Dear Parent
 
You will have no doubt seen the recent media attention to the government's decision to remove the previously pledged funding for new school buildings at Hurworth, Longfield and Branksome.  Naturally. everyone is disappointed, but we must continue to look at ways of attracting new capital funding to at least improve and upgrade our facilities.  The local authority has a relatively modest amount of capital (around £6 million) to share between the three schools and, providing this isn't withdrawn which we think extremely unlikely, we will be looking at spending our share of that money on school facilities sometime in the next academic year.
 
There may also be other ways of accessing more funding for our premises.  The government has announced that it will look at Darlington's original scheme again in the autumn and consider whether any of its schools need urgent cpaital funding.  We will put forward the best case we can.
 
Linked to this, we have expressed an interest in converting to academy status and the governors will be deciding whether to consult with all stakeholders, including parents, in the autumn.  Academy status may be a way of levering in more funding as well as giving us more flexibility over how we manage and organise the school and its curriculum.  However, no decision on changing our status will be taken by the governing body until the views of everyone connected with the school are considered. 
 
We will give you further updates as and when they are known to us, but, just to warn you,  the media usually get and report information before us.  Apoplogies for this.