School Closures Back On The Table As Isle Of Wight Council Launches Urgent Review

Reducing the number of school places on the Isle of Wight, which could mean school closures, is a ‘critical and urgent’ priority, a newly formed education panel has agreed.

A committee including five new Reform UK and independent councillors has authorised council officers to carry out a school places review in response to falling pupil numbers, with a particular focus on primary provision.

At a meeting on Thursday (July 2), the group also agreed to delegate authority to Ashley Whittaker, strategic director of children’s services, to develop the criteria to be considered for use to identify schools for closure, if this is a pathway chosen.

Councillors agreed such a criteria should be brought back to the committee for review, on the back of a proposal from Liberal Democrat group leader Andrew Garratt.

Ashley Whittaker, County Hall’s strategic director of children’s services, said:

“On average what happens is that as children go through the primary and secondary school system, our outcomes are an increasingly big discount to the national average.

“That is what we are here to change over the coming years.

"If you ask school leaders what the relationship is between…the financial situation in my school and my ability to invest in improved outcomes, they will say there’s a very big link between the two things.”

Mr Whittaker presented a report which cites a meeting about school standards and school place planning in November last year, attended by headteachers and senior leaders.

There was a ‘consensus’ among those present that the amount of school places needs to reduce so it aligns with the number of school age children, now and in the future, according to an event synopsis.

It said one of the consequences of the current surplus is a ‘sub optimal’ allocation of funding and resources, with another being that this ‘undermines’ the ability of school leaders to improve child outcomes.

Cllr Ed Blake, who leads the Conservative group, cast minds back to the council’s last school closures process which initially involved six primary schools but ultimately saw only one in Cowes close.

He said:

“A lot of the public anguish was centred around how that decision had come about.

"There was secrecy in their eyes – and you have to remember perception is reality in these situations – around the matrix and how schools were physically selected out and certainly it struck some as being politically motivated in the absence of that information.”

Turning to Mr Whittaker’s report, he said the council has been left with the option of making savings in order to give better outcomes.

“The only way to do that is to make cuts to the amount of provision we are wasting because it is not being utilised,” Cllr Blake said.