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Dear Sirs
Our Middle Schools can still be saved - if we want to!
In the two
years that have passed since the ruling Conservative County Councillors in
Suffolk voted to abolish our Middle Schools, your letters pages have played
frequent host to letters from ordinary people trying to understand why this decision was taken. A
growing theme has been the incredulity of the general public that in these times
of unprecedented financial uncertainty, the Councillors' plans have continued to be pushed
through with mule-like stubbornness and without regard
for the changing times in which we all now live.
As widely
predicted, there has been a massive run-up in the costs of the project, which has
only been made worse by the fall in disposal revenue from selling off school
sites and the poorly conceived initial budget projections. Instead of the
gleaming educational palaces that we were promised, we are heading for
Portakabins. Children will be taught in cramped classrooms in our Upper Schools,
while our Primary children will be trying to learn in mixed year-group classes
because there is no money for new buildings to accommodate the two extra year
groups. In 2007 we were told that these were scare stories - for children in the
first areas to be affected, this has become a living nightmare.
I know from
my own personal experience that the “Local Stakeholder Forum Groups” and other
“consultations” have been little more than a sham, a means to propagate the
misguided views of the Council and its Officers. School staffing levels and
management structures are being destabilised, and educational standards have fallen
significantly - again as was widely predicted two years ago. I've been contacted by many parents who, because
they are in the fortunate position of being able to afford to move their
children into private education, have done so to save them from the ongoing and
ever increasing disruption.
Clearly the
SOR is not working and will not work.
Parents
Against Change (PAC), the group representing parents in Suffolk, campaigned for
Suffolk’s Middle Schools to be retained and cherished. During 2006 and leading
up to the vote in March 2007 Suffolk County Council’s ruling Conservative Group
consistently refused to listen to the reasoned opinions of the very large number
of their constituents who were strongly against a pointless and expensive change
to our school system. In March 2007, almost all Conservative Councillors at SCC
voted in favour of scrapping our Middle Schools despite:
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