Thanks to Standards not Tiers and SaveIOWSchools for pointing out a news piece on the BBC News site.
The thrust of the article is that the government is warning local authorities that “by law, they should not be closing rural schools.”
They report that due to lobbying at a national level to protect small schools (primarily by National Association for Small Schools we assume), the government is currently drafting a letter to send to local councils.
The BBC say
Some campaigners believe that the government is behind the drive to close rural schools, so Mr Knight is anxious to stress that there has been no change in government policy – except to strengthen the law to prevent closures.
This is where things get a little unclear. The IW Council is claiming that changes by the Government have lead to their need to make the proposed school changes, but as far as we’re aware, these are different changes to those referred to in the article.
Quite where the following quote places the IW Council isn’t clear.
Schools Minister Jim Knight is set to tell councils that they must take very seriously the statutory requirement in the 2006 Education Act that there is a presumption that rural schools will not close.
We’ll contact them to find out their reaction.
