Concerned parents at Tidemill school in Deptford, south London, have persuaded local Labour MP Joan Ruddock to write to Tory education secretary Michael Gove, asking him to delay approval of headmaster Mark Elms’ plans to make their school an academy.
Last year anti-academy ‘Deptford says no’ campaigners got an extension to the consultation period by uncovering significant miscalculations in the financial figures Elms and his school governors used. However the governors have made a fresh application and are awaiting Gove’s consent.
But the school’s accounts have not been audited since early 2009 and no audit trail can be found of the huge bonuses for ‘super-head’ Elms, agreed in 2009 and 2010. The parents want independent scrutiny by the local education authority of its arrangements for managing its finances. Most of all they want to keep Tidemill in public hands.
