The Isle of Wight Council has pledged to do all that it can to support parents of pupils at Chillerton and Rookley Primary School to find alternative education for their children.
The pledge comes after the school said it faced the very real prospect of reopening after the Christmas holidays without a qualified teacher in post to teach the remaining 10 pupils on-site, across the 3 year groups.
Earlier this week, the council said it had written to parents to explain that it has a legal duty to ensure children receive a suitable education.
Given the school’s present challenges, the council said it was clear this could not be provided at the Chillerton and Rookley site from January 2023, and it would therefore work closely with parents to find alternative school placements for their children. At the same time, it stressed this was not a school closure and should the situation around pupil numbers and staffing change in the future, the decision would be reviewed.
It is possible for pupils to remain on the roll of Chillerton and Rookley Primary; in such cases, the federation will make sure suitable education is provided at its Godshill Primary site. If parents choose to take up this offer, free home to school transport will be provided by the council.
For parents who wish to send their children to another school, the council’s admissions team will guide them through the process.
Councillor Debbie Andre, Cabinet member for education, said she was deeply saddened by the situation, she said:
“The school was hoping that the positive outcome of their recent Ofsted inspection, when it was judged to be a ‘Good’ school, would encourage more parents to send their children there.
Article continues below this advertisement “Despite good coverage in the media and a wider marketing campaign, sadly this has not happened; in fact numbers of pupils have further declined.
“The very small numbers mean sustaining a varied, thorough curriculum to each child is impossible, due to the lack of similar aged peers and the wide age range across the class. It also makes providing the necessary social and emotional experience for each child very challenging.
“I would like to give credit and my grateful thanks to headteacher, Mark Snow, his staff and the Board of Governors, who have acted with the utmost professionalism throughout and always put the wellbeing of the students under their care as the priority.
Governors said pupil numbers had continued to decline this term while the school’s only teacher was due to leave next month. Despite a recruitment campaign launched specifically for this post, advertising both locally and nationally across a range of media, no applications were received. Although Godshill Primary is currently fully staffed, there is no spare capacity to allow for a teacher to transfer to the Chillerton and Rookley site as that would leave a class at Godshill without a teacher.
Councillor Andre added:
“We understand that this will be a difficult time of transition for both parents, pupils and the local community.
“However, they have my absolute assurance that we will do everything possible to support them and their children so that they can continue to receive the best possible education that the Island has to offer.”
Sounds like a closure to me
£45, 000 per annum to send your offspring to Winchester. That school has been given, so far this year, £6,000,000. I think state schools in small villages are just greedy. Wanting teachers, indeed!
If parents choose to take up this offer, free home to school transport will be provided by the council.
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and this is one of the many reasons why the council keeps on saying “we need to raise council tax again” – more free transport, they already spend a million a year on taxis for the SEND kids – here is a suggestion -pay for your own kids to go to school instead of expecting the rest of us to pick up the tab
There has to come a point where it’s just not practical, and not to the children’s benefit, to keep a school open.
10 children across three widely spaced year groups, all in one classroom, sounds like something out of a Dickensian novel. All credit to the teacher though who’s taught all the different ages, with the headteacher’s help no doubt.
Children need to interact with their peers, kids the same age as themselves. It must be really difficult for Year 6 children in the school, I’m guessing there’s only 2 or 3 of them, to then go on to senior school where there’s literally hundreds of kids across the school year. Daunting wouldn’t even describe it.