TEACHING unions have rallied round to defend the beleaguered staff and pupils at Radcliffe County Junior School.

The school has been at the centre of a media storm ever since the mother of the only Afro-Caribbean pupil claimed that a racially-sensitive song sung in assembly, plus taunts by racist bullies, had driven the eight-year-old boy, Elliott, to the brink of suicide.

Miss Elaine Ramsay was this week due to meet education chiefs to discuss her case but she pulled out at the last minute. She said she wanted to be properly represented after advice from Bury Racial Equality Council. She has, however, called for headteacher George Purcell to resign.

This week his fellow professionals rallied behind Mr Purcell and his colleagues on the staff of the Coronation Road school.

Dennis Meadows, secretary of the Bury branch of the NAS/UWT, which represents the majority of teachers at the school, said the union and its members were "committed to fighting racism".

"The slur on the children of the school and its parents - that their local school is racist - needs redressing," he said.

Mr Meadows pointed to the report by Ofsted, the schools watchdog, published 12 months ago, when Elliott was a pupil.

Among the comments made by the Ofsted inspection team were: "Radcliffe County Junior School is a caring school. Pupils behave in ways which are guided by a sense of right and wrong. Bullying and harassment are not features of pupil behaviour."

Mr Meadows said the school had been given support by other parents of ethnic minority children who had been at the school.

And Peter McLoughlin, the union's national executive member for the area, said: "It is quite preposterous to suggest or even imply that teachers in the school would tolerate or somehow encourage pupils to behave in a racist manner."

Miss Ramsay, of Westminster Avenue, said she wanted to meet the council's chief education officer, Harold Williams, to discuss racial policy in the borough's schools. "I didn't want to be fobbed off by one of his officers," she said.

Meanwhile Elliott is still out of school after his mother withdrew him. As well as hearing the complaint, the meeting scheduled for this week was also intended to organise alternative education for the youngster.

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