Academy head’s warped priorities: A Roke by any other name?

insidecroydon

13 years ago

There has been a civil emergency going on in the Kenley area of Croydon for the past week.

Residents of homes in one road have faced the prospect of being flooded out. The A22 Godstone Road has been impassable because of the rising water levels.

The fire brigade and other emergency services have had to work night and day to pump water away from a waterworks to try to allow it to maintain supplies to 25,000 people locally.

And the local primary school has had to evacuate its pupils, some aged as young as five, twice in three days.

So how does the “principal” of the now academised primary school, run by an organisation set-up by a carpet salesman, respond to this crisis?

Why, she gets her “PA” – yes, primary schools have “principals” with “personal assistants”, and probably pretensions above their true station – to send an email to Inside Croydon at seven minutes before 11pm on a Friday night. And what is the urgent matter which is so exercising Kate Magliocco at this time?

The email says (please note, the grammatical error is from the original email from a primary school):

“Having read two of your reports over the past two days, It appears that you keep forgetting what our school is called. You quote Roke Primary, which as you know is no longer.

“When writing your next article you should quote the correct school name which is ‘Harris Primary Academy Kenley’, you may add ‘formally known as Roke Primary’ if you must.

“We would be grateful if you could kindly quote our correct name in future.”

Kate Magliocco: clearly has too much time on her hands

The email carries the imprint of Magliocco’s PA, so we are making the assumption that it was sent on instruction.

Magliocco, if she is not too busy dealing with real priorities such as a flooded primary school, might want to consider the following:

Our first report to use the name Roke Primary was re-producing directly an email from Croydon Council. We thought that much was obvious. If she still thinks it is a matter deserving of her urgent attention (and we don’t), then she may want to consider taking the matter up with them.
The re-naming of Roke Primary was done against the wishes of the schoolchildren’s parents.
There is already in existence another Kenley Primary School, which as the parents advised is something which can only create confusion. This is especially the case at times of emergency, such as the current floods. No one would want emergency services attending the original Kenley Primary, for instance, when they are required at Roke.

So we thank Magliocco for her interest in Inside Croydon, advise her that we we will continue to refer to the primary school at which she works in the way in which we see fit, and we suggest that she might want to re-assess her priorities. We’re sure that she’d be able to book herself in on several crisis management courses in the coming months.

If Inside Croydon’s loyal reader wishes to express their views on Magliocco’s somewhat warped priorities, they may wish to email her at Roke Primary at this address: info@harrisprimarykenley.org.uk

To report rising groundwater levels or flooding, residents are asked to call the Environment Agency Incident Hotline on 0800 80 70 60. You can also sign up to the free groundwater Flood Alert/Warning service by calling Floodline on 0845 988 1188.

To visit the Environment Agency’s area flood alert page, click here

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If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents’ or business association or local event, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com

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