King Edward VII School: Hundreds protest outside Sheffield City Hall over academy plans

Families carrying placards gathered in front of the steps on the landmark building, while speeches called for the proposals for the school, the last secondary school in the city to remain in local authority control, to be at least paused.

Some carried placards, carrying slogans such as: “KES parents feel bullied by Ofsted.” Others stated opposition to the proposed takeover of the school by the Brigantia multi academy trust (MAT).

The school, which has sites in Broomhall and Crosspool, is reeling over the inspection in January when it was downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Inadequate’, leading the Department of Education to hand down a compulsory academisation order. The agenda for an upcoming meeting of the Department for Education’s Yorkshire and the Humber advisory board on April 25 includes reference to the school joining Brigantia Learning Trust – which many parents oppose.

Campaigner and parent Dave Clay was the first to speak at the protest.

He said: “We’re in this position because of a highly suspect inspection which seemed to be based on someone forming an opinion about what was going to happen, then looking for evidence to support that opinion. It seems as though King Edwards is chosen by people because it’s a good school, in particular chosen by people whose children require some extra care. Parents of those children disproportionately seek out King Teds because it’s a caring school.Does it have problems? Yes. Is there any bullying? Yes Can it be improved? Yes. By Brigantia? No.

"At the moment we have had no voice. We want choice in Sheffield. We don’t want some sort of factory education system, a one size fits all, straight jacketed by some weird business culture. And that is sadly what a lot of MATs are becoming.

"The Government has said all schools must join a multi academy trust by 2030. Some schools jumped early, some individually to form single academy trusts. Others held hands with other schools to protect themselves from large predatory MATS out there. The Government announced no schools should be part of a MAT with fewer than 10 schools in its portfolio.”

He said MATS could pay themselves what they wanted and employ whoever they wanted, adding: “We don’t want state education to be privatised and that, sadly, is what’s happened.”Next speaker, parent and freelance journalist Emma Wilkinson said: “We were given an inadequate rating based on one area, safeguarding and leadership. Yesterday, Ofsted announced that they would re-inspect schools quickly who found themselves in that position. Schools who were inadequate just on safeguarding and leadership but are doing well in all other areas. That’s us. That is exactly the position that King Edwards are in. This whole process,instead of being forced through at a meeting on Tuesday, needs to be paused so that we can get clarity on what that means for KES and whether that means that Ofsted should see the school has made the changes that they said needed to happen.

“Brigantia is an awful choice for King Edwards for multiple reasons. If you, the department of education feel, that an academy trust needs to come in and take over King Edwards then it’d better be a trust that has a track record of doing improvements , that has experience of managing a school the size of King Edwards with 1,800 students. It’d also better be a transparent decision. Why did they chose Brigantia for KES? What criteria did they judge that against? Who else came forward? If you’re so sure of your decision why can’t you tell us?”

"A very large group of parents, as we can see from the turnout today, are very unhappy about this. Our position is clear. No to Brigantia. Pause this whole process so that the national decision conversation around Ofsted can be taken into consideration at King Eswards.”

Also taking to the steps to address the crowd was Mark Boylan, a King Edwards parent and professor of education at Hallam University who said a petition would be handed over on Monday.

He said he thought that the current position, where the judgement was made by a few officials, was a joke. He wanted to know where the choices of the parents, the teachers and the children fitted into the process

He said the apparent decision to bring in Brigantia had been placed on an official agenda, but the public was not informed anywhere else. He also criticised Sheffield Coucil, as two officers who had come to a meeting of parents had told them that they would inform those parents when a decision was going to be made. He said they did not do that.

He said: “They washed their hands of it, and said to the unions they didn’t know until the agenda came out.”

He raised concerns that one of the people on the list of trustees of Brigantia was a senior civil servant.

He said former Yewland School teachers who had worked for Brigantia, and Yewland parents, had got in touch to lift the lid on the trust, and thanked them, adding Yewlands should be saved too, as well as King Edwards.

He said last year 40 teachers left Yewlands, and six out of eight senior teachers had only been in their role since 2022. He said the DFEE said Brigantia was driving up standards in the schools in the trust, but he felt they were just driving teachers out of the school.

He said they were making call the people who are making the decision on Tuesday to ‘say no to this nonsense’.