As a long-term parent of children attending Bridport Primary School I strongly feel I need to respond to the letter in last week’s Bridport News containing unnecessarily harsh claims made by an anonymous writer.

I would like to thank Debbie Brown for her years of dedicated, service and commitment to the school and to the wider community of Bridport. My children have all been happy attending BPS and have gained immensely from the positive setting it offers.

Although academic results are important, a school is much more than its SATs results and Ofsted reports, which should anyway be set within a wider national context.

A child’s time at school should be within a happy, friendly, and supportive environment, giving them the basis to be well rounded members of the community, learning from their mistakes and realising their own unique possibilities and talents.

Bridport Primary School has offered all of this for my four children, and more.

Furthermore I personally believe it is a parent’s responsibility to ensure children attend a school that both parent and child are reasonably happy to support.

It is the case with any school that there may be times when we as parents are not entirely happy with a situation, or when children may have obstacles to overcome, but this should be the exception rather than the rule.

As a member of the Bridport community I would go further and say it is also our duty to step forward and help a school improve a situation, before using our discretion to move our child(ren) to what we consider a
better, or better suited, school.

The letter to which I am replying struck me as misleading and unnecessary and I sincerely hope anyone reading it will have realised
it is not the feeling of the majority of parents at BPS.

I hope when the Minerva Trust recruits a new leader they will be a person who continues the welcoming ethos of the school, who inspires our children to be the best they can and continues to build on the existing framework, built up by the hard work of Debbie Brown and her leadership team over the past seven years.

NAME AND ADDRESS
SUPPLIED