|
Ref: 364/07 3 October 2007
Heads And Governors Slam Threats To Cheshire’s Four Star Education
Cheshire’s headteachers and school governors have come out strongly against Government proposals to scrap one of England’s top Children’s Services authorities.
Cheshire’s Schools Forum believes that splitting Cheshire into two authorities as part of Local Government Re-organisation would seriously damage an ‘excellent’ service benefiting over 100,000 children.
The Forum - representing over 330 secondary, primary and special school heads and 4,000 governors – supports the single unitary option.
And now leaders have voiced their fears in a letter to Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.
Concerns range from school budget and funding uncertainties, to the loss of specialist services benefiting the county’s most vulnerable children and serious delays to major projects.
Among the latter is the establishment of a Cheshire Children’s Trust - scheduled for April 2008 - which will combine the expertise and experience of all organisations working together for children at risk.
Other projects at risk of delay include completion of the Children’s Centre roll out across Cheshire; Transforming Learning Communities - the county’s blue-print to re-vitalise education - Winsford’s innovative £30m, all-through school and two Academies scheduled for Ellesmere Port.
“Every parent in Cheshire should be extremely concerned about the possible break-up of one of the best Children’s Services authorities in the country “ said Chris Chapman, Chair of the Cheshire Schools Forum and a member of the Cheshire Association of Governing Bodies.
“Two authorities will be more expensive to run because of the duplication of senior management involved and smaller councils are unlikely to afford specialists teams working with the most vulnerable youngsters.“
And he added: “Cheshire and its children could take years to recover from the disruption and the lost ground in crucial partnership work driving forward Change for Children required by the Government as part of the Every Child Matters agenda.”
Val Cotterill, Chair of the Cheshire Association of Primary Headteachers continued “The Prime Minister has made no secret of the importance of education in the Government’s agenda. Why risk unnecessary and unacceptable disruption to an authority which provides excellent services for its children?
“Cheshire’s quality of education is nationally renowned, has been so for several years… and is continuing to improve with year-on-year results continually bettering the national average. This is despite the fact that we receive one of the lowest levels of Government funding per pupil.”
The County is required to provide school with three-year budgets but it will be impossible to budget for schools beyond the first year (2008-09) because the two new authorities will not know the amount they will receive for their Dedicated Schools Grant.
“Consequently, schools will find financial planning on development projects and staffing levels extremely difficult - if not impossible - without knowing how much money they have to spend.” said Andy Robinson, Chair of the Cheshire Association of Secondary Headteachers.
“We believe it will even be a possibility that Dedicated School Grants would differ on each side of the East-West border with schools in one authority getting more funding per pupil than the other.”
Other major concerns are centred around 10 out of 14 special schools in Cheshire being located in the West ; adequate funding to the county’s areas of social deprivation; the break-up of the county’s nationally recognised Critical Incident Response Team and the uncertain future of the authority’s residential centres, including the much loved Conwy Outdoor Centre, in Anglesey.
Added Mr. Robinson: There is already too much change for schools and councils to manage without the further upheaval and disruption that creating two councils would bring. Adding more change at this time will be damaging to effective change for our children
“All in all, we strongly believe that the risk involved in the split-Cheshire proposal is certainly a risk too far for Cheshire children and their parents.”
Ends
Note To Editors: for further Information please contact Ian Callister, Media Relations Manager, on 01244 972216. |
|