Join comedians Shappi Khorsandi and Mark Steel, MP Caroline Lucas and parents, teachers, students, councillors and campaigners for this important march to stop Hove Park School from being converting to an academy.
All Academy schools receive funding directly from the Department for Education, rather than the local authority, which takes these schools out of local, democratic control and is really about priv
atising education.
The local authority has the funding deducted from its education budget in the case of sponsored and convertor academies. Academies can choose whether to give a contract to a commercial company, employ additional staff to carry out certain tasks or buy local authority services. This has a knock on effect on other schools in the area. There will be a tipping point at which, if enough schools opt out of local authority oversight, cuts will have to be made to the shared services which support all schools and the service they get will be poorer.
There will be music, comedy, speakers and at the end of the march, a picnic to celebrate our schools in Brighton and Hove (unlike other towns and cities, very few have been converted/privatised so far).
Join us and stand up for education.
Meet at Hove Lawns opposite King Alfred Leisure Centre car park at 10.30am.
More about the campaign here