ANGRY parents and teachers protested outside a council building against plans to convert a school into a company-run academy.

On Friday protesters led by the National Education Union (NEU) gathered outside Lewes County Hall, which is home to East Sussex County Council, and demanded an end to academy plans for Peacehaven Community School.

Swale Academies Trust has had a partial role in running the secondary school since 2015 and is set to be handed full control of it by East Sussex County Council within months.

But Phil Clarke, secretary of the NEU’s Lewes, Eastbourne, and Wealden branch, said parents and staff are hopeful the planned takeover will be stopped.

He said: “Staff at Peacehaven Community School were out in force and were again joined by local councillors and parents at the protest.

“The resolve shown by staff to prevent the transfer to Swale is really impressive.

“We remain hopeful that this, combined with pressure from parents and local politicians, will mean East Sussex council think again about handing over the school.”

But a spokeswoman for the council said the decision to convert the school to an academy lay with the Interim Executive Board, the school’s governing body which has no parent or teacher representation.

She said: “The school has informed us that the formal responses to its own consultation in 2017 were all supportive of the proposal to convert to academy status.

“The decision to convert to an academy is not made by the county council, but by the Interim Executive Board.”

If Swale takes over Peacehaven Community School, it will have complete control over what it teaches pupils and who is allowed to teach them.

Academies also have considerable freedom on term times.

Swale first had involvement with the Peacehaven secondary school in 2015, a year after teachers were told by Ofsted that the school “required improvement”.

In October last year Ofsted awarded it a “good” rating, leading many staff and politicians to question the need for Swale’s role in the school.

Last month a joint letter to East Sussex County Council from Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Lewes MP Maria Caulfield and 12 Peacehaven town councillors called for a stop to the academy plans.