We began as a group of Year 2 parents who had had enough... enough of endless testing, enough of teachers not being trusted to teach, enough of an Ofsted driven, dull, dry curriculum aimed solely at passing National Curriculum Tests (SATs). We want our kids to be kids again and enjoy learning for learning's sake not for Ofsted results or league table figures. Bring back the creativity and the fun - say goodbye to repetition and boredom! In May, children in Year 2 and Year 6 sit a whole week's worth of exams... All year their curriculum has been focussed on passing these tests. Outdoor learning has decreased, childhood anxiety has increased, games have been replaced with grammar, playing with punctuation. Parents all over the country are joining forces to show support for a SATS boycott and a return to teacher led assessments which value individuality and creativity in the school setting. The assessment system in 2016 was described as a 'car crash'. Since then we have seen two Education Select Committees deliver damning verdicts on SATs and their effects and we have heard from numerous surveys of teachers and headteachers that they think that SATs are damaging to children, teachers and schools - both primary and secondary. We have also seen the creation of More Than A Score - a campaign group made up of parents, teachers, early years specialists and mental health professionals - all of whom are saying together that SATs must go! Many parents around the country are now planning their own boycotts of SATs with their children - and many more are speaking out against SATs, joined by increasing numbers of teachers. We would love ALL teachers to join us in this campaign and to openly speak out against SATs and to boycott them. For more info: https://www.morethanascore.org.uk/what-we-do/sats/ https://letthekidsbekids.wordpress.com/year-6-sats/ https://reclaimingschools.org/2018/03/18/protecting-children-from-primary-school-tests/ We want to work together with teachers to change the system.

These proposals will undermine local democracy and parental rights and choice and will turn local education into an uncontrolled 'free market' of dog-eat-dog competition for school places and will inevitably lead to the rise of more selective schools and the end of comprehensive education for all. As teachers in Academy schools are not required to have Qualified Teacher Status, these proposals will also lead to a further erosion of a qualified graduate teaching profession and a lowering of educational standards and diminution of life chances for our children. This nationalisation of our local schools and the centralisation of powers in the hands of the Secretary of State for Education also undermines generations of social investment in our local schools and, these grounds alone, these plans should also be abandoned.

Parent governors are volunteers who give their time to represent the views of their peers. Parents deserve a say in how their schools are run. Your current plan removes the need for schools to include parents on their governing bodies. This will effectively silence us, preventing parents from having our say in our children's education.

Milton Road Public Library is an iconic building in the history of mathematics, celebrated for its connection with Professor Sir Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem. This dignified and much-loved building has served the public as a library since the 1930s, and continues to do so. It was a book that Andrew Wiles found in the library when he was ten years old that inspired his remarkable achievement - Eric Temple Bell’s, 'The Last Problem'. Wiles had been on his way home from school when he stopped to look at the library’s puzzle section. He read that a proof of Fermat’s theorem had eluded mathematicians for 300 years. Thirty years later, Wiles announced his solution. Milton Road Library had done what libraries should do - inform and inspire – with magnificent effect. Worldwide, few buildings are as closely associated with so notable a mathematical event. Yet Cambridgeshire County Council proposes to demolish it – to build a 3-storey block of 10 flats, with a small library/‘community hub’. This would be a huge loss to the heritage of mathematics and to the architectural and civic heritage of Cambridge. Read more here: http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/4248/milton_road_library_site_redevelopment_surveydoc.doc

A fair and inclusive education system is our right in a democratic society. Gradually this is being taken away from us with continuing funding cuts in FE, cutting out whole sections of society from the opportunity to an education. Fee paying HE students have a future of debt. And now, schools are being targeted as a source of profit. Everyone at whatever age should be able to gain an education without having to pay a profit making organisation. If schools are turned into academies it will only be a matter of time before all citizens of the UK will have to pay for their education throughout the whole of their lives. There will be no accountability, standards or commitment by these academies to serve the public interest and invest back into society with educated citizens. Tax payers will see all their hard earned taxes benefiting private interests only, and not society as a whole.

The Tories are pushing through legislation to remove all secondary and primary schools from Local Authority control by 2020 by turning them into academies. This is the free market gone mad and it must not be allowed to infect our education system. Schools are places of teaching and learning. They are not businesses and should not be run for profit. There is no evidence that academies are performing better than state schools. In fact Michael Wilshaw, Head of Ofsted has recently highlighted how many of the academy chains are underperforming. Academies do not have to teach the National Curriculum, can pay teachers what they like, can set their own holidays and impose longer days on their students, longer lessons and shorter holidays. in other words there is no parity of regulation. Academy Heads are not required to have been teachers themselves so have scant knowledge of running a school. This will spell the end of national pay scales for teachers and will be a disaster for our young people. This is total privatisation of the primary and secondary sector and cannot be allowed to happen.

Forcing schools to become academies centralises the decision making power, taking it away from local authorities and makes schools cater to the needs of industry. Academies are underperforming compared to schools run by local authorities, and results frequently skew the figures by adding vocational qualifications.. A number of academies are already failing. Greater pressure can be exercised by academies on their teaching staff, forcing them to work weekends and holidays without the right to unionise. Pupils are not safer either, often ignored in 'study centres' or on exclusion if they don't conform. We urge you to reconsider this dangerously undemocratic move.

Tremoilet School is a small school with a very big heart, it's part of our small community and we really want to keep it that way. Carmarthenshire Council have decided to try and close our school along with Llanmiloe school and send all children over 5 miles away to another school. If this happens it would be a huge blow to the local community, there would be no more school performances in the local church and the children would no longer be so involved in local affairs. Our small school has turned out some amazing students that have gone on to be extremely successful in different fields like computer software development, teachers, business management and the list goes on. We may be a small school but this does not mean we are willing to let it go,the children are certainly not prepared to lose the school that means so much to them and neither are the parents or Pendine Community.

It will help the economy as people are more settled when they are a little older and more willing to take full advantage of the chance they have been given.

I am a parent of a child at DACA and also have a child at a local primary school. This Easter my children have completely different two week holidays; the youngest starts his holidays the day that DACA go back after theirs. I am really saddened that I can't spend any time over the end of term break together as a family as DACA have chosen not to follow the council's recommended holiday pattern. This is particularly upsetting as parents are now fined if they take their children out of school in term time and are in a lose / lose situation. Different holidays also make child care exceptionally difficult for many families. Out of schools holiday club providers are following the council's recommended end of term break so parents have been left stuck and struggling this Easter. The school expects its students and parents to show their support and promotes itself as being a part of the local community. Please could you give your students and parents the same support and respect by following the recommended holiday pattern, ensuring we can have quality family time and can arrange appropriate child care where necessary.

In response to the planned national industrial strike action on Thursday the 17th of March Dundee and Angus College have taken the decision to close the College and its facilities on that day. By way of justification, the College Executive claims that it cannot guarantee the required number of support staff on the day to ensure compliance with mandatory health & safety regulations. This claim, however, does not account for the fact that support staff are not part of the academic staff and are therefore not involved in the strike action itself. This is a critical time of year for students on all courses due to final assessment deadlines and pending final exams very shortly due to occur. By closing the College, thereby denying students access to the needed resources for study, the College is putting unnecessary extra pressure upon students at a critical time of year which could have a serious negative impact upon their final results. This is a critical issue as many of these results will dictate whether students are able to secure places on University courses and progress in their academic studies. It is well within the College's abilities to ensure sufficient numbers of support staff to run the campus facilities during the strike action. Failure to do so would be an abandonment by the College of their duty of care towards students to provide as much assistance as possible during this period. We, the undersigned, are in full support of the academic staff and their reasons for taking strike action. That same support, however, cannot be extended to the College Executive itself, whose decision to close all facilities to students during this crucial period is both unnecessary and irresponsible. We therefore call upon the College Executive to reverse its decision to close the college on Thursday 17th March and guarantee that no further closures will be announced should strike action continue beyond this date. To close the campus and facilities as such an important time of the academic year is irresponsible and runs counter to the stated aims and goals of the College itself.

This is the only 6th form in knowsley. This is a new school and we need time to improve it.