"Lodge Park Academy is unsafe and chaotic with immediate changes needed to support the students, staff and the local community if we are to create a school we are proud of."

"NEU Members want Lodge Park to be the best school it can be so that students have the best possible chance for success."

For the last 12 years Lodge Park Academy (LPA) has been a school where consistency has been absent. The David Ross Education Trust (DRET) have failed time and time again to make the right decisions for the school and its students through a revolving door in the leadership of the school. Over a 12 year period the school has seen 10 different principals - how can this be considered effective or be a stable base for success?

Over the last 18 months the actions of DRET have become more and more questionable, reactive and chaotic resulting in a spike in defiant and at times violent behaviour, a significant increase in student truancy and an exodus of experienced and well respected staff. Unless things change and change quickly the only foreseeable outcome is that chaos will continue to reign at LPA.

Staff have shared concerns and offered solutions including employing more support staff, but DRET only wants to employ more and more people into leadership positions. Despite the school being strained financially and an advertisement has recently gone out for a principal with a salary of up to £114,000.

The staff have worked tirelessly to support the students but a tipping point has been reached. We need to stand up for the students of Corby and feel that DRET's continued failures and inability to see LPA as unique rather than a copy of other schools within the trust. As a staff body we care deeply about the school and providing a safe learning environment for all students, but sadly this is not the experience we currently have thanks to the mismanagement of the school by DRET.

What do we need?

Staff at LPA are demanding DRET do the following in order to improve working and learning conditions:

1. Implement a dedicated behaviour team as well as a pastoral team to support students with re-entering and remaining in the classroom. If a student is in an isolation room, they cannot learn. Staff at LPA are requesting the trust provide dedicated support staff to ensure students feel supported to remain in the classroom and learn.

2. Senior leadership should oversee inclusion rooms, with appropriate ratios rather than support staff. Currently, support staff are being asked to oversee up to 30 students who have been removed from their classroom in an inclusion room. The role of support staff is to provide tailored support to an individual or small group of students. This pastoral care cannot be given with 30 students in one room.

3. Negotiate and update the school's Behaviour Policy with staff. DRET has the same behaviour policy for all of it's schools. LPA staff believe it would be beneficial to have a policy specific to LPA so that parents, staff and pupils clearly know the expectations and they're applied consistently.

4. Install Maglocks throughout the premises. Internal truancy is disrupting learning and is a risk to pupil and staff safety. Maglocks mean that individuals cannot leave one area and enter another without the correct pass. Staff believe this, along with all the other requests, will reduce student's ability to wander around the school and therefore help them to remain in the classroom.

5. Stop bringing senior leaders from other DRET schools to LPA. The use of unknown, senior staff from other schools to improve behaviour and outcomes has been a failure. A more consistent approach is needed. Increase the number of permanent, full time support staff to assist and work with pupils. These colleagues should work to their contracts, support and assist pupils in lessons, learning and pastoral progress.

6. Negotiate with Union Reps to prevent similar situations taking place again. There must be regular, meaningful timetabled discussions and negotiations at Lodge Park with union reps given time off from their timetable, and concerns properly addressed. Outcomes, plans and timelines should be negotiated with staff and communicated effectively in writing to colleagues. Communication more generally with staff needs to be improved.

Please show your support for staff and students at Lodge Park Academy by signing this petition.

Elodie Fleet

National Education Union Organiser

elodie.fleet@neu.org.uk