Welcome to the relaunched Parents Against Change website.
  Two years ago, 17,655 residents of Suffolk signed petitions asking Suffolk County Council not to abolish the County's Middle Schools.
  PAC and other concerned groups collected large amounts of data and research which proved the Council was:
 
  • wrong in believing three-tier education might adversely affect education standards,
  • mistaken in its belief it could fund a change by selling off middle school sites, and cashing in on the government's "Building Schools for the Future" plan, and
  • fooling itself if it thought it could change our school system without harming pupils in Middle Schools
  The Conservative-led Council in Ipswich ignored all these arguments and a vote on party-political lines hurried through the decision to proceed with a phased destruction of three-tier schooling, against the wishes of the vast majority of parents in affected areas.
  Since then, many of our predictions have started to come true.
 
  • demoralized staff have started to leave Middle Schools, even in areas not scheduled for change for several years.
  • Keystage and GCSE results have got worse.
  • Serious questions about the financial viability of the project have been raised by a) collapsing property values and b) government back-tracking on the availability of cash to build new schools.
  It is not too late to stop this ongoing disaster in its tracks.
   
  Councillors may have closed their minds to rational argument in 2007, but they cannot ignore the ballot box.
  PAC has no political affiliation. But if you are still angry, as we are, about the Council's pointless gamble with our children's education, we urge you to vote against Councillors who supported the plan, and for election candidates who have promised to reverse the scheme.
  PAC will shortly be publishing on this site a list of its prefered candidates for the June 4th local elections.
  The Liberal Democrats have put halting the closure of Middle Schools as item #1 on their election manifesto. Labour has also pledged a "stop to the schools reorganisation fiasco" in its manifesto.
 
  If your school has been affected by schools reorganization, please let us know here.
Vote to save Suffolk's Middle Schools