Chapter Two

As I wrote HERE was due to happen, the question of the future of Strood's secondary schools came before a special meeting of the relevant Scrutiny Committee earlier this evening (checks clock: actually yesterday, now!) and we spent a good three hours looking at this question.

It was generally a very good meeting, with some really good input from the Head Teachers and Chairmen of Governors (rather unfortunately referred to as "chairs"!) of the two schools directly involved, plus a student from each.

Disappointingly, there was no-one present from the Hundred of Hoo School, who could have explained the two counter-proposals involving that school that had also been put forward, though neither of those turned out to be viable, as it turned out.

Interestingly, the Temple School representatives want an Academy (and had been working towards this for some five years, which I hadn't realised) whereas Chapter does not -- or, at least, not straight away. They propose a staged approach over several years, gradually merging the two schools ready to become an academy at that later date, which is a scheme they had thought out carefully.

I mentioned several things at the meeting:

• How my own Secondary School had been through something far worse, back in 1966
• My appreciation of, and general liking for, the SOCK proposal (that's "Support Our Chapter Kids")
• It would be best if we could pursue a course along the SOCK lines, if Ministers would allow this
• My oft-stated sadness at being dictated to by outsiders, as apparently has been done in this case
  

Throughout all this, I kept it as non-party political as I could (and I think I succeeded) whereas the Labour spokesman on the committee tried to turn the whole issue into a party political debate, and not exactly with any degree of subtlety (he really isn't very good, to put it frankly). He wasn't even able to recall what he had said previously during the evening, and was completely wrong-footed by the committee's vice-chairman who quoted his earlier statements back at him. It was a picture watching said Labour person scurrying through his written notes (script?) almost in a panic...

In the end, it was clear that the academy route was the only option that had been left open to us, so that is what we had to recommend to Medway Council's Cabinet -- but it was not the option I for one wanted to take! As so often happens in modern-day Britain, those at the centre dictate to everyone else -- largely because they hold the purse-strings and can lay down any conditions and restrictions they choose.

This is something I would scrap if I could. I don't believe in outsiders telling all and sundry what to do and how to do it, as you might have gathered by now. It is my single biggest gripe by far in political life, and I don't think any national political party has what I would consider a satisfactory policy on this question. Even so, it does seem that the Conservatives are well in front on this, and are the only party likely to be in a position to do anything about it in the reasonably near future.

I shall be watching them as well, though, as I expect them to agree that absolutely every local decision is to be made locally, with no pre-conditions and no external impositions whatsoever, under ANY circumstances. Oh, and all tax money to come to local communities, who will themselves decide just how much should go to a "federal" (nationwide) outfit, and to do what jobs -- and those only!

If we had that now, I believe we could solve the Strood schools issue more-or-less overnight. I'd create an Academy at Temple School now, and gradually bring the Chapter folk into this over the years that SOCK propose, building the new facility at Temple in the meantime (that last part of which is what is now being considered anyway). That would satisfy both schools' wishes, which no other approach could as they are (to a great extent) mutually exclusive.

See what true local democracy could achieve, given the chance?