LABOUR borough councillors have prepared a list of questions for the governors at Everest Community College, which they believe need answering before any decisions are made about the school’s future.

The school, in Oxford Way, Popley, could be given academy status after governors voted in favour of the move.

Labour group leader Councillor Laura James said: “It’s a rushed decision. If they can’t answer our questions then they leave themselves open to legal challenge. They are not required to answer them but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t.

“They have a moral responsibility. People don’t have time to grasp what is happening or what it means. It’s a very in-depth subject.”

The questions prepared by the Labour borough councillors are posted below.

1. What form will your consultation take? Who will you be consulting and when? What is the closing date for the consultation? What process have you agreed to independently verify and evaluate the consultation responses? How will you present the alternative viewpoint in your consultation?

2. Do you intend to restrict consultation on the proposals to the current parents of pupils at the college?

3. Have you completed as required under law, and before you have taken any decision, an Equalities Assessment? This should be made public and can we have a copy including the date it was adopted?

4. Will you, in the interests of openness and transparency, publicly publish your Governing Body minutes and all documentation on your consideration of and decision regarding academy status?

a. What was the decision of the Governing Body? You state in your letter that this was a decision in principle to become an Academy Status?

b. Was the decision in principle to become an academy taken by the Governing Body unanimous?

5. Do you know exactly what additional responsibilities, liabilities and legal risks you as Governors of the College would be taking on? Can you supply us with a copy of these?

6. Has your sponsor agreed in detail how the governing body will be made up under Academy status? Can we see a copy of this agreement? Will the Governing Body retain ultimate control of the school, or will it be subordinate to the Sponsors Board?

7. Can you set out in detail the relationship between the school, the private limited company (AET) and the role of the head teacher within the new management arrangements of the school under Academy status? (Can we be clear - The Academies Enterprise Trust is a charity registered as a company limited by guarantee.)

8. In total have you done a full break down of the spending by County on the school and the services that you will now be independently required to commission? What is this figure?

9. If you have received promises of more money each year do you know exactly how much it will be, from whom and how many years it will last? Do you have this commitment in writing? Do you know how much money is available for start up costs and do you have quotations for all the work involved in doing this?

10. What will happen to a student who is excluded from the school? Who will be responsible for their education? What financial arrangements will there be for example, you will receive money for the student from Government, the LEA will not. When you exclude a student will you hand over the proportion of your budget for that student to the LEA for their education?

11. Are you aware that the school will be responsible for writing a new admissions policy? What have you decided will be the schools new admissions policy? Have you informed parents of your new policy?

12. What do you intend to do with the school curriculum? Have you prepared any documentation on maintaining the current curriculum or proposals of changes you or your sponsor will make?

13. The Head Teacher has yet to present a detailed plan that sets out how the Academy status will actually improve the education for our children. Where is this document and when do you intend to make it public? This is not the current school improvement plan, but one that specifically addresses the benefits in detail that Academy status will bring within the classroom?

14. As the lead school in the cluster of schools for Popley, what consultation, in what form, has taken place with your feeder schools and when was this?

15. What will be the impact on other local schools? What assessment have you done on the impact to feeder schools of the decision to become an academy?

16. What percentage of students in the feeder schools have special needs? Have you made a cost analysis of their needs?

17. The legal obligation to arrange the provision of a statement of educational needs remains with the local education authority. What would happen if the academy were to say that they couldn't provide what's in the statement? The LEA can't make them as the contract is between the Academy and the Secretary of State, will the schools approach to accepting children with statements change? What guarantee can you give parents?

18. Have you identified how much meeting the special needs of students currently in the school costs? How much is County spending on this area of need? What systems or processes have you developed to identify and commission services for these students?

19. What policy have you developed to choose the 10 per cent of your intake by Aptitude? What consultation and detailed assessment have you undertaken on this policy with the feeder schools, parents and wider community?

20. If the parents, wider community and stakeholders say no to academy status, what do you intend to do?