Primary Schools Review in the Ruthin area - by Mohammed Mehmet, Chief Executive
One of the Council’s top priorities is to improve the educational outcomes for all children and young people in the County. We want every young person to achieve their full potential and we want every school to be able to offer the best possible environment to help achieve those outcomes. It is because of this commitment that we have seen significant improvement in Denbighshire’s schools over the past few years and it is for that reason that the Council, with support from Welsh Government, has committed to invest £90m to improve the quality of school buildings and facilities across the County.
A good education is, fundamentally, about the quality of leadership, learning and teaching and we are very focussed on those in our County. But there’s more to a good education service than that. Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that there are enough school places in their area so that no child is without a place. Equally, they have a duty to ensure there aren’t too many surplus places so that the available resources are spent on actual children rather than vacant places. Local authorities must ensure that where the quality of the school estate is poor and deteriorating then action is taken to improve that estate. We have to make sure that the funding of places is as fair as possible and that the cost of educating a child in one school is not unacceptably different from another. Leaving things as they are, when change is necessary, is a dereliction of those duties.
Furthermore, ignoring these problems would prevent a local authority from attracting capital investment because the Welsh Government, correctly, will not invest scarce resources in those local authority areas. It is in this context that the Ruthin Area Primary Schools Review is taking place.
At the start of the review in 2013, across the Ruthin area, there were 11 primary schools providing a good education and offering 1,218 places. However, the current number of children in these schools is 925 and this is projected to be no more than 952 by 2020. That means nearly one in every four places, currently provided and paid for, are surplus to what’s needed. This, in itself, is sufficient reason to reduce the number of places and the number of schools in the Ruthin area.
In addition, the state of the school buildings in the Ruthin area is unacceptable. For example, currently nearly 60% of places at Ysgol Pen Barras in Ruthin are taught in mobile classrooms. In Ysgol Carreg Emlyn, at their Clocaenog and Cyffylliog sites, and at Ysgol Llanfair there are no proper dining areas and many pupils have to have their lunch back in their classrooms. It currently costs £7,725 to educate a child in a small school like Ysgol Llanbedr compared to the average of £3,819 in a Denbighshire school.
This situation is unsustainable and needs to change. The quality of education in the Ruthin area schools is good but there are too many surplus places, the children in them deserve much better facilities, fit for the 21st century and the funding per pupil must be fairer. The right solution in Ruthin is a smaller number of primary schools, much improved buildings and facilities and a pattern of provision that meets the linguistic, faith and secular needs of its communities. That’s at the heart of what the Council is trying to achieve through its package of proposals.
The council is preparing to invest £15m to improve school provision in the Ruthin area. Denbighshire County Council had set out its detailed proposals in a public document in 2013 and we have been consulting on these proposals for the last two years. The process hasn’t been smooth and perhaps it shouldn’t be. School reviews are highly emotive and the Council should be challenged and held to account. We know that even when people agree with our analysis they might disagree with some of the specific proposals, but our residents should be assured that the Council’s only ambition, agenda and motives are to improve outcomes for every child and young person and provide sustainable schooling for the future.