Current system "isn't working the way we want financially or educationally"

Wednesday 08 January 2020

Senior figures in Education have tried to ease douzeniers' concerns over their school transformation plans during a mammoth three hour presentation.

Education President Matt Fallaize and Headteachers Liz Coffey and Vicky Godley spoke passionately of their plans in an effort to get parish representatives on side ahead of the potentially revolutionary changes to local education, during last night's meeting.

Talk has centred in recent weeks on the traffic nightmare that many douzaines fear will become a reality if the Les Beaucamps and St Sampson's sites have to accommodate up to 1,400 students in the future.

Surveys suggesting that teachers are not fully on board with the proposals have encouraged political opponents of the project to say that education should be an election issue again this year. 

Deputy Fallaize said they understand why teaching staff and the community as a whole had uncertainty, but said his committee's proposals were just one of a dozen or ways you could re-organise local education.

"That means if you chase public or professional consensus you will go around in circles because it doesn't exist."

Pictured: Deputy Matt Fallaize, President of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture. 

"There is understandably some professional uncertainty over where teachers will be teaching and what their job roles will look like in the future, but we are doing lots of work with the unions on that at the moment," he said.

One thing model will achieve, he and Ms Coffey explained, was equality of opportunity across all mainstream education, the widest range of available subjects and greater professional expertise in each college compared to spreading resources across three or four sites. 

Educational outcomes and the children themselves "will be at the forefront" and class sizes will not exceed 24 pupils, Ms Coffey said. 

"We cannot stay where we are now - it isn't working the way we want it to financially or educationally and we have to change the paradigm," she said. 

The Executive Headteacher said they were already two years into a five or six year transition to a new model of education, with children already being assigned to schools based on the new catchment areas.

"You cannot pause now - you cannot pause a child moving from one year into the next and moving through their education."

One douzenier applauded their enthusiasm, which had "converted" him, but could not overlook the many calls he had received from "irate parishioners" who were in despair over their plans. He was one of many to voice this concern, saying that no-one believed that the road network could cope with two such large schools.

Another pointed out that Education wanted to more than double the number of pupils at Les Beaucamps - a 660 capacity school - without increasing the footprint of the site. 

Another said there had been a lack of communication all the way through the process, and feared that the concerns expressed by parish representatives would amount to nothing. 

"You hear what you want to hear, and only what you want to hear," he said, to murmurs of approval from others in the room.

There will be further talks with douzaines in the days to come. 

Pictured top: Douzeniers look at the plans after last night's presentation.