Sylvia and the scaremongers

SYLVIA Jones, the headteacher who walked away from the UCL Academy project, is quoted in a newspaper! The New Journal tried three times to call her at her school when reporter Tom Foot broke the news that she would no longer be taking up the job of ‘principal’ at the new school planned for Swiss Cottage a couple of weeks ago. Sadly there was no response. *We wait to see if Education Secretary Michael Gove still plans it for Swiss Cottage*.

She is staying put at Valentines High School in Redbridge, which if it wasn’t in Redbridge would surely, with a name like that, be in some crummy American Glee-like drama involving confused lovestruck adolescents called Chad and Summer preparing for an end of term musical show like its the most important thing since, I dunno, Chelsea Clinton got wed.

So congratulations to the local paper – in Redbridge, not American schmaltzville – which has succeeded in collecting her views, albeit with only a brief line. The Ilford Recorder reports that Ms Jones has accused unions of “scaremongering” over the possibility of schools in that neck of the woods becoming academies.

It’s a familiar dispute – and if she had come over Camden way she would have found a lot more union members/scaremongers to have the debate with. There is still a large band of opponents who wish the new school – if it is ever to be built – would be a traditional comprehensive ready to slot in harmoniously with the existing family of secondaries.