School desks:

Compulsory redundancies confirmed at Colleges and VI Form campus

OnTheWight was contacted by a pupil at the VI Form last night, who explained that details of staff redundancies at the Island Innovation Trust (IIT) run campuses was outlined in a meeting held at Carisbrooke High School.

Jake Elsley told OnTheWight,

“This caused an uproar amongst my fellow students.”

As reported at the beginning of January, voluntary redundancy was offered to staff across the three campuses.

Compulsory redundancies
The Governing Body of Carisbrooke College and Medina College has this afternoon confirmed they have “entered into a period of consultation with regard to a number of proposed compulsory redundancies at both colleges, including the VI Form Campus in Newport”.

Chair of Governors, Terence Hart said,

“Our overriding aim is to create a sound financial platform for continuing improvement in the quality of teaching and learning across both Colleges and the VI Form and build on the good progress that we have made so far.

“Whilst our recent voluntary redundancy scheme has had a significant impact, further identified savings over the next two financial years still need to be achieved. As such, we will continue to work closely with staff and their professional associations throughout a period of informed collective consultation so that we can consider ways to minimise the number of redundancies needed.

“Our compulsory redundancy proposals affect staff in the areas of support, premises and cleaning (33 Posts), with minimal impact on teaching staff (2 Posts). We are working hard to ensure that staff are helped and supported through this difficult time and are continually looking at ways to reduce the overall impact on posts before the end of the consultation period.”

Jake has set up an online petition urging pupils and their parents to show their opposition to the planned redundancies. At time of publishing it had attracted 185 signatures.

Image: Nelson De Witt under CC BY 2.0