Whilst the Ventnor Town Council meeting was being held on Monday night, there was a meeting being held at Ventnor Middle School to discuss the future of the three primary schools in Ventnor. Representatives from Standards Not Tiers attended and below is a press release issued by them on behalf of Ventnor SOS Action Group. Ed
Lack of consultation and proposals for schools reorganisation in Ventnor have been slammed as inadequate and inappropriate by the Ventnor SOS team.
Spokesperson for the group, Chris Welsford said:
“Here in Ventnor it has been long accepted that something needs to be done about the fact that St Margaret’s and St Boniface Church of England Primary Schools are under utilised.
The proposal to amalgamate these schools together with the town’s Roman Catholic primary school, made in July, seemed to make sense given the councils decision to close Ventnor Middle School. However, what the consultation booklet did not say was that the new school is to be a voluntary aided school.
We should be asking: why not a voluntary controlled arrangement as now and why does it have to be ecumenical?
There is no advantage to the local community in joining the two faith options together. In fact by doing so we lose diversity and choice which something that should be lamented. We also end up with a school that is far bigger than we should ideally accept.”
At Monday’s consultation meeting the local authority’s officer Keith Simmonds, stated, incorrectly, that “small schools are weak schools” and that by combining the three schools together we could create a stronger school.
Mervyn Benford of the National Association for Small Schools has written to Mr Simmonds to tell him that evidence from research recently carried out shows that the opposite is true.
The group, who have taken advice on the matter, say that the consultation process leading up to the decision has been completely inadequate and does not comply with the statutory guidelines laid down by the DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families).
No attempt has been made by either diocese or the local authority to ascertain the views of the local population, all of whom are affected by any decisions relating to closure of the towns schools. The opinion of the Town Council was not sought.
Parents of pre-school children were not consulted and no account has been taken of how pre-schools would operate under the new proposals. Information has been scanty and biased.
Steve Stubbings, a parent governor at St Boniface primary school confirmed that many governors were not aware of the full details of the new school until the 8th September, the day of the parents consultation meeting.
He said that:
“the fact that the proposal is for a voluntary aided school is something that should have been discussed by governors and in the wider community. In my opinion this is not a suitable style of school for a community such as ours. It is extremely worrying and I am sure that if parents and those in the wider community understood what this means then they would share my concerns”
Currently Ventnor is served by three primary schools and one middle school. The primary schools are judged as satisfactory by Ofsted. The middle school is consistently judged as good.
By closing the middle school and amalgamating the three primary schools into one on the Middle School site, parents in the Ventnor area will have no choice over which school to send their children to, unless they elect to try and obtain a place in a school elsewhere.
The Church of England and Roman Catholic Dioceses’ and the local Authority have failed to take into account the statutory duty that they have to offer diversity and parental choice. At the moment, parents have a choice of either Roman Catholic or CE primary schools.
Many non-faith families are happy to send their children to either one of the CE primary schools as these are both voluntary controlled, which means their governing bodies, admissions policies and curriculum are broadly the same as any other community school. With a Voluntary Aided School, the governing body is appointed by the Church not the local authority.
The Church appointees make up the majority of the governors and they not the local authority employ the staff and set the admissions criteria. The Bishops determine the religious education curriculum for the school. Controversy was caused earlier in the year when the government accused many Voluntary Aided schools of forcing parents to make so called voluntary payments and disclose personal details on application, such as income and employment circumstances.
Chris Welsford said:
“Whilst we entirely accept the right of the church to run voluntary aided schools, we do not accept that they should be the sole provider of education for our town on this basis. It is vital that these plans are halted now and alternatives considered. These could involve the merger of the CE schools which would have at least 140 pupils.
That would solve the problem of surplus capacity. St Wilfrid’s RC primary has a far wider catchment area and could reasonably exist outside this arrangement. In any event the idea of a Voluntary aided school is a non-starter. As a group we keen to explore the possibility of establishing a 4-19 through school which is another alternative that has not been examined.”
