Speaking at a meeting of the Campaign Against Academies and Trust Schools last Friday, Mr Trickett said government plans to turn even more schools into academies would have a 'devastating' effect on the district.

The urgent meeting was called after the Express revealed earlier this month that a number of schools, including Fitzwilliam Primary, had all expressed an interest in becoming academies.

Education secretary Michael Gove said schools that become academies will enjoy freedom from council control, the ability to set their own pay and conditions for staff, freedom from following the national curriculum and greater control of their budget.

But a furious Mr Trickett said academies would only serve to widen the class divide, and could lead to 'weirdos' running schools, because under the plans anyone would be able to open a new school.

He said: "Children in deprived communities will be left behind and it stinks.

"This campaign is critical. We have to win this battle. I will fight in parliament. We need to try and stop this in whatever way we can."

Representatives from a range of unions attended the meeting from Unison to the National Union of Teachers and the general union GMB.

They say the academies proposals, outlined under the Academies Bill, are an attempt to 'destroy a democratic, planned state education system and replace it with a market-driven collection of independent schools'.

Margaret Isherwood, Wakefield Council's assistant cabinet member for school transformation, said young people in Wakefield got a good deal from the local authority, and that the academies plans had 'thrown things into disarray'.

Guest speaker Alasdair Smith, national secretary of the Anti Academies Alliance, urged everyone to take part in a lobby of parliament in London on Monday, July 19.