AN ELEVENTH-hour attempt to halt one of Oxford’s largest secondary schools becoming an academy failed yesterday.
Opponents of plans to close Oxford School, in Glanville Road, and reopen it in January as an academy called for the move to be put on hold until Government funding was clear.
They also challenged the timing of the closure notice, to be issued on Monday, warning this had not given time for schools in the area to discuss collaborating.
But Oxfordshire County Council’s children’s services scrutiny committee said the decision did not need to be re-examined.
Academy status would free the school’s finances and curriculum from local authority control.
The proposed academy is being sponsored by the CfBT Education Trust in partnership with Oxford and Cherwell Valley College and the county council.
It would take up to 1,050 children, aged 11-19, with a 250-place sixth form, and would specialise in English, and business and enterprise.
A petition against the plan containing 599 signatures was presented to the county council earlier this year.
A statutory six-week consultation period will start on Monday.
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