Call for ‘urgent meeting’ over school’s future

THE leader of Cardiff council is seeking an “urgent meeting” with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cardiff’s education director over plans to close a city primary school.

Angry parents say their children’s education will be disrupted if the diocese shuts St Alban’s RC Primary in Splott.

Announcing the closure proposal last May, the Archdiocese said as few as 23% of pupils were Catholic.

But the Save St Alban’s Committee says school data shows it is 46%, a figure passed to the diocese at a consultation meeting attended by more than 100 parents and others.

Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas, speaking in his capacity as local ward councillor for Splott, said this new figure “undermined the reasons put forward in favour of closure” and he is seeking an urgent meeting with Anne Robertson, director of education for the Cardiff Archdiocese.

“I attended the consultation at St Alban’s alongside my fellow ward councillors, and the strength of feeling against the archdiocese plans to close the school was clear,” Cllr Thomas said.

“I was particularly concerned to hear evidence presented from the floor which on the face of it undermined the reasons put forward in favour of closure.

“We will be seeking an urgent meeting with the diocesan director of education to discuss this.”

Proposals to shut St Alban’s in August 2021 are part of the biggest school reorganisation plans in Cardiff in recent years.

The £142m scheme includes building a new Willows High on Tremorfa Park, shutting St Alban’s and moving and rebuilding Baden Powell Primary on the new site.

Parents say St Alban’s pupils and staff are “devastated” and children are already leaving as the threat of closure “blights” it.

Cllr Thomas said the council is not behind the plans to shut St Alban’s.

“Whilst the council is facilitating the consultation, these plans (to shut St Alban’s) have come from the archdiocese, and I must say I feel a little frustrated how they are distracting from the council’s own efforts to improve education standards in the ward with a new school building for Willows High.”

The church has a “moral duty” to keep the school, in one of the poorest areas of Cardiff, open, said campaign chairman John Houlston.

Mother Katie Mead said her daughter Bethany Ferrier, eight, would have her last year of primary disrupted if the school shuts in August 2021, as proposed.

“They suggest we should send them to St Peter’s if the school shuts, but St Peter’s is in Estyn special measures and it is too far for me to take her there each day because I work. We won’t get free transport.

“The children’s education will suffer. My daughter is in year four. This will affect her education and friendships. There will be disruption if teachers leave to go to new jobs and they have to have supply teachers.

“If this goes ahead, my daughter, and others, will have to go to a new school in year six, her last year of primary before high school. That would be so disruptive I would rather home school her than move her.”

Another parent, Michelle Evans, whose daughter Leila, eight, is also in year four, said feelings are running high and parents were determined to fight closure.

“We want our children to go to a Catholic school. The other nearest Catholic school is in special measures and we don’t want our children to go there.

“St Alban’s is a fantastic school, the teachers know the children well and it’s a tight-knit community. It’s a very caring school.

“We are also worried about whether there are spare places in other primaries for children in my daughter’s year. I have heard there are not.

“Parents are worried and angry. There is nothing wrong with St Alban’s.”

The campaign has an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures so far calling for the school to stay open. Parents are also handing out leaflets at city Catholic churches and locally.

In a letter to parents in May, the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack, said a decision to consider closing St Alban’s was taken because of falling pupil numbers.

The 175-pupil school, which has space for 210 pupils, has seen numbers fall by one whole class size, and fewer than a quarter of pupils are from Roman Catholic families, his letter added.

Archbishop Stack assured parents there would be enough alternative places at other Catholic and non-church schools under the proposals, but parents said they want their children to have a Catholic education close to their homes, as they do now.

The Save St Alban’s Committee chair John Houlston has written to Anne Robertson asking the diocese to reverse its plans to shut the school.

The letter says: “Will you now put a stop to this ungodly act and write to the council cabinet asking that the closure of our school be withdrawn from the proposal with immediate effect?”

Anne Robertson said the diocese is seeking to clarify the number of Catholic pupils at the school.

She said each Catholic school is responsible for its own admissions but there are places free for children from St Alban’s, and while St Peter’s is in special measures “it is improving”.

She added: “This is a consultation and when the consultation period finishes we will be looking at all the comments.”