be around £7.50 per hour making a wage of £281.25 a week. I understand that there is an interview after six weeks but there is nothing stopping the store refusing to hire the person and just taking another set of free tax-payer funded workers.

Shame on Tescos for taking part in this. They should pay their staff a fair wage for their work.

What happened to the Ixworth Free School Bid?

Ixworth Middle School

It wasn't that long ago that this blog was full of posts about the proposed Ixworth (and Stanton) Free School. But now that the 2012 free school bid submission round has opened will they actually submit a bid?  Rachel Gooch has written an interesting article about this which is worth reading the title is "Free School Idea Ends in Silent Failure?"


Since Christmas nothing has been heard from the group and speculation that our friends at the Seckford Foundation would back this as their fourth free school bid has now been  dismissed by Seckford. It looks likely that they may not submit an application this time around but wait until next year with a possible proposed 2014 opening date.

In her article Rachel Gooch suggests three possible reasons for this:

• Failure to do their homework: opening a school is a tough job and the DfE rightly expects the process to be rigorous. The team launched into the fray before doing proper research into the task ahead and so it made some crucial mistakes.
• Insistence of an opening date in 2013: Suffolk County Council advised the free school from the start that this was not possible. The Ixworth site will not be available and the DfE would never risk a TUPE challenge if it looked like the middle school was just reopening with a new name.
• Lack of credibility of the bid team: the DfE sets the bar high for free schools. As we pointed out from the start, a credible educational provider needed to give its backing to the school for the bid to stand a chance. Initially, the team ruled this out preferring to go it alone. Too late they approached the Seckford Foundation but by then they had already made too many mistakes and Seckford itself was in a messy, public fight with the community in Beccles who have turned out in force to defend Sir John Leman Academy, threatened by the upstart on its doorstep.

So the position is unclear and whilst I don't think the possibility of a school at Ixworth has gone away a much better quality proposal would be needed if it was to go any further. The "sell" to parents was characterised  by a great deal of mis-information from the proposers, for example that the school would receive much more funding (£12 000 per head was claimed when £5 500 would be more like it) than maintained schools. At the time I wondered if this was deliberate but I have now come to the view that it was simply that the proposers did not adequately understand the funding arrangements. I am not sure which is worse!

Once the DfE publish the names of bidders in this round (or the group chooses to come out of the shadows and make a statement) we will know more but as with the other free school bids when the proposers don't supply any information others tend to speculate and fill in the blanks. I actually don't think being unaccountable is helpful at all and if the proposers of this and other bids were to behave in a more transparent way I think everyone would benefit.

We are the conservatives now. The fight to save good local schools

Leon Trotsky

Gove is having to look for nasty sounding rhetoric to describe opponents of his free schools and academies policies. So we have been described as "enemies of promise" and even "trots". The reason for the use of this language is simple. It would be hard to mount a huge attack on people who just want good locally managed schools for local children.

This is the view of the majority of the "enemies of promise". We would like you to have a good local school to send your children to and if possible a choice of good local schools. We would like these schools run locally by local people and accountable to parents and the local community. We want local people to make decisions about local schools such as a decision to open a new school. We want this to happen in an accountable way with the people making the decision engaging with the local community.

This does not sound to me a radicle agenda of "progressive" education. In fact I would go as far to say this is a true conservative agenda.

You will notice I said "good" local schools. This is not an agenda for failing schools. Such schools need to be held to account and challenged to improve if necessary. But this should be done locally. Gove suggested that:

What are they saying? “If you're poor, if you're Turkish, if you're Somali, then we don't expect you to succeed. You will always be second class and it's no surprise your schools are second class.

But what Gove seems to be saying is that if you are poor, or Turkish, or Somali then don't expect to run your own school or have a say. You will always need to have your schools run from Westminster as we know better than you what your children need and what success is.

To me the real "enemies of promise" are the new educational establishment run by ideologically driven neo-liberals who are undertaking an experiment in supply side economics in your local school. These people don't listen to reason or appeals to common sense. So what if a new school isn't needed, nobody wants it and it will make other good schools worse. Nothing must get in the way of progress and choice.

These ideologues are surrounded by career opportunists who are making a fortune from the new policies that began under the last Government and have gathered pace under the Coalition. There are the Academy Chain CEOs who can earn up to £280K a year and the "revolving door" staff who move from senior positions in the DfE and Ofsted straight into high paying jobs in the educational companies.

And there are growing numbers of companies in this education"industry" willing to employ these people and try and increase their "market share" offering branches of educational supermarkets rather than good local schools. 

This new educational establishment of ideologues and career opportunists are the new progressives in education. And the funny thing is that we are left to defend the traditional educational values of local schools for local people against  a bunch of reckless ideologues. Isn't life strange?

Suffolk Libraries IPS might have been set up to fail but it must succeed

Suffolk Cabinet Member of Waste, Cllr Lisa Chambers

Last year several of Suffolk's waste centres were taken over by local companies who began to charge the public to dispose of waste. Somewhat unsurprisingly there has been a drop of around 25% in use at the centres. Three sites have had to review their business model following a "considerable drop" in us according to a recent EADT report.

Speaking of the Chelmondiston site Richard Wrinch, chairman of Shotley Parish Council, said: “I don’t think it’s certain it will survive (as it is). There will be something there, what exactly it will be and what type of site I’m not actually sure.”


And Suffolk County Council Portfolio Holder for Waste Lisa Chambers when asked whether the council would step in to save any of the centres, said: “We would have to review as and when anything happens but we made it clear last year we were closing these sites.”


This seems a polite way of saying "nothing to do with us, Guv" and shows the way in which the County Council have been able to use this as a trick to abscond responsibility for a statutory service - in this case the provision of waste sites.

There has to be some chance that they are planning the same for Libraries. That, in effect, the IPS has been set up to fail or at least to act as the fall guy to close libraries whilst the County Council says it is nothing to do with them. Or perhaps to collapse and then the County Council will generously "rescue" some of the libraries. Of course not all of them so in effect managing to close them by the back door.

Now in fairness this is speculation but the situation with waste sites should at least be sounding alarm bells. Even if not set up to fail the County Council might be prepared to allow the IPS to fail and then claim, as they are with waste sites, a lack of local support.

So that is why it is vital that everyone who wants to see Suffolk's libraries stay open makes sure that the IPS succeeds. Staff and campaigners may well continue to have mis-givings about it (I certainly do) but I think they should get behind the IPS and try and help it to succeed.

This means the IPS does need to ensure that it is a strong and independent voice for Suffolk libraries and I agree with the excellent Wordblog article that it would help to drop some of the more "nasty" policies such as cutting pay for newly appointed staff. This would not cost much but would send a strong message to staff and library users that the IPS means business.

Five Headteachers Unite to Oppose Beccles Free School Bid

The Headteachers of five Suffolk Secondary schools close to Beccles - Pakefield High, The Denes High School, Sir John Leman High School, Benjamin Britten High School and East Point Academy - have written a letter to parents expressing concern at the proposal by the Seckford Foundation to open a Free School in Beccles.

Click on Letter to enlarge

The letter objects to the free school in strong terms:

As Headteachers, we are convinced that the free school will reduce what we are able to offer our own pupils and sixth form students as taxpayers' money is diverted away from our schools. This will affect the future for our pupils and students. We also feel that building anther secondary school in our area is a waste of money, when there are already enough school places for every student to have a choice.

The letter goes on to ask parents to sign a petition against the free school that is available to download on the Sir John Leman High School website.

Click to enlarge

Completed petitions can be emailed to dolphin@sjlhs.suffolk.sch.uk

Jeremy Rowe, Headteacher of Sir John Leman High School writes on the school website 

I urge as many people as possible to make their views about the free school known to Peter Aldous MP at: peter.aldous.mp@parliament.uk or in writing to 15 Surrey Street, Lowestoft, NR32 1LJ, and to consider signing our petition against it. 

Two secondary schools in our small town would have a huge impact on what we are able to do for our students. Please have your say; and let us hope our views will be listened to. My personal views are made clear on Twitter @lemanhead. 

Finally, many thanks to Councillor Mark Bee, Leader of Suffolk County Council, who had the integrity to back Sir John Leman High School, and our students, by signing our petition. Political parties have united in their opposition to the free school. 

Jeremy Rowe, Headteacher

It really does seem to be hard to find anybody in North Suffolk supporting this Free School and with growing opposition from both politicians and parents I wonder if the Seckford Foundation will decide to cut their losses and abandon the Beccles Free School altogether.

A few changes to my Blog

I have made a few changes to my blog to try and make it easier to navigate. I blog about a wide variety of topics and I appreciate that people who follow my technology posts might not be that interested in Suffolk local politics, fascinating though it is!

So I have created some tabs across the top of the screen that let you jump straight to the latest posts about:

1. Education
2. Libraries
3. Suffolk Politics
4. Technology

The "All Posts" tab shows posts in all of these categories, as well as posts like this one that don't fit in any of them.

In addition I have fixed the mobile version of my blog so that the Disqus comments now show. This means you can read and post comments to blog posts from your mobile phone. Your phone should automatically go to the mobile version of the site but it it doesn't then you can go the mobile address http://blog.hargrave.org.uk/?m=1

Oh and I also changed the background!

I hope you find the changes useful and it makes the site easier to use. A big thank you to everyone who reads my blog and in particular to those who have commented and provided material for my posts.