Regretfully we are informing the public that our campaign to restore the Lumley badge to the uniform of Lady Lumley’s students has failed. The Governors decided to keep their new ‘logo’.

Remarkably, we have not been informed of this decision by either the governors or the Coast & Vale Learning Trust. We only discovered this when a sympathetic parent forwarded a school newsletter. This shows complete disrespect towards the 1,200+ who signed our petition and the people who wrote to support our campaign, including Kevin Hollinrake, Baroness Pickering, ex-staff, ex-governors and ex-students.

We do not know what was said at the meeting or what evidence was used because we were not invited to attend. However, we are aware that a Trustee attended to present a ‘Confidential Report’. In the summary of this report (not marked ‘Confidential’) the Chair of the Trust wrongfully alleged that we had stated that the badge could not be changed without the approval of the College of Arms.

We had always known that the Trust had the power to change the badge if it so wished, but we were arguing that to change the badge was ethically wrong and the way it had been changed had broken the regulations.

In 1657 Lady Lumley left a bequest to build a school at Sinnington and a school and almshouses at Thornton Dale. The schools were later amalgamated to create Lady Lumley’s School. A Foundation was set up which draws on rents from her bequeathed land and which continues to benefit Lady Lumley’s School and its students by providing tens of thousands of pounds annually.

Surely, the very least the school could have done was to honour their inspirational, far-sighted patron by continuing to display her family badge on the school uniform, as it had done for the 75 years before the Trust took over. There is no substitute for the authentic Lumley badge which local people were so proud to wear.

Mac & Linda Brackstone, Pickering