A thousand people upset over Catholic schools merger

Aamina Masud • Published 4 Dec 2008 13:00 10 Comments

MORE than 1,000 protesters are fighting controversial plans to strip St Bernard's of its grammar school status by merging it with St Joseph's.

Protestors have signed the petition to stop plans to amalgamate the catholic schools to form an academy.

The document, which was launched two weeks ago by parents from Faith And Choice Together (FACT), says that they are not opposed to the merger as long as the school retains its grammar school status.

Spokesman for the group Tony O'Shea said: "Some people think that this is just an issue with middle class parents who are being pretentious about their children's education - but that is not the case. We want to protect the only Catholic grammar school in Slough. Out of the 164 grammar schools in the country only 9 are catholic schools. We want to stop it from losing its grammar school status even if there is a merger."

The preferred site of the new college is at St Bernard's in Langely Road, Langley and parents fear this will increase traffic and noise.

Mr O'Shea, who will submit the document to 10 Downing Street in January, added: "Can you imagine the traffic from increasing a school with 850 pupils with 1,500 and then add on building works to that."

Both school's submitted an ‘expression of interest' to explore the merger between the two Catholic schools.

This is the first stage in establishing whether the Department for Children, Schools and Families will fund building of a new state-of-the-art Catholic College for students from 11-18 in Slough.

Tweet

This article appeared in Slough Observer 04 Dec 08

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

• 

  Anastasia
  Unregistered User
  Apr 13, 21:59
  Report comment

  St Bernards is a fab school- i go there. Many of my friends go to st Joes- i see them still- and am very happy.
  
  It's not about st Joes children having a possibly worse education than us, that's not true. People who go to st Bernards are usually clever, so they are given teaching to suit their needs and abilities!!
  
  Lets not commit accademic vandalism by ruining two good schools! No person with a child who could pass the 11+ would send their child to a non grammar! It will just be another St Joes- not at Bernards- St Joes combined.
  
  Accadimies do not have to publish accademic results for a few years. This accadimy will be another failure.
  
  Just because you have "state of the art" facilties does not mean teaching will be any better!
  
  Lets produce the next generation of educated students. Improving St Joesephs is a good idea, not merging it.
  
  Accadimies are for failing schools-St Bernards is not a failing school- it is the best school in Slough!
  
  Recommend?   Yes 0     No 0

Post a comment

Your Comment:

Registered users log in here

Username or email

Password

You must be logged in to post. If you have not registered with us, please do so now.

Registration only takes a few minutes. Registered users do not have to complete word verification once logged in and can also take part in competitions and other registered user only features of the site.

Word Verification:
Enter the text as shown.

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our News archives.

Follow @sloughobserver