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Public Meeting

Stop Closure of Abbeydale Grange School

Defend Public Education

Monday 8 February at 6.30pm

Meeting Room, Sharrow Old Junior School

South View Road, Sheffield S7 1DB

The contemptuous way in which the closure of Abbeydale Grange School is being organised must serve as a warning. A precedent is being set by which even the most basic and limited redress that exists for those wishing to challenge cuts and proposed school closures can be brushed aside.

The various teaching trade unions at Abbeydale Grange have done nothing to prevent the school closure and have allowed the proposed redundancies to proceed without protest. Staff have been left in a position where none of their jobs are guaranteed elsewhere. This is in line with the unions' consistent collaboration with the myriad measures imposed by the Labour government aimed at destroying what remains of the comprehensive education system.

Appeals to the various pro-business parties making up Sheffield City Council have proved to be a dead end. The school and its governing body have appealed to an independent adjudicator, but all the mechanisms for closure are in place. Parents have been given until the end of January to choose a new school for their children, and some have already left; Abbeydale Grange is no longer on the list for parents to register as a choice next year.

The most important appeal that can be made at this eleventh hour by staff, parents and students must be to the working class in Sheffield to defend public education in the city.

All those who want to discuss these issues further should attend the meeting being organised by the Socialist Equality Party on the closure of Abbeydale Grange School and the policies needed to defend a decent education for all.

Click here to download leaflet for SEP Public Meeting

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