No matter what’s done there will be winners and losers

Apr 9 2008 South Wales Echo

With the public having had their say on Cardiff’s primary school reorganisation plan, Education Correspondent Moira Sharkey explores the key battlegrounds.

SAVE OUR SCHOOL has become the battle-cry of communities across Cardiff since the biggest shake-up in education for 30 years was unveiled.

Campaigns have been launched, protest marches organised, banners mounted on school gates while posters adorn pupils’ homes.

The biggest battle has been fought by the pupils and parents of Lansdowne Primary in Canton, which is earmarked for closure to make way for the expansion of the Welsh primary Ysgol Treganna.

Campaigns have also been launched to oppose the closure of Caerau Nursery and plans to reduce the size of Cwrt-Yr-Ala Junior and Caerau Infant schools. Theses schools will be merged on one site to make way for a new Welsh primary. And parents at St John Lloyd Catholic Primary in Trowbridge have voiced their anger at plans to open a second school on the site – a Welsh primary.

The consultation on this primary restructure, which also aims to tackle the Welsh problem of record demand for places, ended last month.

Two other schools – Cefn Onn Primary in Llanishen and St Anne’s Church in Wales Infant School in Roath – which were earmarked for closure in the original school reorganisation plan, are also back on the hit list. Cefn Onn is challenging the proposal while the parents of the less than 30 remaining pupils at St Anne’s have not publicly objected to the plan.

Education chiefs have always maintained it is a “numbers game”. The figures, scrutinised internally by the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee and externally by the Wales Audit Office, show that the number of pupils aged four to 18 will decline by almost 3,000 by 2016. This is on top of the current 4,500 surplus places in primary schools.

In contrast to this trend there is record demand for Welsh education. Schools like Ysgol Treganna in Canton are overcrowded but remain incredibly popular. That school has one toilet for 22 staff and a hall the size of a wide corridor.

The council has always said it cannot build new schools when it is wasting more than £3m each year on running surplus school places.

To solve the problem council chiefs plan to convert English primaries to Welsh schools.

Opinion is divided. While many people see the benefits others are not convinced.

Lansdowne parents argue that as pupil numbers have already exceeded council predictions this casts doubt on the accuracy of the basis for the entire reorganisation.

It shows pupil numbers are predicted to grow from 310 to 324 pupils by January 2011. The school exceeded this target last year with 326 pupils on roll as well as 52 part-time nursery pupils. There was a further increase of three pupils this year, bringing the total to 380 pupils.

They calculate that by closing one school there will not be enough places for all the pupils including those due to move into 900 homes planned for the former Arjo Wiggins Paper Mill site by Ely bridge.

Education chiefs say Lansdowne has the highest spare capacity and the highest number of pupils from outside Canton attending it, as well as having the highest number of pupils from its catchment area attending Welsh education, making it the obvious choice for the switch to Welsh medium.

Councillor Bill Kelloway said: “Nobody wants to close schools but we have a problem and we need to tackle it. We believe that we have found the best solutions to the problems of surplus places and rising demand for Welsh-medium. It is for the schools involved to put their case.”

The school communities of Cwrt-Yr-Ala, Caerau Nursery and Caerau Infant schools also believe the plan is flawed.

Around 900 supporters of the nursery signed a petition to call for its future to be secured.

Governor Ruth Coward said: “This is a flagship nursery. It is a thriving, full school with specialist staff. To close it is to throw this resource away.”

The new primary will have 200 fewer places than the combined schools offer now. Parents say this is not providing local schools for local children.

Education chiefs disagree. They say the plan offers double the choice to parents and will mean local children who currently travel to Pentrebane for a Welsh education will be taught closer to home.

On the other side of the city, parents have also held protests over a plan to see St John Lloyd Catholic Primary, Trowbridge, sharing its site with a new Welsh primary. Parents believe the change will have a negative impact on the quality of education.

Chief schools officer Chris Jones added: “These proposals are more than just reducing the number of surplus places and meeting demand.

“It is about investment, about creating a 21st century education service. This was never going to be a simple exercise and there will never be any easy solutions but we believe we have come up with the best plan with what we have had to work with.”

See tomorrow’s Echo for reaction to the secondary school reorganisation proposals and the plans still to be revealed

moira.sharkey@mediawales.co.uk