Ventnor Blog

Rebecca Tuck from the Isle of Wight Council has been in touch this week, asking us to advertise a position for an afternoon School Crossing Patrol in Ventnor (more on that later).

It reminded us of Ventnorian, Wendy Marshall who many of you will know, picked up the IW Radio People’s People Award for Crossing Patrol Person of the Year in 2007 last year.

We caught up with Wendy a while ago to talk about her work and the awards.
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Tomorrow sees the launch of the very first RiverFest.

It takes place in Newport by the quayside and surrounding river area.

There are tons of activities taking place over the day including a six mile river walk, street theatre, stilt walkers and fire show (with the amazing Matt Splatt) and even a mini beast safari. (more…)

Following the announcement yesterday of the concert being held next week at Cowes Yacht Haven to celebrate the life of Anthony Minghella, we hear today that his sister, Jazz singer Edana Minghella, will also be making a special appearance at the concert. (more…)

Anyone planning to joining the Circus Skills and Stilt Walking classes, being held at The Venntor Youth Centre, please be aware of changes to the start date.

The course, which is being run by Matt Splat of Ryde Extreme Performers, who you might remember from the excellent Circus Variety Show on Easter Monday, starts on Saturday 10th May.

Each week between 11am-12.30pm, he’ll be teaching a range of circus skills, including stilt walking. (more…)

A new facility that will provide support for families with children under the age of 5 is being officially opened on 1 May. (more…)

If you haven’t got your tickets yet for the forthcoming fundraiser and awareness gig for the St George’s Dragon project, make sure you sort it out before they get snapped up.

After the short presentation about the project, you will be entertained by the brilliant Wild Oats and Lucid, two excellent Island bands who will certainly put on a good show.
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Isle of Wight Council is organising a series of meetings from Monday 28 April as part of the latest phase of its education reforms. Eight meetings will be held across the Island where representatives from individual schools, pre-schools and governing bodies will be invited. (more…)

Good to see some responses in today’s Indepedent newspaper by two residents of the Isle of wight, Wendy Varley and Rupert Besley, to Steve Beynon’s belated letter to the paper which appeared last week.

Follow the link to read in full. The fourth letter ‘SMALL CLASSES BEST’ by Dr Richard House, Research Centre for Therapeutic Education, Roehampton University is also an interesting read for those who chose to send their children to SMALL rural schools.

Fantastic news reaches us this morning that St George’s PMLD School is Newport has just announced that TV presenter Chris Packham, has agreed to become a patron of Dragon.

What better day to make the announcement than on St George’s Day.

Chris said today

“I’m delighted to be asked to support Dragon by being a patron, St George’s is a terrific school full of superb kids.

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This Thursday (24 April), the National Union of Teachers is staging a national 24hr walk-out in response to the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommended pay increase for school teachers. The strike is affecting a small number of schools on the Isle of Wight. (more…)

Many thanks to Island parent, Wendy Varley for sending in her response to Steve Beynon’s letter in The Independent this week. Ed

The appearance in yesterday’s The Independent of a letter from Steve Beynon, Director of Children’s Services at Isle of Wight Council, taking issue with the article they ran on 13 March about the schools reorganisation begs the question: if he was unhappy with the article, why did he wait a month to raise it with them? (more…)

Make sure you get this one in your diaries. Coming up in June is an awareness night for the great new Dragon project coming out from St George’s School in Newport.

The aim of the night is to inform and entertain.

You can learn all about the work that has been going on at St George’s PMLD School over the last year or so and discover the incredible plans they have for the future.
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Thanks to Platform One for sending through details of this forthcoming drum clinic.

We know that there are lots of musicians out there who will be interested to attend the workshop, so if you have a budding young drummer in the house, make sure you send them this posting (you can use the ‘Email This Story To A Friend‘ link at the bottom of the article).
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Neighbourhood Learning in Ventnor is a project delivered by the Arts Unit in partnership with The Adult and Community Learning Service which brings a series of arts based courses for adults to Ventnor.

A new series of courses are about to start (see full details below), so please come and join in – have fun, meet people and learn new skills. The courses are becoming increasingly popular and places are limited, so you do need to phone to book a place: 817288
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Many people have been asking, now the decision has been made by councillors to go with the revised option, a two tier education system, what is the next stage?

Just this issue was discussed at Cabinet meeting last night.

It was reported that a series of discussion meetings with head teachers, governors, and pre-school leaders were being held during April and May.

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Anyone who reads the County Press will have noticed in February and March, the three full page and one half page ad placed by Standards Not Tiers.

The purpose of the adverts was to raise awareness of the proposed changes to the education system.

Members of Standards Not Tiers have worked tirelessly over the last few years to see an increase in the standard of education on the Wight, and worked flat out over the public consultation period.
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The most telling and we think, shameful vote conducted at the schools reform debate last Wednesday was in reaction to when Cllr Deborah Gardiner suggested that the public question time should be increased, as so many people in the public gallery were keen to raise points concerning the future of their children’s education.

After the chairman, Roger Mazillius, asked her to quantify how much longer it should be, Cllr Gardiner made the suggestion of a total 30 minutes - 15 minutes longer than the time normally set aside for public questions.
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We’re sure you’ve all been on the edge of your seats, we certainly have.

After nearly three hours of discussion, with lots of typing from Simon (he’s a star!) the final verdict has arrived and the majority vote is for the fifth option, submitted by David Pugh at the last minute.

Full details of the fifth option can be read in our previous posting.

We hear from the Council Chambers that Jim Knight, Government Schools Minister has announced today that the Isle of Wight has been successful in its bid for seven new diplomas.

The diplomas will be in:

Business and Advertising, Media, Engineering, Hair & beauty, Hospitality, IT, Environmental & land based studies.

We’ll bring you more info on these tomorrow.

Updates will be added as they come in. Refresh your browser every 5 to 10 minutes to read the numbered updates.

18:06 - prayers over

Chairman reads a statement of condolence to Anthony Minghella

Cllr Price & Millar not present
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Fred Dineage will be broadcasting live from County Hall tonight and is interested in hearing comments from concerned parents.

We also understand that BBC South will be live, as well as IW Radio and BBC Radio Solent.

We will, of course, be reporting live from inside the Council Chamber to bring you the latest as it happens.

As with past meetings, we’ve felt that a busy public gallery really focuses the councillors on level of public feeling.

News just in is that a new option for schools will be outlined tonight by David Pugh.

Talk in the council chambers in the last half hour is that a new option (detailed below) - two tiers but with less closures, will be announced.

The council are said to have been in talks with the schools minister and have sourced funding to help support the rural schools.

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We’ve been meaning to post an update on our piece about the position of Ventnor’s two county councillors — Cllr Fitzgerald-Bond and Cllr Scoccia — on the closure of Island schools.

We’d half written it ages back, then ebod has prompted us, though a comment on the original posting into telling you what we found out. We wanted to give them the long amount of time to reply, so given the vote is today, we thought we’d better get the piece out to you.
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Update:
Previous title: David Pugh Recommending Option Three: 31 Schools To Close?

Thanks to the council press office for the quick call, pointing out that David Pugh hasn’t said he’d recommend option three, simply that he’d recommend two tier tonight.
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Standards-Not-Tiers would like to thank everyone who braved the rain to march for what we all know is right.

I know that it will be very late in the day but would you all please please please make an extra special effort to come to County Hall on Wednesday evening. Fred Dinenage - ITV Meridian presenter is coming over to do their news programme live from the reception area at County Hall and he will talk to any of us that would like to tell the rest of the South what we think of the Council…no obscenities though!
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