The Cabinet member for education, Debbie Andre, has this week apologised for the way the proposed school closures were ‘communicated’ to staff and parents.
On the last Friday before the May half-term holidays, the Isle of Wight council (IWC) issued a general release to all media announcing that proposals were being put forward to consult on closing three primary schools, and closing a fourth through amalgamation.
Parents and staff didn’t know yet
As you would expect, all media ran the release, pretty much immediately.
The problem is, at this point parents and staff (apart from some headteachers) had no knowledge of the plans, because they weren’t due to be told until midday.
As you can imagine, this created a huge amount of anger and distress for parents and staff of the four named schools; Cowes Primary School; St Mary’s RC Primary School, Ryde; Wroxall Primary School and Chillerton and Rookley Primary School.
A week later the proposals were withdrawn – leaving parents and staff in limbo ever since.
Why tell the media first?
At this week’s public School Place Planning briefing, which attracted 66 people, at least ten of whom were councillors, and also included several council officers, one parent asked why the media had been informed about the proposals before staff and parents.
Richard Vaughan, Strategic Planning Officer from Hampshire County Council, replied that the media “would not have been told before the head of the school”.
Someone messed up
The issue for many is that although the headteachers may have known, most of the staff – and definitely the parents – did not know about the plans when the news was released by the council to the media.
The press release was issued by the council at 10.30am on Friday 26th May – an hour and a half before the schools and parents were due to be told.
Andre: Apologises for the way this was communicated to you
This week Councillor Debbie Andre, cabinet member for Children’s Services, Education and Lifelong Skills apologised,
“I know that this has been a really difficult time for parents and teachers and I would like to apologise for the way this was communicated to you.”
Andre: We are here to do our best to support Island children
Councillor Andre went on to thank all those who attended the briefing and encouraged others to share feedback,
“I thank you all for your positive engagement and the constructive comments put forward at the meeting.
“As I mentioned at the event, we will be discussing next steps and we will let you know as soon as we can. We are here to help you, to support you and to do our best to support Island children.”
Anyone wishing to submit any further comments and feedback can do so via the following email address: [email protected]
