Campaigners against the closure of Brading CE Primary School hosted a community meeting yesterday evening at the town’s St Mary’s Church.
The audience heard arguments for saving the school from Vix Lowthion, a teacher at the Isle of Wight Education Federation and the Green Party’s education and lifelong learning spokesperson, Kate Benson, a trustee of Brading Community Partnership, Nick Binfield, parent of two children at the school and a teacher statement.
Kate spoke in a “personal capacity” and said closing the school would “rip the heart” out of Brading.
The concerns she raised included children having to walk “1.8 miles” along a “busy road” from Brading to the Bay area following a possible closure.
“Those children are going to arrive hungry, wet and cold – they will not be warm, fed and dry – and then they’ll be expected to learn”, Kate added.
Vix chaired the meeting and drew comparisons between the possible closure of Brading CE Primary School and a “similar situation” in the west of the Island around “five or six” years ago.
She had been a parish councillor in Freshwater when the Isle of Wight Council “opened a consulation” to “close” All Saints CE Primary School in the village.
Vix said:
“We had a campaign which involved members of the community, parents, children, governors – but in particular it also involved local business owners who let us meet in their cafes, in their businesses because they knew if the school in Freshwater shut it would be devastating for their businesses in the same way we have shops and busineses in Brading which are visited every day on school runs.”
In a rousing speech criticising the council documentation and reasoning behind possible school closures, Nick commented it had “deliberately selected statistics” which have “long since been disregarded” at “secondary level” in order to prove its case for closing schools they wanted to “shut at the outset”.
He also commented that, having met with Brading councillor and the council’s education cabinet member Jonathan Bacon recently, he believed
Bacon was “very clearly divided” about the closure of Brading CE Primary School due to his ties to the area.
Last Thursday, Bacon and director of children’s services Ashley Whittaker’s recommendation to start a consultation on the closure of six Island primary schools was passed by the council’s cabinet.
Nick said:
“Brading’s a well-run school, financially, it’s got £300,000 in excess in surplus in the bank.
“Now I ask you this, are you happy that your children are going to be placed into Sandown school, where they’re reducing the numbers of pupils that can attend there to 45 per year?
“So the Isle of Wight Council are either saying your child has got to be taught in a class of 45, or if we need to be taught in two classes of 30, with only funding for 75 per cent of those children.
“That school is in debt.”
The council’s school place planning proposals document sets out its reasoning for a possible closure of Brading CE Primary School:
“Due to the level of surplus places within the Sandown and Shanklin planning area, reductions must be made and school closures are not avoidable.
“Brading Church of England Primary School is currently judged ‘good’ by Ofsted and has been for the last two inspections, although academic performance has been consistently below national and local averages in attainment measures.
“The school has a published admission number of 25 and physical capacity for 210 pupils.
“The school has been under-subscribed in each of the last two years and pupil numbers fall significantly short of the school’s published admission number each year.
“If Brading Church of England Primary School was closed, pupils would be allocated a place at the next closest school, which would be either The Bay Church of England Primary School or St Helens Primary School, depending on parental preference.”
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