Save Chale

Village life in Chale is under threat. The Isle of Wight Council decision to close our village school poses a serious threat to village life, as we know it.
If the school closes, young families will move away or not be attracted to move into our village, because having a village school is one of the reasons Chale is a sought after place to live. Coupled with this is the fact that being a fully functioning village. We can offer a shop, café, Post Office, pub, garage and filling station and a church. Chale also has more than 12 local businesses providing local employment. Villagers can still live and work in Chale, unlike the majority of Island villages.

Without young residents the village will stagnate and become a retirement, holiday and commuter village. Experience and documentary evidence clearly shows this to be the case. Holiday homes then prevail.
Having properties empty during the winter, and commuters shopping in the towns where they work undermines the village shop, garage etc. putting their continued existence in jeopardy.
The schoolchildren are active in the church, so without them as the congregation of tomorrow, even the future of the church looks bleak.

The school and young families are at the heart of the village, so it is essential that we fight to save our school.

The Chale School and Village Association has been set up to do just this.

Chale Primary School is a protected rural school under The Designation of Rural Primary Schools (England) Order 2007, which clearly states that a school should not be closed on the grounds of cost alone. The impact of closure on the community MUST be taken into account.

There is clear documentary evidence that closing a rural school can undermine the viability of rural life, and therefore poses a serious threat to our village.

The Plowden Report (1967) on education, which the Isle of Wight Council have referred to, states:-
“To close a primary school may in fact diminish a village in more senses than one and provide a further reason why young married couples will want to leave it”.

The Independent Panel that reviewed the proposed closure of St. Helens, Brading, Nettlestone, Shalfleet and Yarmouth primary schools at the direction of the Isle of Wight Council, concluded in their report;-
“ There are, though, other important considerations to take into account when planning school organisation. These include:
• the importance of schools to the life of communities
• the health, social and economic wellbeing of a community is enhanced by the mutual support it gives and receives from its local school; and it can be impoverished if such a valued institution is closed
• the formal “guidance to decision makers”, issued by central government, lays particular emphasis on the need to protect rural schools particularly because of their importance for community cohesion, but also because of the impact on home to school transport if such schools are closed.
• Authorities are expected to look at alternatives to closure of rural schools, such as making them more educationally and financially viable through federation arrangements and using surplus space for extended services.”

We have taken our case to Parliament.
Andrew Turner, MP was presented with a petition by villagers and parents, on 30 April at the Houses of Parliament. Andrew Turner is a staunch supporter of Chale School and understands the importance of the school to our village. He presented the petition, calling for the Government to halt plans to close Chale Primary School, in the House of Commons. Our petition was discussed in Parliament on 4 June 2009.

The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families commented in response to our petition to Parliament “The Government recognises that local schools are often at the heart of rural communities. Closing a rural school can have effects well beyond the schooling of the children and should only be considered as a last resort.”

The Conservative Party understand the importance of retaining village schools.
The new Conservative Party Green Paper “ Rural Action” states
“ Village residents prize their local school but hundreds have been closed in recent years under Government guidance which favours shutting schools with empty desks. This has served to undermine the sustainability of villages, increase travel costs and place pressure on parents to relocate to be within proximity of an alternative.
…..“We will scrap limits on surplus places so that small schools can prosper and new ones can open where parents, not Whitehall, want them.”

None of this has been taken into account by the Conservative lead Isle of Wight Council when deciding to close our school, only the pupil numbers!

We have tried to engage the Isle of Wight Council in meaningful consultation to find a way forward. We are confident that there are opportunities to reduce the expenditure and gain new income streams, and thereby retain the school on a much more economically viable footing. None of this has ever been explored by the Council.

To date all the letters written by villagers to the Isle of Wight Council Schools Re-organisation Project Manager have gone unanswered.

Why does the Isle of Wight Council continue to treat the villagers of Chale with such contempt? Why have they not consulted the community of Chale over such an important issue. Steve Beynon, Chief Executive of the IWC has publicly confirmed that no consultation has taken place because the decision to close the school has already been taken. Chale school cannot meet their criterion of a minimum of 200 pupils, so will close regardless of any implications for Chale.
This is in direct breach of the statutory guidelines laid down by Parliament to ensure that village life is not put at risk.

This is also a complete contradiction of the Isle of Wight Council’s own Eco Island green initiative. The ideal model for the Island is a reduction in school transport, people working close to their homes rather than commuting, and using local services rather than travelling to Newport to do so. A community that is as much as possible, self-sufficient. This is a good description of Chale currently, but for how much longer?

Good news is that letters from villagers and supporters to the Bishop of Portsmouth has resulted in changing the minds of the Diocesan officials, who are now in support of federation, to try to save Chale Primary School. We are grateful for their support and offers of help.

We now have just a couple of weeks left to convince the Isle of Wight Council that closing Chale School is entirely the wrong thing to do. We have the support of the following people and organisations:

Andrew Turner MP
Cllr. William Rees- Millington
The Country Land and Business Association
The Small Schools Association
Chale Parish Council
Chale Village Partnership
The Rural Community Council

We cannot all be wrong in recognising the importance of retaining Chale Primary School to the benefit of the children and community of Chale.

We hope that we will be successful in changing the minds of the Isle of Wight Council through the letters that have been sent, and continue to be sent. The Board of Governors of Chale Primary School are also working hard to convince them that there is a future for the school as the heart of the village, and that all it takes is commonsense and a will to succeed, rather than implementing a “one size fits all” policy. In this way we will be able to avoid a legal challenge to the way in which the Council have breached statutory guidelines and ignored clearly defined process. The amount of taxpayer’s money that would be wasted would probably far outweigh any possible savings from closing the school. Watch this space.