Plea from pupils to save Purbeck school (From Bournemouth Echo)

Plea from pupils to save Purbeck school

7:50pm Tuesday 6th January 2009 in

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SAVE our village school – that was the plea from staff, governors and pupils today.

They warned that proposals to shut Wool First School would cause ‘irreparable damage’ to the community.

The school is under threat as the Purbeck education system faces a shake up to address more than 1,000 surplus places in the area.

As part of Dorset County Council’s Purbeck Review a consultation document is being published today that sets out plans to change the school system in the district from a two-tier to three-tier system.

The proposals suggest merging Wool First School with St Mary’s Roman Catholic School in the village to create one large primary school on the St Mary’s site.

Headteacher Lesley Craze said that the school was in favour of the move to the two-tier system, as they believed it would offer a better quality education for the children.

But she said teachers and governors were adamant that the way forward was to keep two separate schools in the village, offering parents and pupils a choice of education.

Mrs Craze, who has just celebrated her tenth anniversary as headteacher, said there had been a village school on the site of Wool First School for 140 years and it played a vital role in the community.

In its latest Ofsted report Wool First School was rated as ‘good’, with several areas ‘outstanding’, while another inspection by SIAS (Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools) described it as an ‘outstandingly distinctive and effective church school’.

Mrs Craze said: “It just seems that we have worked so hard here for ten years with the school going from strength to strength.

“We have got absolutely dedicated staff getting superb results and it is very sad to think they want to close us.

“One of the reasons they are doing this is to get rid of this surplus but projections show there are sufficient numbers in Wool to support two primary schools.”

Mrs Craze said that under the proposals the merged primary school would retain its Roman Catholic status.

She added: "By closing our school there is no choice left for parents and if they wish for their children to go to a Church of England School they will have to go out of the village."

Vice chairman of governors Andrew Wilson said the merger would mean up to 350 pupils in the future at the St Mary’s site.

He claimed that the area would struggle to cope with the added traffic and may need to expand into nearby playing fields to accommodate such a large number of pupils.

He said: “The village needs both schools, what it doesn’t need is one compromised, merged school.

“To lose this school would cause irreparable damage and you would not be able to rebuild the unity of the community.”

Wool First School will be launching a ‘Save Our School’ campaign, with leaflets, posters and letters being sent to officials in local and national government as well as the church.

There will also be two public meetings on the issue, the first will be at the school at 7pm on January 12 and the following meeting will be at Wool’s D’Urberville Hall at 7pm on January 21.

One person who has added his support to the campaign is South Dorset MP Jim Knight.

He said: “I know it’s a difficult background with the falling rolls but I do think it is important where we can to try and retain choice around different types of schools.

“The number projections I have seen for Wool suggest it is possible to do that.

“As it stands, I would have concerns at the closure proposals, it is a successful school that has a lot of history attached to it in the community and I think we should look at retaining it."