Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Schools update

Please can the schools have another thread.

Community and PDC Councillors have grave concerns about lack of funding



Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 8:22 PM
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43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Local resident has concerns that with pupil numbers dropping then DCC will lose even more money and they really should restructure the schooling in Purbeck.

6/4/10 5:35 pm
Anonymous said...

Local resident should know that DCC plan to use the money saved by closing the middle schools to pay back the interest on loans to pay for a bigger Purbeck School. There is no net saving, a much bigger long-term debt for the taxpayer, and an awful lot of disruption for our children.

DCC have never tried to save money by closing tiny village first schools. They have only ever targeted the larger first schools in Swanage and Wool.

Swanage children at St George's and St Mary's are in trouble because their schools have too many children to be turned into primaries on their current sites. DCC are creating a problem where none exists in order to prop up tiny schools like Winfrith and Lulworth, which each have an intake of 10 per year.

It would be much much cheaper to close Bovington Middle School and keep the other three going and spend money instead on improving Purbeck so that more local children go there rather than elsewhere.

6/4/10 9:24 pm
Anonymous said...

I share the grave concerns of previous posters.

There has been a lack of transparency by the officers of DCC about the motives behind various plans for school closures / those chosen to stay open. Additionally, there has been a lack of transparency over the sources of funding.

Dorset has missed out on BSF funding (the large 'chunk' of funding - £70 million - which was the prop for the re-organisation). In the first consultation period last year, the DCC officers said the plans would be 'jeopardised' without this money. They are now backtracking and seeming to rush through a decision without funding in place. This may result in 'jeopardising' the education of the children they were hoping to help, due to ill thought-out or substandard plans. It could result in a hefty bill for the tax payer, when the original motivation was saving money.

You are right to be concerned. We should be. Ask questions, write letters, try to persuade the cabinet officers to think again.

6/4/10 10:56 pm
Anonymous said...

I've gotten rather lost in all of this. Can we go back to the start.

Purbeck, and in particular, Swanage and Langton have far too many school places - or not enough children, if you prefer. The ONS predict that these numbers will continue to shrink. To run education efficiently you must not have USP (unfilled school places).

At present Purbeck will lose £100K this year and £300k next. So DCC want to fill up Purbeck by going to 11 to18. They also wanted to close a first school in Swanage to 'mop up' the other USP.

Some of the people of Swanage and Langton argued so strongly that DCC said, 'OK, we'll leave them alone, but that means cutting the intake size'.

Please correct any errors.

Thanks.

7/4/10 12:24 pm
Anonymous said...

In the news is a story about a controversy in Poole concerning money that is being taken away from improving a school in order to provide extra spaces for an increase in school numbers from September - across Poole.

Are school numbers in Swanage set to rise in September as well? This might affect some of these issues, at least in the short term.

7/4/10 4:18 pm
Anonymous said...

I don't think so, but even if they are, a one year rise when the trend is down is just a blip. And the changes aren't going to happen 'til 2012 anyway.

We must also remember that a new Gov't may change things anyway.

7/4/10 4:29 pm
Anonymous said...

This consultation has been a nightmare from the beginning.

There has been no joined up thinking.

John England said at a review board meeting that there would be a threat to the change to 2 tier, if BSF funding was not forthcoming. DCC have not been awarded this funding, but now John England is saying that they will still plough on regardless. How can the small amount of funding acheive what the public were presented with in the first consultation last year. New 21st State of the Art schools ! So if this is not what is to be now achieved the goal posts have changed.

How can all these proposed changes save money? The move to 2 tier has created many problems. There are problems with changing some first schools to primaries. Parents are concerned that the facilities and opportunities for their 10 - 11 year olds,will in no way be as good as they are in the middle schools. Parents are also concerned about their young children getting 'lost in the system' at a much larger comprehensive school.

Keep the 3 tier, it suits us in Purbeck.

7/4/10 10:12 pm
Anonymous said...

Local Pupil numbers dropping. This statement could be incorrect. Today it has been said that DCC have been using old data. Poole has been in the news! Poole schools were closed by the council but there has been a recent increase in child birth,so new schools will need to be built.

7/4/10 10:40 pm
Anonymous said...

Swanage has plenty of pupils and numbers are set to rise just from births. And there are certainly a lot of people moving to Swanage to send their children to school here - the so called 'chicken run'. These figures skew the birth rate data that DCC rely on. DCC say people can't move here because there aren't jobs or affordable houses.

Parents are escaping the madness of oversubscribed schools and strict catchment areas or faith criteria that you get elsewhere. But this is exactly what DCC are going to impose on us.

They are making St Mark's, the least popular school, bigger and are ignoring the fact most parents won't want to send their children there. To fill it they are working the system to say that St George's and St Mary's have to shrink.

Soon St Mary's and St George's will have to start denying access based on faith. St Mary's, for instance, will take Catholic children from anywhere over local children whose parents don't go to church. They have no choice as it's in their rules.

8/4/10 10:15 am
Anonymous said...

I'm the 'please correct any errors' postee, and I think that some of the fog may be lifting, so thanks for that.

If I'm right then DCC have agreed to keep all the first schools open, and they are moving SM (St Marks) to the MS (middle school) site. As I understand it funding is not simply based on school numbers, it's also based on square metres. So a site of X square metres should Y number of pupils.

The MS is bigger than SM, so the Gov't funding system means that SM will have to take more pupils, or, as with Purbeck, lose money.

I've heard that both St Georges and St Mary's are somewhat decrepit and cramped, I've also heard that Swanage First (Still mount Scar to me!) can still expand.


Please correct any errors.

Thanks.

8/4/10 3:07 pm
Anonymous said...

And I heard that St Marys are currently undersubscribed in their Reception Class by the same number that DCC are proposing to axe.

9/4/10 9:29 am
Anonymous said...

inSo why does it say on the front page of the advertiser that St Mary's is over-subscribed? Perhaps someone could confirm whether there are in fact 20 pupils in their Reception Class this year. If indeed their pupil numbers are dwindling (as they are in almost every school in the area)surely to reduce 4 places will not be too much of a problem? Since the school seems to be managing with small classes at the moment, would officially reducing capacity not be a beneficial move? I thought small schools were entitled to extra funding pockets.

9/4/10 1:29 pm
Anonymous said...

'So why does it say on the front page of the advertiser that St Mary's is over-subscribed?'

Numbers are often presented in different ways to suit an argument or point. In truth, no school knows for sure its numbers or distribution of pupils' ages until the start of the autumn term, as children may move or leave Swanage between April and September, a very long period of time indeed. Yet staffing must be sorted in advance for contractual purposes, usually by a term. I suspect St. Mary's is trying to avoid a cut that might - or might not - be deleterious.

9/4/10 2:06 pm
Anonymous said...

The fog's becoming a mist!

My rattling on about pupils per square metre is part of the equation but not all.

I asked a friend who's in education about this and they responded that this is true(ish) but as with St Marks moving to the hugely bigger Middle School, DCC'll either rebuild as a smaller school or not use/knock down bits of it and modernise the bit they do use.

It also seems that DCC have used this pupli per square metre thingy to say that certain schools are under number, but not in other cases, which is naughty.

St Marys intake is definately rumoured to be 20 next year, when it should be 24 - I've also heard that they have much smaller class sizes than Mount Scar (Swanage 1st - for you whippersnappers!) - oversubscribed?

Please correct any errors.

Thanks.

9/4/10 5:23 pm
Anonymous said...

"....this pupli per square..."

That's new gov't speak for our darling little learners, OK.

So please don't correct gramatikal erros, but feel free to correct anyothers.!

Thanks.

9/4/10 5:27 pm
Anonymous said...

'I've heard that both St Georges and St Mary's are somewhat decrepit and cramped, I've also heard that Swanage First (Still mount Scar to me!) can still expand.'

Our house is a bit decrepit and cramped, but its home, its warm and we love it. The education of children cannot be window dressed, its a bit like building a happy family, it takes alot of hard work. If its not broke, don't fix it, as the saying goes.

9/4/10 10:02 pm
Anonymous said...

Well, according to DCC, who make the decisions, it is broke.

But then of course they have to look at the whole of Dorset and provide what they consider to be the best service for the whole County.

That doesn't make them right, but they have the power, work with them, not against them.

10/4/10 8:49 am
Anonymous said...

I post this with some trepidation, but......

With the 'controversy' surrounding the RC church (you have to be a hermit to not know about it), is it possible there may be a further reduction in numbers at St. Mary's RC School, if parents choose not to educate their children there, at least in the short term?

I have seen this concern being raised in other parts of the country, and in RC schools abroad.

Just a thought, and not meant to harm. I am very, very sure the school is as safe as any school. But the truth of the matter is that we live in strange times.

Strange times indeed.

10/4/10 3:20 pm
Anonymous said...

Well, you certainly seem to be living in strange times.

There has always been abuse of kids by: Teachers, Social Workers, Priests, Uncles, Aunts, Siblings, Parents, and probably others.

One thing that you can be damn sure of tho' is that there is far less in the Gov't funded/monitored institutions than there was.

10/4/10 3:39 pm
Anonymous said...

That doesn't make them right, but they have the power, work with them, not against them.

Work with them !! Schools and the Purbeck Community have tried to work with them, and they don't listen. Anyway, I wonder why 7 people and a few officers do have so much power. I thought councillors were supposed to represent their constuents. Oh, but I suppose the Cabinet members, don't live anywhere near Purbeck, so perhaps they can be excused/forgiven for not knowing anything about our rural villages and market and seaside towns. How would they know what is best for us.
If we don't work against them, we may find, its too late and that they have taken the last amenity away for our little island.

10/4/10 8:35 pm
Anonymous said...

'There has always been abuse of kids by: Teachers, Social Workers, Priests, Uncles, Aunts, Siblings, Parents, and probably others.'


Agreed, and so sadly true. The difference is that you quote the sins of individuals; I am referring the alleged errors of an institution which claims to represented the highest Moral Authority. Could this not affect pupil numbers? It has elsewhere.

I agree that there are robust protection procedures in effect.

10/4/10 9:29 pm
Anonymous said...

I'm probably going to regret this, but …..

Work with them !! Schools and the Purbeck Community have tried to work with them, and they don't listen.

Riiiiiiight, DCC came along saying that we're going 2 tier and a 1st school has to close. After much – noooooo, don't close any of our first schools, and let us have our own secondary – DCC said – OK keep your first schools and we've listened to your arguments about Swanage having it's own 2ndary, but NO.

As I understand it Swanage has less kiddies than it has school places so what happens ….....? DCC are using the central gov't formula, and if they didn't then I guess they'd get a pretty big slap on the wrists. We also have to remember that Dorset is pretty appallingly funded and so HAS to abide by whatever strictures come down from above, or our kids education will be even more appallingly funded.

Anyway, I wonder why 7 people and a few officers do have so much power. I thought councillors were supposed to represent their constuents. SIC

Because they are employed by the democratically elected council, who set them certain tasks that they have to fulfill, or lose their jobs.

Oh, but I suppose the Cabinet members, don't live anywhere near Purbeck, so perhaps they can be excused/forgiven for not knowing anything about our rural villages and market and seaside towns. How would they know what is best for us.

Well, if you really believe that, then whenever Purbeck councillors are involved then Purbeck will benefit hugely! Can't say I've seen that happening …...

If we don't work against them, we may find, its too late and that they have taken the last amenity away for our little island.

They've agreed not to close any 1st schools, so they have worked with you, they've listened and responded.

One last, more general comment about that last sentence – hyperbole!

I'd say that if you were working with them then the 2 secular schools would be merging, either on the mount scar site, or in a totally new school on the middle school site.

And “... our little island.”, oh please, 1 it's the erroneously named Isle of Purbeck, and in this case Purbeck is PDC, not the real Purbeck. 2 we all have to live with each other and share what few resources there are, stop believing that the world ends at Wareham bridge!

13/4/10 5:35 pm
Anonymous said...

Just wonderin'.

I use the ! to denote humour (or at least an attempt .....). I wonder if manual smilies work .....

:)

:(

13/4/10 5:38 pm
Anonymous said...

Hey, let's all go back to the '80's!!

That's 1980 ......, not 1880 :)

13/4/10 5:41 pm
Anonymous said...

I can only assume that the previous poster is encouraging responses. Perhaps he/she could answer these concerns.

What's the point of a consultation when there was no intention keeping the 3 tier? 70% of the Purbeck replied in support of keeping the 3 tier. But still the review team steamed ahead with 2 tier.

And what's the point of a consultation, before there was funding in place, now only to find that its failed for a second time. Little funding ?? where is it coming from (exactly) please define.

It was recorded in a previous board meeting that if BSF funding was not forthcoming then the reorganisation could be at risk. The BSF funding would have been 70-80 million.

Why are the conservative's and their policies supporting the concerns of the community of Purbeck re this review whilst at the same time a conservative run council (Cabinet) is against its own policies re 'human scale' schools serving local communities.

Rewind and start again. Its all a mess.

14/4/10 7:06 pm
Anonymous said...

70% of the Purbeck replied in support of keeping the 3 tier

It'd be interesting to know how you've managed to twist the figures that way? There' s been a little more subtle interpretation of the responses, and as I've already posted them, I can't be bothered to find them again, but 70% of Purbeck schools said ….... , sorry nope.

The funding issue is perplexing, but the Purbeck school stands to lose £100K this year and £300K next year – now, that's badly put, but that's the way that DCC put it. What it actually means is that the Purbeck school would get £100K more this year and £300K next year if they were full.

That's DCC's worry, it always has been, and so far as I can see, always will be.

How they're going to raise the necessary money, I have no idea, but I don't think that politicising this is right. DCC have shown that they'll spend on education, just not yet in Purbeck. They'd hoped to get BSF money to – from their point of view – improve Purbeck. Seems to me like they still want to improve Purbeck ….... from their point of view.

I do, however, agree that it's a mess.

14/4/10 7:55 pm
Anonymous said...

Seems to this grumpy old codger that the problem is you yungens didn't do your bit 10 or so years ago like me an my missus did when we brought our brood of 8 kiddies into this world right ere in Swanage.

Get going lads and do yer job!!! I didn't need no reminding!

27/4/10 8:54 am
Anonymous said...

If we end up with a hung Parliament, then few, if any, new initiatives for education will happen for quite some time.

Simply put, there is not the money to carry excess school places. Swanage has too many primary/junior schools to be funded from the public purse.

An earlier post expressed dismay that opinions expressed at DCC 'consultations' did not produce binding results. As far as I am aware, consultation meetings are not bound to make any decision based on views expressed at the meeting. DCC can do what it jolly wells feels is best - in this case it has a mandate to use the public purse effectively. We can't have it all, folks. The public's concerns will be taken on board, but that is as far as it goes.

Stop thinking an action group has any real clout, except what you exercise on May 6th. If you bother to vote, that is.

27/4/10 5:58 pm
Anonymous said...

Simply put, there is not the money to carry excess school places. Swanage has too many primary/junior schools to be funded from the public purse.


NO

When DCC are finished we will have the same number of school places (three of our four schools are full) and they are building St Mark's with spare capacity of 15 per year - or 105 places. This is about 10 more than we have now. All they are doing is forcing pupils from St George's and St Mary's to St Mark's. Apparently surplus is OK as long as DCC are creating it.

The savings they are making will come from closing the middle schools - this is about £200,000 per year - not the £450,000 previous spouted. It will cost far more than that to bus everyone from here to Wareham at 11, let alone all the rebuilding work. But it's a different budget, remember.

The public purse doesn't come in to it. It's just which department gets what share of the spoils.

28/4/10 9:35 am
Anonymous said...

What will happen to teachers and staff at SMS when it closes? Will they be reassigned to the new combined junior school that will move in? Be let go? Reassigned elsewhere in the county (if they are prepared to move or commute)?

Is a lot of the pressure to retain the status quo coming from parents, or is it the teachers who will be affected, or both? I haven't seen a comment from the teachers yet, at least one that admits he or she is a teacher.

28/4/10 4:52 pm
Anonymous said...

No sense in arguing with you. The middle school will go, and the younger schools will be shuffled around. Stamp your feet, but I reckon the county council decided this a long time ago. Their 'consultation' was a sop to being PC about it.

And the public purse absolutely comes into this. The whole point is about saving money and bowing before the altar of two tier education.

28/4/10 4:58 pm
Anonymous said...

It's very patronising to say 'stamp your feet'. Campaigners have actually been doing rather more than that - not just sitting on their arses and moaning on here.

Of course the plan was decided before consultation began - that's why they only had one plan in the document. But many councillors are now convinced there is no money to do this properly and the process should be stopped. It is only the cabinet who have to be persuaded to change their minds.

They have just agreed to postpone their decision until after the election and for it to be discussed at both the Community Overview Committee and full council. They may still press ahead but we can make a difference by asking councillors across Dorset to take a serious look at the finances of what they are proposing. The Cabinet are facing a revolt from unhappy councillors.

There is a meeting at the Town Hall tonight at 8pm

29/4/10 5:44 pm
Anonymous said...

The Town Council has absolutely no jurisdiction over this matter.

I would rather be accused of being patronising, rather than being rude and offensive as you were in the first paragraph of your post. I have done more for education in my life than you. A life time's worth. And I understand school funding better than you.

You may be right about one thing - the whole project may be put on hold. But that won't stop it. You need to look at the long term. I think we share one thing - to delay this will be a good thing, to give more time for a sane, sensible and civilised conversation to emerge.

Can I assume that the notion of a secondary school for Swanage is dead? I have heard nothing more about it.

29/4/10 6:30 pm
Anonymous said...

There are some interesting comments with regard to education on the Lib Dem thread.

29/4/10 7:20 pm
Anonymous said...

I do wish that our councillors would have the same sense as the Tory leader of Kent County Council who recognises that setting up a new secondary school will place the other local schools in jeopardy. I wonder how the Conservative Government is expecting to pay for parent promoted schools whilst making sweeping cuts in public spending. It simply does not make sense.

29/4/10 7:33 pm
Anonymous said...

Who's talking about the Town Council?

Our County Councillors have called the consultation, Cabinet and officers to account and so the process so far will be audited.

The district council, as a major stakeholder, have questioned the consultation and asked for it to be done again. It flies in the face of their sustainability plans.

Both of these things will make the Schools Adjudicator look very carefully at the proposal if it gets that far.

DCC's Community Overview Committee were overruled last time over the issue of consulting on secondary education.

Now we know BSF funding is not available. Does anyone think it should go ahead unless money is in place? DCC have overspent massively in other areas where they have changed to two tier, yet they think they can do it here for a few million.

Yesterday, Shadow School Secretary Nick Gibbs and Richard Drax told local people at the British Legion club that they would have a word with Cabinet - they see no sense in going forward with a reorganisation. The Tories plan to finance smaller schools - 600 places would be normal. No school would be forced to offer Diplomas. There will be a more flexible curriculum. All these remove the need for supersize schools.

Their first step if they get in, is to scrap the surplus place rules. Nick Gibb said it is short-sighted, as you can turn off radiators and shut rooms in schools and then reopen them as populations change.

If this is the case, then the entire premise for the reorganisation no longer applies. No money, no need to reduce places - no need to change.

30/4/10 12:06 pm
Anonymous said...

hmmm, very interesting.

30/4/10 5:19 pm
Anonymous said...

Interesting indeed.... when it was a cabinet entirely composed of Tories that ignored the caution of the Community Overview Commity and voted to press ahead with the reorganisation to two tier. When it was this same Tory cabinet that highly praised the work of the DCC Officers forcing this reorganisation in the face of very substantial local opposition. The same Tory cabinet that said a single site large Purbeck School was the only way forward.

Me thinks the right hand doesn't know what the other right hand is doing!
Let's remember which political party is making the decisions at County before believing the rhetoric!

1/5/10 12:15 am
Anonymous said...

It's not right hand and left hand - the arses on the Cabinet don't know what the head is doing.

3/5/10 12:11 pm
Anonymous said...

What a situation, surely 7 members of the cabinet cannot make a decision on their own. If the cabinet is purely taking the advice of the DCC project team how do they know they are receiving a balanced view. How can this be ?
During the lead up to the election the Conservatives are saying that they intend to hand the power back to the people,and local councils then how come, that DCC is a Conservative Cabinet/run council but is not listening to the people.
Please, please will someone with more brain than I, explain all of this.
The Conservatives say there is no funding and there will be cutbacks, that is something that we are all aware of the 'fact' that there is no funding, so why is the Conservative DCC council, ploughing on with this? Is there anyone out there that can ask some deep searching questions.
In the original consultation document it said that the reorganisation to 2 tier would cost between 30,000 and 75,000, now it seems that the project team are happy to do it with 2,000000. Now the team are saying that they didn't need the BSF funding of 80,000000 to do this and only a small percentage would have been used for the Purbeck Schools' reorganisation, so where was the (up to) 75,000000 going to come from that they said was needed.

You confused, me too.

We all need to ask deep searching questions of DCC, not just a few that can be bothered.

3/5/10 8:08 pm
Anonymous said...

30,000 and 75,000,

Whoopps, more naughts need adding!

30 - 75 million !

6/5/10 5:18 pm
Anonymous said...

Re 12.06pm - I remember over a year ago on South Today Jim Knight, who was the schools minister then i think, saying that the council could use more imaginative methods to reduce surplus places.It seems everyone except the muppets at DCC know that. They blamed the government for making them sort out surplus places, but I've seen stuff on the DCSF website that shows you how to sort out the problem without closing schools.

6/5/10 7:41 pm
Anonymous said...

It's very patronising to say 'stamp your feet'. Campaigners have actually been doing rather more than that - not just sitting on their arses and moaning on here.

Of course the plan was decided before consultation began - that's why they only had one plan in the document. But many councillors are now convinced there is no money to do this properly and the process should be stopped. It is only the cabinet who have to be persuaded to change their minds.

They have just agreed to postpone their decision until after the election and for it to be discussed at both the Community Overview Committee and full council. They may still press ahead but we can make a difference by asking councillors across Dorset to take a serious look at the finances of what they are proposing. The Cabinet are facing a revolt from unhappy councillors.

Agree with poster above, if Swanage people feel unhappy about the change to 2 tier in the light of very little funding, then we should be asking deep searching questions. PDC councillors are also very unhappy about this consultation, it was never a consultation, there was only ever one option on the table. Flawed, flawed, flawed. It's all coming out into the open now.

7/5/10 8:55 pm

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