Press Release from Standards Not Tiers
SNT (Standards-Not-Tiers), who are members of the National Association for Small Schools and Human Scale Education have told the Isle of Wight Council that it is likely to face high court action over plans to close 23 Island Secondary and primary schools.
SNT have also told the Council that it is not welcome at a mass public meeting they have organised in Newport on Monday the 22nd. This is a protest against exclusions from statutory consultation meetings held earlier in the year.
SNT and Isle of Wight SOS (Save Our Schools) groups decided that the Isle of Wight Council should be given a taste of their own medicine and senior Council officials and members of the ruling Conservative group will not be allowed entry to the meeting. This came after it was revealed by a senior council officer that the Council had not invited pre-school parents to school consultation meetings as the Council had no statutory duty to do so. SNT believes that this advice was wrong and that these exclusions may be illegal and is discussing the matter with it’s lawyers.
Mervyn Benford, Information Officer for the NASS (National Association for Small Schools) will present an analysis of the current education consultation at the planned meeting and show how the local authority has already failed in its duty to consult adequately with stakeholders.
Mervyn was instrumental in helping parents in Shropshire, Hereford & Worcester and Cumbria reverse mass closure decisions, earlier this year. Mervyn has spent his whole working life in education, as a teacher, Ofsted inspector and as an LEA officer and now although retired he campaigns ceaselessly for small schools all over the world. Mervyn has already written to the Council, Roman Catholic and Church of England Diocesan officers telling them that they have got the consultation badly wrong and need to call a halt to it but the Council is sticking its chin out and is going ahead regardless.
In the mean time parents have vowed to continue their 5 year fight.
