OneThroughSchool

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The OTS team has submitted the following to LCC as part of the consultation response:

Leicestershire County Council consultation – June 2009.

The Onethroughschool group of parents warmly welcome the County’s consultation on the reorganisation of schools. We agree that it is high time this change is made. This is predominantly because of the fall off in academic results between KS3 and KS4 in Leicestershire. However from the anecdotal evidence of our own children and their peers we see the change at 14 as disruptive educationally and socially. In the best case it can take up valuable learning effort and in the worse case it can adversely affect GCSE results as young pupil take too much time to settle into new schools and sometimes new friendship groups.

Simultaneously, many school buildings in Leicestershire – and Loughborough/Barrow/Quorn – would benefit from investment/replacement. It therefore makes sense to consider this at the same time as reorganisation. We would prefer to keep school sizes as small as possible – 800-1000 maximum – and also class sizes. Our priority is to improve educational opportunity across the boar and at this stage we do not see the issue of faith schools as significant.

Ultimately what we would like to say is that we urge you to carry on with the changes regardless of whether BSF funding is forthcoming. There is such a strong case for this that a way must be found.

ww.one throughschool.org

Gillian Adams, Tessa Best, Tim Birkinshaw, Alan Clarke, Simon Ghent, Natalie Martin, Nicola Robinson.

The current system of education in Leicestershire means young people have to move schools at 14 – just when they are at a crucial time in their educational and personal development.

As a group of concerned local parents we feel this has been hampering the education of a significant number of young people in this area for too long – and change is long overdue.

Therefore we applaud the County Council’s decision to change the system in Loughborough/Barrow/Quorn and to apply to central government for £80m to refurbish existing, and build new, schools.

The arguments put forward by the Council for the change are very strong. So, whilst we sincerely hope the £80m is forthcoming from central government, we would urge the County Council to make the change anyway – even if it has to be less ambitious in terms of new buildings etc.

In our opinion schools of no more than 800 would be ideal. This would preserve the benefits smaller schools can provide whilst maintaining continuity for students through their potentially awkward early teenage years.

We would also urge parents – especially those of primary school children - to take part in the consultation which is taking place at the moment. The more voices in favour the more likely the change is to happen. You can find more information on the County Council website www.leics.gov.uk or at www.onethroughschool.org.uk

We cannot stand by and allow another generation of Charnwood’s young people not to reach their full potential.

Yours sincerely,

The “Onethroughschool” group of parents.

Gillian Adams, Tessa Best, Tim Birkinshaw, Alan Clark, Simon Ghent, Natalie Martin, Nicola Robinson.

Monday, 15th June   Humphrey Perkins High School Main Hall, Barrow upon Soar at 6.30pm

Tuesday, 16th June   Burleigh Community College Main Hall, Loughborough at 6.30pm

Wednesday, 17th June   Garendon High School Main Hall, Loughborough at 6.30pm

Thursday, 18th June    Woodbrook Vale High School Drama Studio, Loughborough at 6.30pm

Monday, 22nd June   Limehurst High School Main Hall, Loughborough  (There will be two meetings at 5pm and at 6.30pm.  Language interpretation support will be available at the 5pm meeting)

Tuesday, 23rd June   Rawlins Community College Main Hall, Quorn at 6.30pm

Wednesday, 24th June   De Lisle Catholic Science College Main Hall, Loughborough at 6.30pm

Thursday, 25th June   Ashmount School Main Hall, Loughborough at 6pm

2) Fill in and send back the Consultation Response Form in the back of the consultation pack

3) If you want to be kept up to date and you haven't done so far email us at info@onethroughschool.org so that we can put you on the mailing list.

We are planning a number of things to ensure the consultation reflects fully the views of parents and pupils so we would love to hear from you.

Watch this space for more news

After two years of hard campaigning, it appears our efforts to have schools in the Loughborough Barrow Quorn area made 11-18 may have come to nothing. Despite being told an announcement of the formal go ahead was imminent the project seems to have gone very quiet.

We can only presume the reason for this is that the money does not appear to be available anymore or Leicestershire has slipped down the government’s list of priorities. The bottom line is that we do not know. The Onethroughschool Committee have found it very difficult to get any information in recent weeks.

Having got so close to an announcement that the changes would be made we are obviously very disappointed for this generation of children and those to follow as we believe this would have been a change for the better.

 Our expectations were raised and we now cannot help feeling let down. We hope we are wrong in our assessment but we do not feel this will happen in the next few years. At the very least we feel the public should be told about what is going on