Angry and frustrated parents have accused one of Kent’s biggest academy trusts of attempts to erase their community’s heritage and history over plans to give their close-knit primary school a new name.

Leigh Academies Trust, based in Strood runs primary, secondary and special academies across Kent, Medway and South East London.

From this September, numerous schools run by the organisation will be handed a new name and logo as trust chiefs launch a rebrand of many sites.

But while most schools earmarked for a new identity will maintain some fragment of their current name - alongside incorporating the word ‘Leigh’ within their new title - families at one primary school say their community’s past is about to be rubbed-out all together.

Eastcote Primary Academy was taken on by the Trust in 2016 - resulting in the loss of its original name Eastcote Primary School.

The one-form entry ‘outstanding’ school near Bexley, which welcomes children from nursery age to Year 6, has been on the same school site - in Eastcote Road - for close to 100 years.

But families have been told that from September, with a nod to trust-backers The Stationers’ Company, the school will instead be renamed Leigh Stationers’ Primary Academy.

Parent Nina Lee-Davis, who has two children at the school, said the decision has sent people ‘absolutely wild’.

She said: “We have grandparents collecting their kids from school who went there themselves. It’s a very close knit community.

“We feel like our entire identity is being taken away from us and no one can really say why.”

Eastcote families are not the first to have been left shocked at the suggestion of a new moniker.

Earlier this year parents of pupils at Hartley Primary Academy near Gravesend launched a petition against plans to drop their village name from the front of the school’s title and rename it Leigh Academy Hartley from this September.

Speaking at the time, mum Julia Griffiths said: "A school is a service paid for through taxes, not a business, so changing the school into a brand makes it seem like a smaller company being taken over by a bigger one.”

Eastcote parents - of which around 500 have so far expressed objections to the plan - say they completely understand the trust’s desire to bring the school under its wider umbrella but remain baffled by a determination to lose the word ‘Eastcote’ altogether.

Alongside Hartley Primary, they point to Horsmenden Primary Academy near Tunbridge Wells, which will be known as Leigh Academy Horsmenden from the start of the new school year; Bearsted Primary Academy in Maidstone that will change its name to Leigh Academy Bearsted and Cherry Orchard Primary Academy in Ebbsfleet Valley that will switch to Leigh Academy Cherry Orchard.

Leigh Academy in Dartford will also change its name this September to Sir Geoffrey Leigh Academy while Hugh Christie School in Tonbridge became Leigh Academy Hugh Christie earlier this year.

In total - according to a list of the new logos sent to parents at Easter - 18 LAT-run schools are expected to steadily undergo a name change but most will keep some link to their previous title.

In trying to follow the same naming convention other schools have adopted - ‘Leigh Stationers’ Eastcote Academy’ was put forward by families as an alternative or a request that ‘Eastcote campus’ be tacked on the end of the new name in smaller print.

However Nina says any suggestion to keep part of the original name and mix it with the new, have mostly fallen on ‘deaf ears’.

“We aren’t dismissing the partnership, or the investment, but we want to understand it” she explained.

“Why do they want to eradicate our whole identity?”

Instead the Trust says it will consider alternative ways to ‘preserve’ the school’s name such as introducing an ‘Eastcote’ prize, renaming the library or adding a plaque to the building.

But there is also further anger that another of LAT’s schools with a long history - Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School in Medway - is reportedly not on the list for a name change.

In meeting minutes taken by the trust when it met with Eastcote parents in the spring, the Rochester grammar was described as a school ‘with several hundred years of history and an active and supportive group of Old Williamsonians’.

But the Rochester school’s history isn’t without controversy.

According to its website, Sir Joseph Williamson was a known investor and administrator in the Royal African Company that once held the monopoly of the English slave trade - leaving parents bemused as to why Eastcote has become a target for a new identity but not the grammar school.

The only difference, says Nina, that she sees between Eastcote and Rochester Maths is that they have the support of an ‘old school association’.

Academies were first established in 2000, as state-maintained but independently-run schools in England, and were the brainchild of former PM Tony Blair.

Privately controlled, they are set-up and run with the help of external sponsors and so remain outside of local authority control, arguably giving them greater independence and autonomy.

However, Nina argues this set-up makes parents ‘powerless’ and their fight to save Eastcote’s name more of a struggle because without local council involvement, no one is democratically accountable.

She said: “Where do the small people go when the big machines keep ploughing forward? Why are they ignoring an entire community?

“How can we keep being bulldozed by academies. The system is a total monster.

“Our community feels totally sidelined.”

With a new name comes a new uniform, but parents of pupils attending all LAT schools earmarked for a new look have already been told existing clothes ‘can continue to be worn until they are phased out’.

Nina says this isn’t about money - but a feeling of community that in today’s world is increasingly difficult to come by.

“People really know each other around here and they hold this school dear. People really care” she explained.

“People aren’t doing this because they’ve got nothing else to do.”

Mum of three Tessa Paton has two daughters at the school and a young son, aged one, set to follow. Her mum and younger brother also attended Eastcote.

She said it’s about ‘far far more’ than a new uniform and logo.

She added: “We’ve been told we can run the old uniform into the ground so this isn’t about that.

“It’s about the history of the school. The heritage.

“It’s a school that’s so loved and there’s a real sense of community here.”

In a statement LAT said its partnership with The Stationers' Company will bring significant benefits to Eastcote Primary, including ‘financial support, co-curricular enrichment, investment in library resources and access to a prestigious network of contacts’.

It added: “The decision to rename Eastcote Primary was made after extensive consultation with key stakeholders. It reflects our commitment to creating a unified educational community that attracts and retains high-quality staff and provides outstanding opportunities for our students.

“Whilst the name is changing, the ethos, vision and values of Eastcote Primary remain the same. We will continue to celebrate the school's 90-year history and its significant role in the local community.

“The renaming of Eastcote Primary Academy to Leigh Stationers' Primary Academy marks an exciting new chapter, strengthening its position within Leigh Academies Trust and enhancing opportunities through the partnership with The Stationers' Company.”