Option 4 Announced
Standards-Not-Tiers Press Release - 4th March 2008
“Massive Referendum Leafleting Campaign Launched Today Coincides With the Unraveling of Council Spin on Surplus Places”
Standards-Not-Tiers have launched a campaign to coordinate a massive leafleting campaign that will inform people of the need to persuade their local councillor to agree to the new option 4 at the vote of the full Council on Wednesday 19th March.
The campaign supports the cross party opposition to the current three education consultation options that the Council have proposed as part of the schools reorganisation.
A spokesperson for Standards-Not-Tiers said: “Option 4 will give us all the right to vote in a Referendum, for either a 2-Tier or a 3-Tier system that does not involve the closure of so many schools. All the main pressure groups, political opposition and many others have agreed that if the existing three options are rejected and option 4 is chosen and it is put to a referendum then they will support the outcome. That will settle the matter once and for all.”
The first wave of leaflets will be distributed this week in wards where Councillors are in conflict with their parish or town councils over the consultation.
The leafleting campaign coincides with new evidence from the DCSF that shows that the Isle of Wight Council is incorrectly interpreting the DCSF guidance on surplus places to justify the closure of small rural schools. In a conversation with Peter Connell the programme manager for the Primary Capital Programme at the DCSF, Chris Welsford, Chairman of Standards-Not-Tiers was yesterday told that the awarding of funding is not dependent on the Isle of Wight Council reducing surplus places in anything like the inflexible way that they describe. Mr Connell said that far from being a reason to close schools, the PCP is designed to offer Local Authorities the opportunity to build new schools and refurbish existing ones. The Strategy for reducing Surplus Places is not a measure to be used in isolation and the target of 10% surplus places across the authority is not designed to force every authority to comply. Many authorities will quite understandably not be able to meet such a target particularly where they have many rural schools. In this case the guidelines regarding rural communities and the presumption against the closure of rural schools will take precedent unless we are looking at failing primary schools, which is not the case on the Isle of Wight.
For further information editors should contact
Chris Welsford, Chairman - Standards-Not-Tiers
07854 744 062 or 01983 853 600
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Will the referendum only have two options?
(May not cover the previous proposal to have 4-14 Community Learning Centres - i.e. combined Primary & Middle Schools - BAD idea IMHO)
March 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I thought that lots of people wanted option 4 to be - improve the results within the current system, keeping Year 9 in the High School and the Key Stage 3 tests in the Middle School.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I completely agree that a referendum is what is needed and would be the fairest way to please most people. I personally strongly believe in the ideals behind a middle school system which enables children to gradually ease from one way of learning to another. They gradually change from the primary approach of themed teaching in a class with one teacher to the subject compartmentalised approach of high school, where they can be taught by up to 10 teachers in 10 different classes. At an age where children are coping with physical and emotional changes, I believe a middle school, which is smaller offers more support and understanding. There is also the advantage for our 9-11 year olds to benefit from specialist teaching rooms such as science labs and music rooms. The evidenc from recent statistics shows that improvement is well under way within the present system and this should be allowed to continue. Keeping with the present structure will also be much less disruptive than reorganising schools to accommodate the two tier system.
However I do understand that many people have equally strong beliefs in a two tier system and a decision, involving the people of the island should be made to end the stress of all this uncertainty once and for all.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Will pleasing most people improve standards?
If it was a close result, would we then be arguing over the fact that our older children did not have a vote, or that the low turnout wrongly favoured one camp?
If only 3000 questionnaires were returned (from 18000 children, then their parents etc.) what turnout would be expected when you could not vote on-line, and had to physically vote on a certain day?
Personally I think it should be either ‘no structure change’ or ‘option 3 but with very few closures except where whole schools (teachers & children)move to vacated middle school sites’. The choice between those two being made be well informed teachers etc.
Hopefully the cllrs will act as their proxies.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON WE NEED THIS PROTEST MARCH MORE NOW THAN EVER