No NUT ballot after school drops academy plans

Warren Comprehensive in Chadwell Heath, east London, has dropped plans to become an academy. This week school governors voted against the plans to convert to academy status. NUT members and local councillors had been opposed to the proposed change.

Local NUT in Barking & Dagenham said:
"Governing Body of Warren Comprehensive School voted not to continue with academy status exploration [...] The National Union of Teachers will now not be balloting its members in Warren Comprehensive School for industrial action over this issue."

Earlier in January, councillors in the borough had criticised the proposed conversion:

"Only last week, a report was published by the Academies Commission which reported that moving to academy status could impact on social cohesion and integration because of the recruitment and selection methods academy schools use. That report stated that a number of academy schools are finding covert methods to select potential pupils, a practice that - if adopted here - could cause real problems for the family of schools in our borough.”