TODAY, Thursday, we will all learn where our newly elected cabinet stand on the issue of parental choice in schools.
A seemingly innocuous agenda item, proposing a county-wide review of primary school education provision, hides a proposal to further delay a decision on building a new school at Staunton-on-Wye. The land has been purchased, the money is in place (all of it coming either from central government or a local charitable trust) and yet, still, council officers are proposing delaying a decision to press-ahead with building the school. Why?
At heart this is a question of parental choice versus decision by central planners. Council officers are concerned about falling numbers of school-age pupils and would like to dictate centrally which primary schools survive and which go to the wall. And yet all the main political parties have signed up to the idea that it is parental choice which should determine which schools prosper. It is only at these moments of real decision-making that parental choice has a real effect on the future of our schools.
Staunton-on-Wye is a thriving and popular school which badly needs new premises. If the cabinet votes to delay a decision on its future yet again it will be voting in favour of the bad old days of centralised decision-making and be giving a kick in the teeth to the pupils, teachers and parents of this excellent school.
By all means conduct a county-wide review of education, but make sure that a popular and excellent school which already has the land and money for a new building can move ahead without any further delay.
Bill Sewell, parent with children at Staunton-on-Wye primary school and pre-school
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