School's Out - Forever?
"Save Our School" is becoming an increasingly common refrain across Wales as parents and pupils rally against council plans to reorganise education, with the arguments raging to and fro for months, if not years. That's something the education minister - who is often called upon to make the final decision - wants to change. Work is already underway on writing the new textbook for dealing with school closures in Wales - but there are fears the proposed changes won't make the grade.
Last updated: 10 September 2010
Like many a school around Wales, Graig Infant school in the Morriston area of Swansea faces closure.
The local council is proposing that its 75 pupils - aged between 3 and 7 years - are accommodated at a new primary school which would nearer cater for 400 children.
But the size of the planned new school, coupled with its location - on the site of existing schools a mile away at the bottom of a steep hill - has led to opposition.
Ruth Clapham is chair of the school's governors. "We have small classes which bring out the best in our children. I struggle to understand how this proposed closure will improve the education of the children."
More than 100 objections were raised when Swansea council consulted on the plans, which means that the final decision will now be taken by the Welsh education minister Leighton Andrews.
That's currently the fate of most school closure plans put forward in Wales. In the past that has contributed to delays. Mr Andrews has said he wants to change the system.
In July he told AMs he wanted more dialogue and determination at a local level with proposals coming to him for a decision only on "rare occasions".
And that too is causing concern at the school gates. Adrian Smith is a parent governor at Graig Infants.
"It is drawn out. But if they want to throw it back to the council, I can't see the point of that - they're the ones that made the original decision. Isn't that what the minister is paid for?"
Swansea council stands by its plan for Graig Infant School, which it says are part of a wider drive "to give all pupils access to better resources and to continue to raise standards of attainment for all pupils."
Any changes in the system of determining school closures will come after the minister has made his decision on Graig Infant School.
Precedent suggests that the council plans will be approved. Despite that, chair of governors Ruth Clapham remains optimistic.
"We would hope that with all the objections the minister has had his team will have looked at them and made the correct decision."
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