Rt Hon Michael Gove MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Thursday, 8 July 2010

Dear Minister,

I wish to express my deep concern and disquiet at the possibility of Dunraven Secondary School (Lambeth) being denied BSF funds. It is presently listed as ‘for discussion’. I would urge you to ensure that the final verdict is favourable. The school’s summer holiday period has already been adjusted to enable preliminary building work to commence in the summer holidays and withdrawal of funds at this late stage will create enormous resentment among the local community not to mention staff and parents.

Dunraven has worked extremely hard to supply high quality education to a highly varied ethnic and socio economic community. It has again and again opened doors of higher education to young people from backgrounds not usually associated with academic success. It has done so in buildings which are a hotch potch of old training college rooms, a run down nineteenth century town mansion and a host of add-ons. Some corridors would be narrow in a private home, never mind a large school. It is simply not fit for purpose. The school has over the last 8 years transformed itself into a beacon of success and badly needs a thorough redesign to enable it expand and enhance its service to the local community.

I respect the Government’s need to cut expenditure. I am also very uneasy at the implication of this particular cut. Anger and resentment would be deep and long lasting. To make a success of the next difficult 5 years the Government needs willing partners . Yours will ultimately be a political decision and I ask you that it acknowledges the very strong arguments for continuing with the BSF programme in Dunraven School.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely.

Father of a Dunraven pupil