A PUBLIC meeting has been organised to discuss Colley Lane Primary School’s controversial bid to opt out of local authority control and become an academy.

Cradley Councillors Tim Crumpton, Richard Body and Gaye Partridge have organised the Cradley Together meeting at Providence Methodist Church on Tuesday, October 4 at 7pm.

Councillor Tim Crumpton said: “We’ve lost one school in Cradley so the community doesn’t want to lose another. Feelings are running high over this school issue and there are lots of questions that we and parents want answering.

“For instance what is going to happen to The Little Hands Children’s Centre? It is currently managed through Colley Lane in a joint project with Caslon School and is the responsibility of Dudley Council, no-one seems certain about the future role of the school with the Children’s Centre, if any.”

Councillor Gaye Partridge said: “We have been contacted by a number of people with a range of questions and concerns.

“At our recent Cradley Forum meeting only one out of some 30 residents had any idea about the proposal, the Forum then asked us to arrange a public meeting.“ She added: “Very little information has been put in the public domain by the school’s headteacher or the chair of governors, we need to know why is this being proposed and is there anyone except the head and chair of governors who sees any need to change a well performing school?”

Cllr Richard Body added: “There is nothing in the information available that says this will improve the education of children at the school.

“The school quotes a sum of £130,000 being made available for the first year as an academy, but is not certain of this figure nor what it would be used for and how much will administration cost?”

He added: “Everyone is welcome, we will provide as much information as we can about academies, we want local views and more importantly we want the school’s administration to listen to those views.”

A spokesman for Colley Lane Primary School said: “Academies are still part of the community.

“They serve children and families in a particular area and they retain the same responsibilities as any maintained school as part of the learning community.”