It looks like a fly might have just fallen into the ointment for the creation of the new Rural Primary for the South Wight that was to be formed by amalgamating the current Chillerton & Rookley, Godshill and Wroxall schools.
At the end of the last Cabinet meeting, which VB covered live, we half-heard a half-explanation of something to do with the Schools Adjudicator and the Rural schools – sounds pretty vague, right? With a bit of follow-up on our part, it appears that we might have unearthed a story.
Schools Adjudicator interested in the Island middle schools
Back to the fly/ointment … The formation of the Rural Primary was all going along quite happily until the Office of the Schools Adjudicator started asking some questions of the Isle of Wight Council (IWC), insisting that they wanted to look over the statutory proposals in relation to the Island’s middle schools.
The Schools Adjudicator considers that the whole of the reorganisation of the schools on the Island (including the closing of the middle schools) are related (the IWC does not and say that they have legal advice agreeing with them).
Quite why the Schools Adjudicator looking at the statutory proposals of the middle schools would make the council nervous to the point of wanting to back out of the Rural Primary process is open for discussion.
Why’s the Schools Adjudicator involved?
So, why is the Schools Adjudicator involved at all? Well, when a new school is created – as the Rural Primary would be – there has to be ‘competition‘ as to who runs the school. As no organisations showed interest in it, the IWC was forced to run it themselves. As the IWC will run it, they can’t be responsible (quite reasonably) for the mechanics of overseeing the setup of it, so this is passed to the Schools Adjudicator. As Essex Based, AET, bid to run the school, IWC had to do the same to ensure competition. This required the Schools Adjudicator to get involved (thanks Wendy for the clarification).
Cllr Pugh writes to schools
In a letter that VB has seen, written by Cllr David Pugh to the schools that were going to form the Rural Primary plus Chale, he makes it clear that the IWC approach has to change, stating that “it is the intention of the local authority to withdraw the statutory notices for the discontinuation of these three schools and seek a hard federation between them as an alternative way forward to ultimately achieve the outcome of one school.”
Translated – as the pesky Schools Adjudicator has been asking questions, the IWC will have to seek to reverse the decision that they made to close those schools, so instead, will have to keep them all open.
Hard Federation
If you’re not completely savvy with the term Hard Federation (and why should you be?), it means that two to five schools wanting to work closely together have a single governing body, but each retaining a
separate legal identity in respect of its budget, admissions and performance tables (and incidentally are subject to a separate inspection by Ofsted). (More details on federation).
Cllr Pugh anticipates that the cabinet decision required to take this revised approach is likely to come before the Council’s Cabinet on 9th February.
Chale – another chance
At the very least, this gives Chale another chance of being part of the Rural Primary instead of having to close as stands now.
Some we’ve spoken to think that the IWC could find itself with some serious problems reorganising the schools system on the Island, with possible court action involved.
Office of the Schools Adjudicator
Image: TheTruthAbout… under CC BY-SA 2.0
