EDUCATION bosses promised to listen to the community as they launched the latest consultation on the future of Townsend School.

Bournemouth Borough Council has already voted to close the primary school but to comply with the law it must now hold a consultation explaining how this would happen and giving people a chance to respond.

Jane Portman, the council's executive director for children and families services, said: "The document sets out the council's preferred option to close the school. It explains why we reached this decision and the measures we will put in place to address some of people's concerns."

In acknowledgement of the problems of the last consultation, this one will be run by an independent consultant.

The council would not reveal how much it was spending on the exercise.

The document lists the reasons the council wants to close the school: inspectors have judged it to be failing, test results are poor, roll numbers are falling, it is difficult to recruit staff and the cost of educating each pupil at the school is high.

It asks for people's opinions on the arrangements in the event of closure and other suggestions they may have.

It reads: "Do you have any suggestions rather than the closure of the school? Please bear in mind that the government has told the council it must take radical action' so continuing as things are is no longer an option."

It explains if the school closes, transport will be provided for all children currently at Townsend to the primary school their parents choose, but not for children in the Townsend area who have yet to start school.

The four schools likely to take the Townsend children are King's Park Primary, Malmesbury Park Primary, Queen's Park Infant and Queen's Park Junior schools.

Queen's Park Junior School currently has been given notice to improve by Ofsted.

So far, 3,500 copies of the consultation document have been distributed to parents living in the Townsend School catchment area with primary aged children or younger, staff, governors, councillors, libraries and other people concerned with the school.

Consultants will be visiting Townsend and neighbouring schools to ask the children their opinions.

These views will be incorporated in to the report prepared by the independent consultant.

Councillor for children's services Malcolm Davies said: "There is no way we are going to ignore this report. We will debate it at length. We probably will do quite a few hours' work on it.

"We have addressed some of the concerns that came out of the previous consultation so I don't think people can say we ignored them.

"The arrangements we have put in place for transport shows we have listened."

Timeline

  • The consultation starts today and will run until March 14.
  • Public meetings will be held at the school on February 13 at 6.30pm and February 14 at 2pm.
  • Surgeries for smaller groups will be held at the school on February 28 from 9am to noon and 1pm to 4pm.
  • The report will be presented to the Investing in People Overview Panel on March 27.
  • If cabinet decides to close the school a statutory notice will be published on April 10/11.
  • Objections or comments can be sent to the local authority until May 23.
  • Cabinet will make a decision, which will be ratified by full council on June 3.
  • A four-week period for appeals would continue to July 4.
  • If there are no appeals the decision is sent to the Schools' Adjudicator.
  • The school could close on August 31.