small schools

Feb 28 2011

Sacred Heart Win!

Sacred Heart Primary School in Byermoor, Gateshead, have successfully fought off a proposal by Gateshead Council to close them down.

In his report and conclusion, the Schools Adjudicator stated that the Council had not made a strong enough case to close what is a designated rural school and that if the school had closed this would cause in imbalance in the denominational provision in the area. The Council agreed that the standards at the school were not an issue.

The Adjudicator did remark that the Council’s policy of minimum 210 place schools meant unfair treatment of Sacred Heart as it was a small but designated rural school and as such had a presumption against closure.

The Parents Group, the school and the local community put up a very robust and patient fight against the closure proposal and must now be very proud of their achievements. Well done to all concerned.

This must be a lesson to all small schools fighting closure proposals. You can win if you have the arguments and marshall them effectively.

By David • Blog • 1 • Tags: , , , ,

Sep 21 2010

NASS Northern Regional Small Schools Conference – 24 September 2010

I have been invited to give a presentation at the NASS Northern Regional Small Schools Conference at the Rheged Discovery Centre in Cumbria near Penrith this Friday, 24 September 2010. I will be talking about how GLASS (Gillas Lane Action to Support School) helped to save a small primary school in detail and what more general lessons we can learn from that.

I must thank Barbara Taylor and Mervyn Benford for giving me the opportunity to broadcast to a wider audience the experiences of GLASS and touch upon some of the strong arguments for keeping small schools open as part of a diverse collection of schools that gives parents a real choice when deciding the school for their child.

I do understand that local education authorities do have a job to do in managing school places and budgets but in my experience so far certain authorities (in North East England) efforts at consultation, option appraisal and decision making have been poor, self serving and not in line with statutory guidance. In one authority, a policy decision has been taken to get rid of small schools altogether, regardless of the standard of education they produce and the parents and community support, and this is being actively worked upon at the moment. It seems to be a purely economic argument which is destined to fall foul of statutory guidance and prevailing pupil forecasts.

To avoid the worst excesses of school place planning exercises then parents need to be vigilant and band together to fight any proposal to close their school where it clearly is not of benefit to their children. The fight may or may not be successful but it may be the only thing you can do

What I have seen, in several cases, is local authorities riding roughshod over parents wishes and arguments, basing whole school planning strategies on outdated information, arguing against solid and verifiable information, not willing to enter into proper debate with parents and action groups, making politically motivated decisions at the expense of rational ones and generally acting in an arrogant and uncaring way towards parents. I hope this is not typical of all local authorities in the UK but I suspect it is more prevalent than we would hope.

Parents are put into an impossible position when faced with a school closure proposal. This may be the first time they have ever dealt with a local authority. They have no training for this and little knowledge about the process and what to do. They are faced with a big organisation with tremendous resources at its disposal who probably has already made its mind up about its preferred option. Parents are at a massive disadvantage but they can win, as we proved at Gillas Lane. It requires commitment, hard work, patience, endurance and a willingness to learn new things and probably do things you’ve never done before. All very daunting. However, if you value your child’s educational future then to fight is a natural reaction. You’ve just got to know what is the best way to get a favourable result. If you read all of the posts on this site you will get a lot of useful information about what works and what doesn’t.

I’ll post again after the conference and tell you of my experiences.

By David • Blog • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Jun 30 2010

School Closures and the Economy

Everyone knows that we are in the most difficult economic circumstances for generations. The new coalition government has just announced drastic measures to cut public expenditure. Figures of 25% over the next five years have been mentioned. This may be an underestimate as some public services will be protected ie NHS. Where does this leave education?

There is no doubt in my mind that education will face some severe cuts particularly in the new schools capital programmes. This will have a significant impact on education. Yet local government will also be faced with jaw dropping reductions in their day to day (revenue) spending as well. The only way that local authorities will be able to balance the books in education will be to close or amalgamate schools and make teachers redundant. So there will be even more pressure on local authorities to find schools to close or amalgamate from now on. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this approach, it will happen.

Small schools are easy targets. Economically they represent a less efficient use of scarce education financial resources regardless of the educational benefits that a small school can bring to its pupils. Even if the small schools survive they will have to operate on a much smaller budget. Class sizes will rise. In some cases the operational viability of small schools will come into question. It is a gloomy picture but one which I fear is realistic for the next few years as the country tries to get back into a more positive economic footing.

I do have some sympathy for what local government will have to go through and education in particular. But parents still have the right to fight for their child’s education and they will have their say in the matter of proposed closures. The rule of law becomes ever more important in the closure process and the statutory guidance is key to any successful challenge. If local authorities do not carry out review processes comprehensively, fairly and consistently, if they ignore statutory guidance, if their consultation methods are poor, then parents have a right and a duty to complain and challenge the proposals.

The nagging fear is that the government will change the rules on school closures to make it easier for local authorities to make closures happen in order to meet the financial targets being set. This could erode parents’ ability to challenge and object to proposals they feel are unfair. Unscrupulous local authorities could use any changes to ride roughshod over parents’ wishes and preferences.

The situation is serious and needs to be monitored constantly. We need to be vigilant and watch the press and the media for any proposed changes by the incumbent government affecting education. I will try and assess the impact of any possible changes on the guidance given on this site.

In the meantime, fight the good fight using all the means at your disposal.

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