As parents our role is to ensure the JFS aspires to high standards of achievement for all. The pupils education and welfare are the priority.

We work in partnership with the school and support their decisions.

We are extremely concerned, worried and disappointed at the events which have occured following the school's decision to continue with a visit from an author as part of world book week. 

Dr Simon Hughes, director of education at the Archdiocese of Southwark, has unfairly and without regard for due process, removed the Foundation governors. There was no consultation process whatsoever and we as parents were shocked by their removal. 

We are urgently requesting your support to insist the Diocese fully reistate the Foundation governors who were removed by the Diocese. 

This disruption to the school's governance is majorly impacting upon the day to day running of the school, causing distress and anxiety to the parents, staff and children and undermines the values and ethos of our school community.

Dr Simon Hughes should resign from his position as he has discriminated against a whole community of people by cancelling this event and putting the school through turmoil by suspending the governing board. This was done without the support of parents. Dr Hughes has not acted in the best interest of the pupils of the school and that we the undersigned, do not have faith in his intentions or leadership. His actions are under investigation by the department for education so he should not be in any such position until those invesitgations are completed.

Simon Green, a leading writer of LGBTQ+ fiction, was the author due to visit the school. Southwark Archdiocese, which oversees the John Fisher school, said in a statement (from education director Simon Hughes) that “from time to time materials and events emerge for consideration that fall outside the scope of what is permissible in a Catholic school”.

“In such circumstances, we have no alternative but to affirm our unequivocal and well-known theological and moral precepts and to act in accordance with them.” The result was that the school were forced to cancel the event as well as one in a Primary school in Gravesend.

Mr Green explained that in his young adult books, “there is occasional kissing, that is about as far as it goes,” he said. “There is nothing in there which you wouldn’t find in pretty much any Young Adult novel that’s published today.”

His books for younger readers, (which he was to share with the Primary school he was due to visit) “celebrate underdogs” but “there is nothing LGBT in those books at all”, which Mr Green said made the cancellation of his visit to the primary school feel “very personal”. “That feels to me like, ‘well that’s because you’re a gay man’."

We are extremely concerned about the mental and emotional impact that this is all having on the LGBTQ+ community within the John Fisher School, including the pupils, staff and their families. The school are doing everything they can to keep things 'normal' for the pupils and staff as possible but they need a fully functioning governing body whose best interests lie with the school community to do this.