Twenty-two Shropshire primary schools were today facing the axe after county education bosses revealed their long-awaited closures hitlist.
Scroll down for the full list
A further 16 schools could be amalgamated under radical county council plans to tackle falling pupil numbers.
It is promising full consultation before any final decision and changes will not be implemented until September 2009.
But there has been a swift and angry response from staff, governors and parents at closure-threatened schools.
Furious parents staged a demonstration outside Buildwas Primary School, near Ironbridge, this afternoon and plan to lobby county councillors at next week’s crunch meeting.
PTA chairman Carla Lowndes, said: “It’s an absolute farce. We are all horrified but we are going to do quite a lot about it.
“Many of the top performing schools are smaller yet that doesn’t seem to be a consideration for the council.
“Several of the year groups are at full capacity, pupil numbers are increasing and there is even a waiting list for some ages.
“However, because our school has three classes rather than four, it must be closed.
“The council’s strategy claims to consider the needs of the children above all else, yet this type of disruption is definitely not in their best interests.”
Jan Venables, governor at Beckbury Primary School, near Shifnal, said parents, governors and staff were devastated that the 150-year-old school, the focal point of the village, was facing the axe.
A report proposing the closures and amalgamations will go before the county council cabinet next Wednesday. If members agree the report and to consult on the proposals, schools involved will go through an 11-stage public consultation process.
Ann Hartley, cabinet member for children’s services, said today: “Schools on this list are not necessarily going to be closed. The status quo is not an option. If we do nothing now then in three years 50 of our schools will be a quarter empty.
“Nobody wants to see a school close but the reorganisation must take place to address the critical drop in numbers.”
SCHOOLS FACING CLOSURE:
- Adderley
- Barrow
- Beckbury
- Buildwas
- Cheswardine
- Church Preen
- Dorrington,
- Farlow
- Hope
- Hopton Wafers
- Kinlet
- Maesbury
- Moreton Say
- Morville
- Myddle
- Nesscliffe St Andrew’s
- Onny
- Rushbury
- Selattyn
- Tilstock
- Welshampton
- Weston Lullingfields
SCHOOLS FACING AMALGAMATION:
- Ashford Carbonell and Caynham
- Lydbury North and Clunbury
- Oakland (Bayston Hill) and Longmeadow
PLANNED INFANT & JUNIOR AMALGAMATIONS
- Mount Pleasant Infants and Junior
- Grange Infants and Junior
- Meole Brace Infants and Junior
- Springfield Infants and Holy Cross Junior (all Shrewsbury)
- Oswestry Infants and Beech Grove Junior.
By Peter Johnson
24 Comments
whenst one considers the schools provisions and the proposals of Shropshire L.E.A I would consider that this time they’ve acted responsibly in cosideration of their schools closure list.Whilst these closures are clearly emotive for those concerned there are genuine economic and provisonal justifications for such action.
perhaps the question should have been - why are parents sending their children to the schools threatened with closure instead of how much money can we save. It costs to sustain rural communities and services but its worth it
councillor Hartley was voted in by the public and she and the other members of the “cabinet can be voted out, theirs is an extremely short sighted policy and takes no account of the schools achievements, its purely based on numbers not on providing education, it will lead the further demise of our rural areas, and increased transport costs and congestion,and the costs they say will be saved will be minimal once they build new class rooms and refurbish buildings
What happens with schools that are running well, have good grade results and are self funding like Buildwas.
My godchildren attend this school and having just settled the eldest one in we are being told that it will close and no help will be given to relocating the children. My youngest godchild is at their nursery and will have to be relocated as well.
Not only does this effect education on a whole but the childrens ability to bond with others and make friends who they may never see again once the school closes, a distressing and emotional upheavel which will no doubt stretch into later life with some of them.
Its not about education it is about money pure and simple.
North Shropshire must be totally livid with the list.
I can see two issues with the proposed closures. One is that however hard the authorities claim that there will be ‘consultations’ about the closures and amalgamations I fear that the decisions have already been made and no matter how many meetings and protests by the affected schools and parents there will be these will count for nothing in the long run. I hope those responsible will be able to live with the death of the communities where the schools are when they are closed.
There’s a lot of ‘considering’ going on in your first sentence Elvis. So have you considered it may not be all about money to those concerned and would you mind expanding on the provisional justifications for each action?
To the Council & LEA it is about cost cutting, pure and simple.
If anyone wants to see what the outcome of todays annoucement will be watch central news at 6.30pm were you will envisage the irrate parents of Buildwas school.
To the parents it is about child welfare and long term education.
The final factor is job losses - where will the teachers from the 22 schools go, there wont be that many jobs going, if any at all.
One big mess which the Council will have to dig themselves out of again.
Is this snot simply reverse nimbyism?
I do not understand what the bleating is all about - if schools in tin pot villages are not sustainable then they have to be amalgamated and/or closed.
If communities are so vibrant and the schools really are the centre of these villages - why do so few attend them?
Its far better off to keep busy village schools in vibrant villages going - rather than waste tax ayers money on rural backwaters.
I’m so pleased that ou village school is staying open, it makes it so much easier to walk my kids to school.
These closures have NOT been made to benefit our childrens education. It`s about money, pure and simple. It`s widely known that Shropshire receives well under the national average in education funding from the Government and this is Shropshire County Councils way of making that budget easier to manage. Instead of doing all it can to make sure we recieve enough funding in Shropshire, the County COuncil has accepted the unfairness in this and it`s our children who will suffer. The council would like my daughter to move from a thriving, oversubscribed, successful school to one with very large class sizes and awful Ofsted reports. How will this benefit my child? It`s proven now that our Government will compromise the quality of our childrens education in favour of making a tiny saving. Approx £750,00 in the first year and £1.8 million in the second. That`s a tiny drop in the ocean and will make absolutely no difference to the running of the UK`s entire education system. £1.8 million a year is neither here nor there!
i profoundly disagree with the county council’s proposals which are purely a cost cutting exercise. the council should publish how many teachers and head teachers jobs are to go under their proposals. it occurs to me that no allowance has been given for how good these 22 schools are, what their test results are. in addition to the 22 prospective closures which is probably a done deal, there are to be mergers of schools.
i for one would not like to be im the shoes of scc councillors who voted these proposals through. they must be named and vigorously opposed at the next election. they have condemned some children as young as 4 to be plucked from the bosom of their family and put on a bus to a village school some miles away. young children do not travel well by bus.
a very large black mark scc, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. parents the fight starts here.
one of the schools on the closure list is over subscribed, it has a waiting list and every pupil in year 6 last year got level 4 or above in there sats so why close a school which is doing well, concentrate on the lower achieving schools
Whilst I understand there is some requirement for action when considering the future of our schools in Shropshire, I was shocked at some of the choices of schools on the list for closure or amalgamation. I am aware that Welshampton Primary for example, is an excellent primary school which is a consistently high achiever in terms of results. The amalgamation of Longmeadow and Oakland in Bayston Hill also seems incredulous as they are both schools of a fair size. Oakland, (who will no doubt as the smaller school, be the ones forced to uproot and move) performs consistently higher in terms of results and is self sufficient with its own Nursery on site and after school club. It seems to me with suggestions like these that the LEA are not thinking about the quality of childrens education, simply where they can make the most money. This saddens me as I, and no doubt many others, hoped that the notion of high quality education would be at the forefront of these changes.
Yet again an attack by the government on rural communities, my son attends Welshampton and it’s academic record is fantastic compared with many others, comes down to an inadequate government trying to save money, long term this will kill the local community and the enviroment will suffer as those children cannot walk to the new schools proposed, so much for a government claiming education and enviroment as principals
I think it is very unfair the media are informing parents of school closures, before schools have had chance to advice them for themselves. This just creates a feeling of panic among parents and an air of insecurity. There has been far too much secrecy over these ‘consultations’. In my opinion the secrecy was not in place to save schools from parents leaving schools - more a way of preventing parents having their say when opinions count!
The staff and parents at Hope School must feel that this is a severe injustice as the school is performing well and is fully subscribed.
I am sure that the ‘Hit List’ has existed for a long time and I also agree that however much we protest about these ridiculous closures the outcome will not change.
I would be happy to pay more Council Tax to keep these schools open, for a few years at least, until the evidence of falling numbers is proven.
Once these schools have been closed we’ll never get them back.
My son goes to Oaklands Primary School in Bayston Hill, Shrewsbury. It is 9th in the League Tables, but they want it to merge with a school which is 43rd -where is the sense. My son has been diagnosed with dyslexia and the support he has had from the school has been first class - I know full well he would not got this same support from the school they wish to merge with.
Why can’t they leave things well alone. So they might not have the numbers they need at the moment, but they are supposed to be adding affordable houses to the village of Bayston Hill, which normally accommodates young families “this will increase the population of Bayston Hill surely”.
A suuportive Oaklands parent
I gather (from Midlands Today) that 18 of the schools under threat are so-called ‘faith’ schools.
Personally, I would prefer that my taxes are not spent on indoctrinating children to believe in mythical deities.
If the churches involved want to control children’s minds in this way, it seems not unreasonable that they should stand the cost.
We moved to Shropshire a couple of years ago from a neighbouring authority that undertook the same kind of reorganisation and my children, at that time, attended one of the schools on the dreaded list. However, we knew, as a parent body that we had many arguments to keep the school open and eventually the council agreed – the school was saved – and it continues to grow and be successful. My children now both attend a Shropshire school - thankfully it is not one of the ones listed as a ‘possible’ closure. I would encourage ALL parents with children in Shropshire schools to read the consultation documents carefully once published and respond. I would also encourage all parents of children in schools that are under threat to fight tooth and nail to keep their schools. Do not move your children – this is what they want you to do! If your arguments are strong enough you can ‘Save your School’!
How very selfish some of these responses are!
The simple fact is that educating children in tiny schools is enormously expensive compared to larger schools. It wastes enormous amaounts of money that would be better used elsewhere in the Shropshire educational system.
It’s quite simple: divide the education budget equally between the number of children in school in Shropshire. Multiply that amount by the number of children in a school. If a school can’t run on that amount of money then it’s time to close it and sell off the building to provide more money for children whose parents have the sense to send them to decent sized schools.
What people don’t seem to have picked up on so far is that this is all about sustainability, and the complete inability of local and central government to do anything about it! Young people are moving out of Shropshire (and other similar rural counties) in droves - there are not enough ‘good jobs’, by which i mean jobs which are sufficient, on one wage, to sustain a house and family. Houses are far too expensive for anyone local, except maybe those who have qualified as doctors or dentists, to afford. If there are no young people, the birth rate plummets, which means less schools for those of us who have chosen to stay. If the school in our village closes there is really nothing to persuade my husband and I to stay - when we have children, where on earth will they go to school?! I’m not putting a five year old on a school bus, or, worse, in a taxi. They should be able to walk to school just as we did.
I was appalled by the list of 22 primary schools put forward for possible closure. Church Preen is a vibrant village school with an excellent Head and dynamic staff. The children receive a high quality education and are secure, happy and above all an integral part of their village community. We will fight all out to preserve this for our children and Mrs Hartley and her fellow councillors should be ashamed of their actions. They should concentrate on getting fairer funding for Shropshire students from central government !
Buildwas School concerns - could the fighting group look into who provided the school, was it Buildwas Park? is there a legal covenant on the use of the building and surrounding play area which would stop its use for anything else?
Just a thought - good look to everyone fighting for its survival, I grew up in Buildwas and know the school would be sorely missed.
I have two children in Maesbury School and a third one due to start in 2010. Maesbury isn’t and won’t be what is described as unviable even in 2012 as its projected numbers are still within the 10% shortfall. They are wanting to split the 54 children in Maesbury and suggest they go to Morda and West Felton. Morda only have 24 unfilled places and West Felton is classed a full. There are also children from Weston Lullingfields which it is suggesting might also go to West Felton. Where are they going to be taught - they are suggesting building further classrooms to accomodate them. Surely it would be better off leaving the children all where they are with no extra expense in building extra classrooms.
This is all very shortsighted and we should all rally together to get the County Council to delay there decisions - get better funding for Shropshire first.
As a former pupil of Buildwas School, who still helps out at every oppurtunity, I am devestated at the idea that it may have to close!
The school has a brilliant spirit and all the children thrive in the close knit environment. Not only does the school acheive good results, it has a waiting list and people are actively seeking out the school for places. How can it not be viable to keep this school open?
Above, the so called “level-headed one” suggests not spending money on “rural backwaters”! Buildwas is not a rural backwater and yet it is still facing closure.
Further to this the same person continues to say that “I’m so pleased that our village school is staying open, it makes it so much easier to walk my kids to school.” Is this not highly hypocritical?! What about all the children from the closing schools who will now not be able to walk? If your area was considered to be one of what you call a “rural backwater” and you were no longer able to walk your child to school, would you still be saying that the school should close?
And to those of you suggesting that the people against the schools closing are being selfish, because of the cost,are the future generation not worth the money?
I beg all of you to consider how you would feel if you were put into the situation so many of these parents have now been put into!
PLEASE just put yourself in the shoes of all the people who are involved with the schools facing closure!