Parents of primary school pupils have accused the Department for Education of bullying the school's governing body in to accepting an unwanted academy trust.

Earlier this month, governors at Twydall Primary School voted against accepting the Thinking Skills Academy Trust (TSAT) as sponsors. But the DfE has told them it will be considering whether to replace them with an interim executive board (IEB) which would vote in favour of TSAT.

A spokesman for Parents And Twydall Together (PATT) said they were "completely shocked" that the DfE is still threatening the governors, despite a very strong case being made by the governing body for turning down TSAT.

She said: "Parents and the community have said no to TSAT, the governing body has said no to TSAT, the latest Ofsted inspection praises the schools leadership and reasonable progress is being made out of special measures.

"Why is there once again an attempt to bully the governing body into this situation? PATT fully support the governing body as having the children's best interests at heart. Why doesn't DFE and the local authority?"

A DfE spokesman said they were considering the best long term solution for the children at Twydall Primary School.

She said: “We believe TSAT has a strong track record of school improvement and inclusion, including running a specialist deaf provision in one of their primary schools.

“Our plan for education is to ensure every child leaves school fully prepared for life in modern Britain. Becoming an academy with the support of a strong sponsor is the best solution to bring about rapid and sustained improvement.”

Yesterday, the governors wrote to the DfE for the second time to raise concerns that an IEB and the subsequent imposition of TSAT would be detrimental to the pupils progress.

They said: "The sponsor selected was not properly compared to other local sponsors. We now have a more suitable local sponsor who have approached us and we would like to begin immediate discussions on progressing forward with this sponsor early next week.

"We do believe we reached the right conclusion at the second vote on February 13 and if need be we are happy to defend that decision and to protect the pupils and our ethos of inclusion."

They said recent emails released by DfE indicated that TSAT had not demonstrated the required experience or background for pupils with physical disability.

In their first public statement released last week the governors said they did not feel the DfE had acted appropriately, given the school’s unique circumstances.

They said: “Twydall Primary is committed to converting to an academy but only when we are partnered with an appropriate sponsor academy. TSAT is not the right choice for Twydall Primary School.”

Twydall is a large school with 555 pupils and a large number of those have special needs The school was placed in special measures following an Ofsted visit in April last year, and the DfE picked TSAT as their preferred academy sponsor.

As part if its consultation process, the governing body surveyed parents and other stakeholders on whether the school should join TSAT, and 89% voted against the move.

The governors said: “Whilst TSAT undoubtedly runs some very successful local schools, it doesn’t have any experience in dealing with the level of inclusion special educational needs which we have at Twydall.

“It’s also disappointing that TSAT failed to engage with local parents at the academy consultation meetings that we organised.”

The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools, Lord Nash, wrote to the governors two days before they were due to vote on the move, informing them that the DfE planned to replace them with a state-appointed interim executive board and make an academy order in favour of TSAT.