Many thanks to Island parent, Wendy Varley for sending in her response to Steve Beynon’s letter in The Independent this week. Ed
The appearance in yesterday’s The Independent of a letter from Steve Beynon, Director of Children’s Services at Isle of Wight Council, taking issue with the article they ran on 13 March about the schools reorganisation begs the question: if he was unhappy with the article, why did he wait a month to raise it with them?
Back in March Beynon told teachers that the council had complained to the The Independent, but as The Isle of Wight County Press reported last week (11 April, p3):
….
The paper said on Wednesday it had received no complaint regarding the story. A spokesman for the IW Council admitted a letter rebutting several points in the Independent article was drafted but not sent because of an administrative error.
That’s quite some administrative error that it was only spotted a month after The Independent’s article appeared, when the CP happened to enquire. So now that Beynon has finally sent his letter to The Independent, what does he say?
Education letters: Fight on Wight over closures
Thursday, 17 April 2008ISLE OF WIGHT REPLIES
I would like to take issue with your article “Save Our Schools: Fight on Wight Over Closures” (EDUCATION & CAREERS, 13 March). You say that money is a major reason for our plans to reorganise education on the Isle of Wight. In fact, the reorganisation is solely about improving results. While the council does want a fairer distribution of resources between schools, we have made it clear that all money released during this process will be used to improve services for the children.Our proposals for closing almost half of the 46 primary schools are very much a first draft. There is room for manoeuvre and the number of eventual closures may very well be nowhere near as drastic.
The assertion that thousands of people have attended rallies outside council buildings in Newport is false. To date, there has only been one rally in Newport and police estimates were a maximum of 1,200 people in attendance.
The comments I made that appear to be critical of the leadership of heads were made in response to a question about why the issue of surplus places and very small schools had not been addressed by the education authority before. I was describing how we had arrived at our current position and was not at any point critical of schools or heads.
It is incorrect to say that many teachers “summoned” to a meeting to hear the potential fate of schools wept openly. Besides the emotive use of the word “summoned” (this was the second meeting to which head teachers were invited and they were already aware of the proposals), no heads “wept” openly, to our knowledge.
In fact, the majority of heads support reorganisation and many are critical that the step has not been taken sooner.
Furthermore, the council’s press office has not been “put in the unusual position of highlighting deficiencies in the island’s education system to justify the need for change.” Council policy is that school reorganisation is necessary to improve unacceptable standards.
The press officer’s comments were to give the writer, Steve McCormack, an overall picture of the options and the reasons for them. They were given in response to a question about whether the reorganisation was to tackle surplus places and save money – and they were not “unprompted”.
Steve Beynon, Director of children’s services, Isle of Wight
We expect the journalist will have a right of reply, but for the thousands (it’s a number between “hundreds” and “tens of thousands”) of people who attended the three (yes, three: 25 January, 26 January, 15 March) rallies in Newport it will be a surprise to hear Beynon claim that there was only one.
Those who heard Steve Beynon, David Pugh and Alan Wells speak at the public consultation meetings and on Isle of Wight Radio might have got the impression that the reorganisation is not solely about improving results.
And it would be interesting to know what headteachers think about Beynon’s recollection of the January meeting when the list of proposed school closures was distributed.
What do you think?
Read the original article from The Independent
