Decision-makers urged to visit threatened Yorkshire Dales school (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Decision-makers urged to visit threatened Yorkshire Dales school
1:50pm Thursday 4th November 2010 in Ballots
AS D-day approaches on the future of Ingleton Middle School, parents are outraged councillors will not be visiting before a decision is made on whether it will close.
North Yorkshire County Council has suggested closing Ingleton and Settle Middle Schools for 10 to 13 year olds; scrapping the region’s three-tier structure in favour of a system where pupils transfer just once, aged 11, to Settle High.
Tomorrow is the last opportunity for people to have their say before councillors make their final decision on November 30.
Parent Vicky Sawyer, leader of a Facebook campaign group against the closure, said: “The cabinet need to know the feeling of the place, see the amazing work the school does and not just go off Ofsted reports.
"I can’t see how they can make an informed decision about closing the middle schools without actually going to have a look and seeing what the area is like.”
She said the head teacher of Ingleton Middle School had made up a realistic timetable for councillors to visit all the schools affected by the proposal and was angry that they had not taken up the offer.
“It really isn’t acceptable. None of the councillors on the cabinet even live in Craven.
"How can someone who represents Wetherby make a decision on our area without taking time to get to know the place?” she added.
Coun John Watson, North Yorkshire's Executive Member for Schools, said the council had no obligation to visit any of the schools mentioned in the consultation.
“To make it legally robust we either go to all of them or not go to any and we’ve decided that we can’t possibly visit all the schools in Craven.
"People in the cabinet live a long long way from Craven and we all have full-time jobs to do as well.
"To drop everything and visit all of the schools is not possible,” he said.
He said when Langcliffe Primary School, near Settle, closed in 2007 no-one from the council visited and this had not been a problem.
So far the council has written responses to the consulation which Coun Watson says are 50 per cent in favour of closing the schools.
fourlanded says...
4:17pm Fri 29 Oct 10
To say that they are not prepared 'to drop everything & visit schools' just because they live a long way from Craven, is short sighted & indicates how shallow the research has been leading up to this review.
There will be a number of parents travelling over to county hall on at least two occasions in the coming weeks to lodge petitions & attend the decision meeting at the end of November. We care enough about the future of our children's education to make that effort!
The support from Primary parents is changing sides rapidly now that they are discovering more pupils at the primary schools does not necessarily mean more teachers, just more pupils in the majority of classes.
This information was 'glossed over' very well at the public meetings & in the document sent out to parents.
Not to mention the fact that the very small numbers of year 6 pupils 'going back' into the smaller primary schools wil not guarantee the future of these primary schools by any stretch of the imagination.
The review document has been written in such a way as to infer that the loss of the two middle schools will in some way guarantee the future of smaller primary schools & post 16 education.
Let's see how safe these primary schools feel in five years time, when pupil numbers hit rock bottom in the area, with or without the middle schools.
The deadline for feedback is 4th November, everyone affected by this proposal needs to make their views heard by NYCC, pupils at all schools in North Craven face serious educational issues under this review, from Nursery through to sixth form.
If people think it won't affect their children, they must be planning to move out of the area!