Primary Schools Open Meeting

Last night I chaired the meeting on Primary Schools Admissions held locally and facilitated by the Fox Lane and District Residents’ Association, of which I am a committee member.

The meeting was in two parts:

• Understanding Central and Local Government strategy on Admissions
• A forum for the audience to express opinions and concerns and to question the panel.

I want to thank the panel and the audience for attending the meeting and participating in a lively debate. The panel were:

• David Burrowes MP
• Cllr Ayfer Orhan (Cabinet Member for Children & Young People)
• Andrew Fraser (Director of Schools & Children’s Services)
• Jenny Tosh (Assistant Director for Education)
• Neil Best (PEP Stakeholder Engagement, Schools & Children’s Services)

David Burrowes spoke first on local issues (he is a local resident) as well as on the national picture and he was followed by Neil Best presenting for the Local Authority.

This was followed by a lively and emotive debate. The audience consisted of parents, local Councillors and FLDRA residents. Many of the audience were residents who had been disappointed by Walker admissions, and the cancelled expansion that was proposed for the school. We were able to provide an update on the Walker position as the Walker Chair of Governors had hand delivered a letter to the FLDRA chairman, two hours before the meeting was due to start. The letter will be published on the FLDRA website http://foxlane.net/ in due course.

I will be posting again after I have gone through all of the content of the meeting. My twitter feed gives an impression of what happened as my husband, Jon, kindly posted as me throughout using the #EnfieldSchools.

The meeting may be over but I see this as the start.