It looks likely that the axe will fall on a number of Isle of Wight schools next year as the Council’s education lead confirms the local authority is pushing ahead with plans to reduce surplus places, with closures expected by September 2025. It has been confirmed in a statement released by Councillor Jonathan Bacon, Cabinet member for children’s services, that any schools facing potential closure will be identified by Easter, with a view to closing the gates for good by Autumn the following year – in reality, the end of the academic year in July 2025. The last time the Council touted the idea of closing schools, back in June of this year, it came under a lot of criticism, as teachers, parents and pupils found out through the media. This has led to a different approach being adopted this time round but the outcome looks likely to be the same – the closure of much-loved schools on the Isle of Wight. However, Cllr Bacon says that all schools will be on an equal footing; it isn’t given that the schools identified last time round – St Mary’s Primary School, Cowes Primary School and Wroxall Primary School – will automatically face the chop again. Equally, the process could identify these schools as the most suitable establishments to close. Cllr Bacon has said:
“We have to address the issue of excess places in the entire school estate on the Isle of Wight. The issue affects the whole Island and, as I said in Full Council last week, is directly related to the key concern of raising educational standards on the Island. “In the new year, once our new senior education management team is in place, we will be going out to the public to provide information on the issues that must be addressed and, most importantly, to listen to parents, staff and children to have a transparent and open discussion about how to go forward. The whole school estate will be under consideration when this discussion about place planning commences again, as it must. It will be a fresh process and all schools will go into it on an equal footing. This means that neither the three schools originally mentioned in the process earlier this year, nor indeed any school, is or will be identified at this stage as being proposed for closure. “With the input of our new management team I hope that we will look at things as widely as possible and, in fact, create a rolling plan to address the needs of our local school system going forward. The key focus of this and indeed all school related activity will be to improve stability, sustainability and standards in our education system”.
The Council’s aim is to reach a fully informed view as to what steps need to be taken and to do so by Easter next year. Then, formal statutory processes will begin in Summer 2024 with a view to closures taking effect from Autumn 2025.
Stop spending £13+ million on cycle paths then morons, put the money into schools and stop lying to us about funding. Bacon is feeding us with a load of porkies as usual. Idiot, him and jerk Jordan will continue to ruin the island.
But the £13+ million for cycle paths have come from a grant especially for that purpose. The Council either spend it on cycle paths or they don’t get the money at all! Ergo it is not available for them to spend on schools. So who is feeding us a load of bull as usual? Stark Reminder, the sad thing is they will probably get to vote in the next election. Clueless!
Then don’t take the money and lobby for something that will actually help kids, not stupid cycle paths. Useless council, useless Seely, still he does “welcome” the cycle path, and obviously “welcomes” schools closing from his silence on this. The tory mantra, “Don’t educate the masses as they will want a decent wage and standard of living” Sunak the biggest tory liar to date. Hunt the man who destroyed the NHS system, and Cameron the other idiot, what a lovely government we have, NOT!!
Doubling down on the clueless, I see.
Don’t take any money! So you’d cut off your nose just to spite your face.
Your great idea is to take nothing rather than something, Just so sad you might be able to vote in elections. I’ve always thought there should be a simple test to prove your competence before being able to vote and you are the classic example!
I guess your a tory then, shame on you. hahahaha.
Wroxall primary school has just had a lot of money spent on it !!!!
So why if you are thinking of closing it would you waste money ???????
If closed what on earth will happen to the building?????
Unbelievable……….
Obviously, St Mary’s Primary School, Cowes Primary School, and Wroxall Primary School will all close and the council should stop messing people about. These schools have too many empty spaces and are wasting a fortune. They should have closed already but the council are content to waste money for another year.
Yeah close the schools, but still pay out to send the kids in expensive taxis to other schools further away. This council are just clueless and love to waste tax payers money on “special” transport.
Oh you can bet Bacon and Jordan have a plethora of Brown envelopes in their sticky hands wanting the site! That’s how our Council operates not for the electorate but for how much developers will pay them
Spot on , bet they won’t declare brown envelopes for tax purposes???????
Or even to pay for their co-k ups (Mr B ) for the fiasco / joke of the iow the Floating bridge!!!!!!
Waste of space the lot of them …..
Most likely to house migrants
More like be converted into a swanky home for a well-off retiree.
And as they will almost certainly be coming from the mainland then I guess they do qualify as a migrant.
Has quality of education improved since they closed all the middle schools? Doubtful.
Just a money saving exercise to close small schools.
Island schools always have been the worst performing schools in the UK. Pretty obvious that will always be the case.
So schools will be closed at some future date to save money – by then hundreds of houses will have been built and more school places will be needed. Then we will have to build new schools at enormous expense. How is that more cost effective than keeping current stock open even if the classes aren’t bursting at the seams?
The pensioner migrants to the island will not be producing children to fill these empty schools. The birth rate is in freefall on the island and that will continue. There will soon be one school in the middle of the island.
Grumpy gran, yes and now we are seeing more and more ethnics here, soon most every womb will be filled, often, willing to be so or not, and massive amounts of mixed race children will get an expensive education at our expense.
Sadly this Island is ruined now, as is Britain, and it will grow rapidly worse as each decade passes.
Not what people wish to hear, or even believe, but watch and see.
Time and the naive will judge me, but the former will be accurate.
To be fair to all sides it would make my journey to work a lot quicker if Wroxall school closed down.
I think this is inappropriate because you can’t just send roughly 150 children in other schools if they have no spaces after closure plus the childcare costs more than their everyday shopping, doesn’t sits with some people on this situation as we are getting more houses to built “apparently”. Private tutoring for homeschool are super expensive…(depends on how many hours the parents can afford).
I have no words but the council doesn’t think twice before making decision or rebranding the schools other than the houses/paths, not all children travels that far to get to school and not all parents afford petrols.