Author: IW Council Press Office
Schools Reforms: Formal Education Consultation Meetings
Friday, 20th June, 2008 at 1:09 pm, Isle of Wight
Official Press Release From Isle of Wight Council
Isle of Wight Council has published a list of meetings which form part of the local authority’s formal consultation on its final proposals for school reorganisation.
Meetings for parents of schools that are proposed for either closure, federation or amalgamation will be held over the next few weeks, and meetings at other schools will be held in September.
Parents will be invited to these meetings by their child’s school.
Two public meetings will also be held in July while Diocese-maintained schools will hold their own separate meetings. The representations made during the parent and public meetings will be considered as part of the formal consultation.
Separate meetings for staff and governors at individual schools are also being held.
The meetings will explain to those attending where the council is in the reorganisation process, how the council arrived at its current position, what happens next, and how people can make their views known during the formal consultation period.
A list of parent and public meetings to be held in June and July can be found below.
A full list of meetings, including meetings to be held in September, will shortly be available via the council’s website or at www.eduwight.iow.gov.uk.
The formal consultation period begins on Monday 23 June and lasts until Friday 26 September at 5pm. Representations can be made IN WRITING to Alex Moffat, School Reorganisation Project Manager, Isle of Wight Council, County Hall, Newport, PO30 1UD or via email to
moving.forward(at)iow.gov.uk
Tuesday 24th June - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Cowes High School
* Solent Middle School
* Somerton Middle School
* Cowes High School
Thursday 26th June - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Sandown High School
* Lake Middle School
* Forelands Middle School
* Sandham Middle School
* Sandown High School
Friday 27th June - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Osborne Middle School
* East Cowes Primary School
* Whippingham Primary School
* Osborne Middle School
Wednesday 2nd July - 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Chale Primary School
St Helens Primary School
Weston Community School
Thursday 3rd July - 7.00pm – 9.00pm - Cowes Yacht Haven – Public Meeting
Wednesday 9th July - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Carisbrooke High School
* West Wight Middle School
* Nodehill Middle School
* Carisbrooke High School
Wednesday 9th July - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Medina High School
* Downside Middle School
* Kitbridge Middle School
* Medina High School
Thursday 10th July - 7.00pm – 9.00pm - Cowes Yacht Haven – Public Meeting
Wednesday 16th July - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Ryde High School
Update:The Ryde area school’s reorganisation parent briefing, scheduled to take place at Ryde High School on Wednesday 16 July between 6′30-8pm, has been moved to Ryde Castle Hotel. It will take place at the same time and date in the Tudor Room.
The venue has been moved due to the potential Unison strike scheduled to take place on the same day.
* Bishop Lovett Middle School
* Mayfield Middle School
* Swanmore Middle School
* Ryde High School
Monday 21st July - 6.30pm – 8.00pm - Ventnor Middle School
* Wroxall Primary School
* Chillerton and Rookley Primary School
* Godshill Primary
* Ventnor Middle School
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June 20th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I worry that co-operation with the council at this stage will be seen as tacit approval of their original decision.
Pughnoccio’s recent letter in the CP expressed approval that 3-tier supporters were coming round to his point of view, on the basis of no evidence other than the fact that we’ve stopped waving banners in the street!
I boil with rage every time I collect my son from Nodehill, a lovely school that recently celebrated its centenary, yet it is to be swept away on a tide of deceit and lies, just so some political pygmies can make a name for themselves. Do they seriously think that standards will improve after this? They must be on another planet.
Sorry. Rant over.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I just spotted this:
“via email to moving.forward(at)iow.gov.uk”
I think that tells you all you need to know about the victory of style over substance within our education department, or have they recently mastered time-travel? Lucy Kellaway of the FT did a piece on R4 only last week complaining about the use of ‘moving forward’ as idiot PR-speak, and here we have so-called educational administrators using it as an email address!
Now, where’s my medication..?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
why would anybody bother turning up when a: their view is ignored and b: they are lied to
June 20th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Why, indeed!
I don’t know if they meant to say this, though:
“The meetings will explain to those attending .. how the council arrived at its current position”
I’d like to challenge them on that, as my understanding is that they got there by making up spare place statistics, lying about GCSE achievements, fudging the consultation and making unkeepable promises about the income from school property sales, any of which would be a sacking offence in any other sphere.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
James P , challenge away. The more the merrier!
I just wish a lot more people would “get involved”.
We should know soon who is coming over to pick £3,000 p.w. plus from our pockets as David Pugh’s new boss, AKA the CEO.
No doubt he/she will bring their own “team” who will promise to make this the best place on earth and then clear off after making a complete balls of it.
(with adequate compensation, of course)
June 21st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
“promise to make this the best place on earth and then clear off after making a complete balls of it”
LOL! It’s becoming a familiar pattern. ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss’ (Won’t Get Fooled Again - The Who, 1971)
I know I shall be accused (again) of negativity, but there’s only so much you can do when administrative juggernauts get rolling. I put a fair bit of effort into opposing the school changes, but they went ahead anyway because it was a complete stitch-up, based on faked stats and lies.
(Sorry VB - I’m not trying to sour your relationship with the Council Press Office, but it’s about time they got used to a bit of dissent. There’ll be plenty more when the schools start closing and their PFI scheme gets under way!)
June 21st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Is truth negativity?
The only saving grace is that this lot will be gone next year and hopefully we can get some proper politicians to stand..you know the type, honest, listen to the people, do what they promise etc. Nothing negative there, just blind optimism.
I’m pretty sure DP could get a job with Alex Dyke…you know the DJ that likes to invent stories and wind people up….Maybe he could replace Alex Dyke, he’ll have trouble finding a job in politics after this lot.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
“he’ll have trouble finding a job in politics after this lot”
I do hope you’re right, but I worry that his apparent flair for double-speak and chicanery will be regarded as an asset! AFAIK, he’s not qualified to do anything else…
June 21st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
A degree in Politics from Aberystwff Univercity, being the high point in his interest in Politics…the low (so far) being the much maligned leader of Tory Forward (young conservatives)
June 21st, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“much maligned”
You make it sound as if he didn’t deserve it! IIRC, he was called a “cheating b*st*rd” on air during a televised debate. The BBC were ushered out at that point, when senior Tories realised that it wasn’t exactly helping their cause…
June 21st, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I wonder if perhaps it’s time for us to recognise that the elected councillors are not, in fact, in charge. We live under a council which is run by the officers. DP and his friends are merely acting on the whims of the professionals.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
“time for us to recognise that the elected councillors are not, in fact, in charge”
That has been the case, but it WILL change steve, believe me.
Regarding the new CEO, I know that there are applications from “professional” people, i.e, not members of the Council For the Preservation of Local Authority Chief Executive Officers.
I would urge all readers of VB to write to their ward Councillor mandating them to vote for such a candidate who will not fear upsetting the status quo, where officers “stick together”.
Let us, for once have someone in charge who does not come up with some daft idea like the Thinking Caps.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
What seems clear about the education fiasco is that the LEA were hell-bent on reverting to 2 tiers, but were unexpectedly thwarted at the last election, so while promising to bow to the electorate’s wishes, they did exactly the reverse.
What shocked so many of us was the apparent willingness of councillors like Pugh and Wells to collaborate, when their party had been elected almost solely on their promises to preserve the existing system! They then followed the contrary advice and even produced their own ‘dodgy dossier’ of misinformation to push it through. And they wonder why we don’t trust politicians…
I should add that I do know a few councillors and I’m sure that the majority are decent, honourable people. They get hoodwinked like the rest of us, and I’ve no doubt that they all believed, for instance, that the money raised from the sale of school property would be ring-fenced for educational use. It was only when Steve Beynon (the officer) was put on the spot that he ‘fessed up that no such promise could be kept, which just reinforces steve s’s original point.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
More council ineptitude:
Back in April I wrote a formal complaint about the reorganisation process to the person listed on iwight.com as the ‘nominated complaints officer’ for education. Not getting a reply within 14 days (as is legally required for such things) I wrote a reminder, which was also ignored.
What with life intervening, I only recently followed this up and sent a general enquiry. This was acknowledged promptly, and later by the NCO, who told me that I had been using the wrong name, which turned out to be the full version of her name, while the website gave the short version! She couldn’t explain why my original emails had not been returned, but presumably they’re in an IT dept black hole somewhere.
Every email system I’ve had anything to do with either has a fall-back (catch all) address where unknown addressees’ mail is collected, and/or a system of aliases, so that colloquial names or initials can be correctly routed (e.g. fred/frederick/freddy/f.smith).
Perhaps the council’s new £800k software upgrade will correct this. In the meantime, I suggest that anyone emailing the council clicks on ‘request read receipt’ or similar…
June 25th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Or, you should get a bounce-back from their server if the email address is not recognised. Pretty standard on most corporate systems I believe
Pretty farcical that the email address presented for the complaints officer is incorrect. Who do we complain to about misleading information?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
If I wasn’t such a trusting soul, I might even suspect it was deliberate..