HIGH HOPES FOR NEW SCHOOL
From the Goole - Howden - Thorne Courier. Thurs 12 Feb 2004.
A new Christian school set to open next September will do more for the regeneration of Doncaster than the proposed international airport, a businessman behind the venture told church leaders.
Project director David Vardy a partner with the North-East based motor dealership empire was answering questions on a £24 million project to transform Thorne Grammar into Trinity Academy – an independent non-fee paying and non-selective school aiming to deliver high academic standards within a Christian ethos.
Specialising in business and enterprise and still subject to planning permission, it will be run in cooperation with Doncaster Local Education and work is expected to start on the site before Easter.
It will be the third such school sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation, a charitable trust chaired by Sir Peter Vardy.
And it comes in the wake of the highly successful Emmanuel College in Gateshead and the launch of the King’s Academy in Middlesbrough last year. Interviews for a new head will be held next week.
“What we’re doing will be far more significant than the airport,” Mr Vardy told a group gathered at the Bessacarr Evangelical Church.
“Regeneration starts with people And it will have far more impact on the economy of Doncaster than the new airport.”
The new owners are confident they will be able to turn the school around by encouraging the children to do the best they can.
High quality new buildings will be erected on the present playing fields and incorporate a 300-seater lecture theatre, sports halls, an all-weather pitch, a multi-gym, two restaurants also catering for outside needs, a 700-seater assembly hall and a man-made lake. Out of hours community use will be much encouraged.
Referring to his brother, Mr Vardy said: “At the end of the day Sir Peter could have put this money into a yacht in the Mediterranean. “But he has chosen to put it into a school in Thorne. There is nothing in it for the Vardy family but blood, sweat and tears.”
In recent years between 95 and 99 percent of Emmanuel students have achieved five or more A* to C grades at GCSE.
Former Emmanuel College head and academy chairman John Burn explained the ethos of the school.
“Each day we will have an act of Christian worship, exposure to the word of God and an opportunity for people to participate in prayer. I think that in itself this will have a calming, Civilising influence.”
RE itself will be delivered in the form of PTE – Philosophy, Theology and Ethics – and they will seek to teach the essential differences between faiths rather than their similarities.
Mr Vardy added: “There are not many people who know what good looks like. If they see good they’ll realise just how bad things are.”
FURTHER COMMENTS
The Vardy Foundation has perfected the blowing of ones trumpet into an art form. For instance, referring to Thorne Grammar School, David Vardy said, “What we’re doing will be far more significant than the airport.” The airport at Finningley is estimated to generate anything up to 7500 jobs, the Vardy Foundation by contrast are simply taking over the running of a medium sized secondary school. Obviously, there is no comparison. And the only way the Vardy Foundation & the Mayor of Doncaster can even remotely justify these sort of wildly exaggerated claims is to denigrate the reputation of the existing school to such an extent that they talk as if Thorne never even had one. At the same time, they exaggerate the significance of the replacement. Repeat this nonsense for long enough & eventually people will come to believe it is the truth, when in fact it is not.