Row brewing over lack of choice
AFTER six weeks of quiet roads but busy playgrounds, next week marks the return to school for thousands of youngsters across Rossendale.
In the east of the borough, however, an increasingly political row is brewing over the choice – or lack of it – parents have over where to send their children when they get to secondary school age.
The problem stems from the difficulties Fearns High School is working to extract itself from following being placed in special measures in 2014.
Special Measures is one of those taboo phrases which understandably spooks parents when deciding where to choose to send their child to.
Three years on, and the latest Ofsted inspection suggested the school still has a long way to go in the eyes of inspectors, a statement which tells you as much about the inspectors as it does about the school.
It must be incredibly demoralising to try and turn a school around, only to have inspectors who swoop in every now and again and pass judgement, and then go away again.
And there are plenty of parents coming to the defence of Fearns, saying what a good school it has been for their children, while at a public meeting before the summer holidays, senior pupils also defended their schools.
Lancashire county council too is standing behind the school, finding extra cash to fund repairs and working closely with the school’s leadership team too.
Rossendale MP Jake Berry is supportive too, although conceded at the public meeting that he currently wouldn’t send a child of his to the school.
Such honesty is to be welcomed, as it helps focus already determined minds.
The problem for parents wanting to choose a school in the east of Rossendale is that, frankly, there isn’t all that much choice on schools, which is what prompted the ‘Rossendale high school places for Rossendale children’ petition.
Parents argue school catchment rules mean some schools in Rossendale take pupils from outside the borough ahead of pupils living in the borough.
And that will be a problem which gets worse if the area is expected to provide thousands of new homes in the next few years.
It’s now emerged that the leader of Rossendale council, Alyson Barnes, has written to the education secretary to express concern about the current placements policy in the east of Rossendale.
Quite what intervention is expected is unclear. It’s highly unlikely Lancashire county council could ever enforce a Ross en dalepriority policy for Rossendale high schools. Several members of the ruling Labour group on Rossendale council were until recently also ruling Labour councillors on the county council, so they’ll know this already.
At a recent council meeting (the one where the Labour administration proposed agreeing what to do with the redevelopment of Rawtenstall town centre in private) Labour put forward a motion committing the council to raising concerns about school places in east Rossendale.
Interestingly, opposition Tory councillors refused to back the proposal, arguing that the focus of current efforts should be on removing any reason for concerns about Fearns. They also, according to the minutes, asked why Labour was only now concerned about the situation, despite Fearns going into special measures four years ago, midway through the last Labour period of control at the county council.
Overall, it doesn’t matter. What matters is a new school term getting under way, and that the pupils and teachers of Fearns are allowed to get on with improving their school. And that, for the parents who don’t want their children to attend Fearns for whatever reason, get the support they need to get the education they want their children to have.