A primary school headteacher has announced he is quitting the profession after criticising the government’s policy of forcing all state schools to become academies.
In a letter Jeremy Gargan said he was stepping down after nine years as head of Aycliffe village primary school in County Durham, telling parents: “I feel that I have taken the school to a strong position but do not feel that I am the right person to take the school forward with an education system that I do not believe in.”
The letter described his concerns with the proposed new school funding formula as part of “the relentless push to make all primaries academies – under the guise that this will raise standards”, and the “undue pressure” placed on pupils by tests.
“I don’t believe that the government’s drive to force us all to become academies is the way forward. I do not see any evidence that it will raise standards,” Gargan told the Guardian, after his resignation letter circulated on social media.
“I believe the school we run here does very well for our pupils, that our standards are already high, and there is no reason for us to become an academy. I would say I’ve always had conservative values but I believe that we need to have a social conscience, and that education of children is what I have at heart.
A maintained primary with 157 pupils, Aycliffe was rated as “good” in its most recent Ofsted inspection. “The headteacher has created a school to which pupils enjoy coming and which parents recommend to others,” Ofsted inspectors noted.
Gargan said he only started thinking about resigning after George Osborne’s announcement that all schools would be academies.
“If we were forced into becoming an academy it’s likely we would become part of a multi-academy trust, then we would have a secondary school telling us how to run our own school,” he said. “We’re already doing OK, thank you.”
Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “The points made by Mr Gargan in his letter will be very familiar to just about every school leader in England.
“The government’s plans to convert all schools into academies, regardless of how well they perform, seem to be universally unpopular, with even Conservative MPs questioning the wisdom of the plans.”
