BOSSES at a Blackburn primary school that had a £3million council funded expansion have explained their reasons to pursue academy status.

An application has been submitted to the Department for Education to convert Wensley Fold (VC) CofE Primary School, Manor Road, into an academy.

But the school was slammed for its plan to leave the local authority after the multi-million-pound investment.

If successful the school would be the first primary in the borough to become independent of the council by converting to an academy.

Becoming an academy would mean governors would be in charge of curriculum and admissions as well as their own budget which would be funded by central government.

Headteacher Gaynor Stubbs said, “The expansion of the school was something that the staff, parents and governors were strongly opposed to, and this was well minuted and available for public scrutiny.

“Far from us ‘accepting the investment’, we were informed there was little or no option and we agreed with some reluctance to work in partnership with the local authority to meet the shortfall in pupil places in the local area.

Places which will remain for the children in our community rather than ‘deprive other children of money’, should the application be successful.”

Mrs Stubbs said: “We have an incredible team of committed teachers and support staff who are the strength of our school and who we wish to retain and we have absolutely no intention of changing their pay and conditions of service, 90 per cent of staff voted in a secret ballot in favour of the application to convert.

“Academy status will give us a greater choice of the services we provide to meet the needs of our children.

“We have requested from the local authority a breakdown of the services they currently provide, if they are prepared to continue to provide them for Wensley Fold in the future and if so at what cost.”