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Your support makes all the difference.Local government leaders are planning a diplomatic offensive to lure opted-out schools back under the wing of education authorities.
Labour-run councils are today receiving letters from the Local Government Association (LGA) urging them to begin enticing grant-maintained schools, which are funded centrally and run their own affairs, to return to the fold.
News of the letter, seen by The Independent, has caused consternation among heads of opted-out schools, who yesterday condemned the step as "extraordinarily premature".
The campaign is being launched in advance of major changes to the state schools framework, set out in the education White Paper published last week and due to come into force in July 1998.
The Government is committed to abolishing grant-maintained status and introducing a new system under which schools will choose to adopt foundation, community or aided status.
Consultation papers on the detail of the three options are due to be published shortly, but opted-out schools are expected to incline towards foundation status, which offers the most freedom for self-government. Community schools will be closest to LEAs, while aided status will be the likely option for church schools.
In a letter to chairs of education committees, Graham Lane, LGA education chair, urges authorities to "open the diplomatic corridor" to grant-maintained schools to convince them to opt for community rather than foundation status.
Council officers should meet headteachers of opted-out schools with the aim of re-establishing contact and offering reassurance, he suggests. Ideas that could be explored include encouraging grant-maintained schools to buy back services from the LEA and co-ordinating admission arrangements.
By opening up old links, Mr Lane says, "GM schools will increasingly see themselves as becoming automatically community schools rather than foundation schools".
As foundation schools, the letter warns, formerly opted-out schools could become "GM schools in exile", whose powers could be increased by a future Conservative government.
However, GM schools could well prove wary of LEA overtures. Most have relished their greater autonomy since leaving LEA control and may be unwilling to relinquish freedoms.
The Government has stressed that it does not want to become embroiled in debates over structures in schools.
Under the White Paper, LEAs are given an expanded role, but their mission is chiefly to raise standards while leaving schools maximum freedom to manage themselves.
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