A FORMER governor at Fir Tree Primary School in Newbury has defended the governing body’s recent decision to resign after receiving demands from West Berkshire Council to make improvements at the school.
All except one of the governors at the Fir Tree Lane school voted to let the district council replace them with an Interim Executive Board (IEB), which the council will appoint.
The decision came after a letter seen by Newburytoday.co.uk’s sister publication, the Newbury Weekly News, was sent to the governors from the district council’s corporate director for children and young people, Margaret Goldie, stating that the school is likely to be placed in Special Measures in the near future and giving them 15 working days to come up with a detailed plan for improvement.
Michael Sheperia, a former governor, who has a son at the school, said that the governing body had acted in the best interests of pupils when deciding to resign.
“Delaying [the appointment of an IEB] by 15 days would have been very disruptive,” he said. “It would have been messy for the school and what we have done is to make sure there is no messy interim period.”
He added that if the governors had fought against the appointment of the IEB, he believed it would have happened anyway, meaning more disruption.
He also said the governors who stepped down would still be willing to help the school and that there is a “fantastic” community surrounding it.
However, he said that money needed to provide better facilities at the school was not available from the community and he hoped the IEB would be able to secure this.
The council’s executive member for children and young people, Barbara Alexander (Con, Compton) said that IEBs had proved successful at The Winchcome School, Newbury, which was placed in special measures in 2008 and Trinity School, Shaw, which was placed on a Government list of schools told to improve or face closure, based on its 2007 GCSE results.
The IEB will be in place until the school is judged to be ready for a conventional governing body.

Do you have a child at Fir Tree Primary School and are you concerned by recent developments or do you support the council’s actions? Contact Clare Hardy by telephoning (01635) 564538, or emailing clare.hardy@newburynews.co.uk or click on the Forum section of the website to share your views.