Potters Bar school applies for academy status
A POTTERS Bar school is applying to become an academy from this September, so it can continue to improve.
Mount Grace School is currently consulting pupils, parents and its neighbours about its future.
Academy status would mean the school would receive its annual funding, expected to be around �250,000, direct from Central Government rather than from the Local Education Authority (Hertfordshire County Council).
Headteacher Peter Baker told the Potters Bar Edition the forecasted budget for the next four years was looking bleak and the only way to keep the high standard he wanted for the school was through this extra independence.
He said: “I’m not concerned about making ends meet but I don’t want to stop the improvements we’ve made over the last few years.
“By maintaining the funding levels by becoming an academy I will be able to keep the staff to the level the students need.
“We will remain a community school, we don’t have any plans to change what we do or how we do it.”
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The school, which will maintain its name and uniform, and has almost 1,000 pupils, is carrying out the consultation until March 11.
The application will then be put forward to the Education Secretary Michael Gove in May for a decision, before taking effect in the new academic year in September.
