Schools Advertising.
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Because you’d have several villages where hardly any pupils attended just like it was back in the “good ol’ days”.
It’s far cheaper to bus the pupils to a central site than to maintain several small schools and pay under-employed staff wages.
Please rest assured that no student from the middle of wrexham are transported at taxpayers expense. In Wrexham you only get free transport if the school is your nearest. I suppose its down to parental choice.
@Andy 17867 wrote:
What happened to Children attending the nearest Government run school? I never understood Penley School. Why is there a great big School in the middle of the rural countryside where hardly anybody lives? Then all the Children are Transported in from populated areas. Many at Taxpayers expense. How much is the transport budget per annum for here? How many tonnes of CO2 are created? Green policies/Global warming? Wrexham are considering completely scrapping education transport for 16-18 year olds
What happened is that parents were given Choice. Rather like freedom of speech, parental choice about how their children should be educated ought to be sacrosanct in Wales. The Butler Act was designed in 1944 to provide different types of school to meet the aptitudes and abilities of children but this crashed and burned with the introduction of the Comprehensives. Labour intended to homogenise youngsters and remove choice and this was one step too far. Once choice was reintroduced it left schools free to tout for pupils and parents free to select a school of their choice (subject to some restrictions). It would be far better in Wales, if parents could actually choose the more specific nature of the schools, their structure, their Curricular, their modes of delivery and so on. We might actually see improvements then
The unfortunate situation in wrexham is that the two schools in Special Measures are going to see less pupil numbers as parents will vote with their feet if possible and send their children to one of the schools that are showing they are achieving with the pupils. This will have a downward spiral — less pupils equally less money to invest in inspirational teachers to drive up standards. It is a sad fact that many pupils who attend these failed schools have got to be incredibly motivated to succeed.
(I am in no way decrying the work of some very dedicated staff who are really trying to turn the schools around but the statistics of lower pupil numbers is a massive problem to overcome as the funding to invest is lower).
Both of the failed schools were part of the Superschool model a few years ago that sorted out the physical fabric but unfortunately due to the vast overspend the funding to invest in the staffing was reduced. I should point out that many of the Councilors in power at the time of the Superschool fiasco are still on the Council.@JaneJ 17885 wrote:
The unfortunate situation in wrexham is that the two schools in Special Measures are going to see less pupil numbers as parents will vote with their feet if possible and send their children to one of the schools that are showing they are achieving with the pupils. This will have a downward spiral — less pupils equally less money to invest in inspirational teachers to drive up standards. It is a sad fact that many pupils who attend these failed schools have got to be incredibly motivated to succeed.
(I am in no way decrying the work of some very dedicated staff who are really trying to turn the schools around but the statistics of lower pupil numbers is a massive problem to overcome as the funding to invest is lower).
Both of the failed schools were part of the Superschool model a few years ago that sorted out the physical fabric but unfortunately due to the vast overspend the funding to invest in the staffing was reduced. I should point out that many of the Councilors in power at the time of the Superschool fiasco are still on the Council.You refer to the funding situation here and the linkage between overspend and standards. Whilst I do not doubt that money plays its own part in the success of a school, this is not the prime factor. The truth is that the Superschools were always endowed with the most inappropriate of names because all they could ever be was big……and, ironically, they are not even that now.
Schools have to be established with one thought in mind……to provide the most appropriate education to their pupils. This can not be achieved by seeking political objectives (like the pursuit of equality) but by seeking educational objectives. Students have potential and actual but they are not equal. They need to receive an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential but not by applying the straightjacket of crude Comprehensive education, mixed ability, etc . They need to be placed within a setting that caters for their actual but strives to encourage their potential. Lessons have to be tailored to both considerations but it is vital that students are broadly taught within a matching environment. Grammar schools did this for bright students but so too do Academies (with a specialist status) and so too do good Comps where setting is the norm.
Unfortunately, here in Wales we have standard Comps, Church schools and Welsh schools. Parents rightly endowed with choice opt to send their children anywhere bar the Superschools and they opt for the village schools or the two non Comp models.
I personally think that the grammar school/secondary modern system worked very well. Even if pupils did not pass the 11+ they were TAUGHT to pass the 11+ which at least meant that most pupils were proficient in the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic by the age of 11. These days you hear of people leaving school without these basic skills, and it seems to me that the drive for equality (which was there all along) has let them down.
The situation at the superschools is that they are anticipating a max of 3 class entry in September compared with the expectation under the ‘superschool’ proposals the would both be 5 class entry.
If each class has an average of 30 pupils that means between the two there will be 4 x 30= 120 less pupils .. there are 5 years so that means there will be at least 600 less pupils. This is a massive level of pupil drift with parents clearly making decisions that are against the Councils expectation.
Hopefully those pupils that have gone to other schools will be getting an education the deserve to meet their ability. We should feel sorry for those pupils in the schools in Special Measures as their chances are clearly less.
Our children are our future provide them with the educational support they need and don’t make them the next generation of NEETs (not in education, employment or training)We were shocked how much our daughter was behind the children coming from English primary schools when we sent her to an English secondary school.
When we met with teachers about this issue they assured us they were used to this with children coming from Welsh primaries and always give them extra help to bring them up the normal standard they expect from children leaving primary.
You won’t get a teacher on here admitting that Welsh schools are failing pupils, but they are.It is a crime and I can guarantee that no Labour Welsh politician will do a thing about it. All Labour politicians know that the only way that they can make Comprehensives work is to FORCE pupils to attend their local schools and prevent choice in the system. Even for Labour this is counter-intuitive and they know that even the good folk of Wrexham would probably review their time-honoured habit of voting Labour.
What they actually choose to do in Cardiff, therefore, is to NOT curb parent choice whilst CURBING authority choice over school structures. Thus, no authority in Wales can set up a Grammar school and no authority in Wales can set up an Academy. No authority in Wales can even mildly texture their Comprehensives to offer even the slightest of variable. Concurrently, what they have done is to allow schools to PERPETUATE Mixed ability classes and those schools who seek to utilise them still do.
Hardly surprisingly, clever schools are advertising for pupils. Wirral Grammar Schools were recently touting for bright pupils (and getting them), whilst the likes of Kings are having a field day. Bishop Heber is able to make hay in the sun whilst Faith schools and Language schools have never had it so good. Now Penley and Llangollen have got in on the act.
It is surely about time that local politicians of all persuasions stood up and at least tried to put children at the heart of policy and Education at the heart of children. As Jane (above) has indicated, the current approach is not working and cannot work. As Mrs Crewe (above) has indicated, this is leaving Welsh pupils and Wrexham youngsters totally disadvantaged in life
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