Sixth form centre will remain part of Les Ozouets education campus

Friday 20 October 2023

Deputies have just backed keeping a standalone sixth form centre as part of Education’s wider post-16 plans at Les Ozouets alongside the new Guernsey Institute, but funding for that scheme remains uncertain as debate rolls on.

Education successfully batted off an attempt to stop any works on the proposed new sixth form centre, while allowing the rest of the development to continue, and relocating sixth formers to Les Varendes, formerly the Grammar School.

Deputies Aidan Matthews and Peter Roffey, who brought the challenge to the States today, sold it as a backstop which would prevent sixth form studies being temporarily moved to the dilapidated La Mare De Carterert High School in the event the States chose not to proceed with the entire transformation project.

Education plan to move these students to La Mare in the meantime while they await a contractor and the completion of Les Ozouets.

While they convinced 16 deputies that would be a preferred approach, 22 disagreed and quashed the amendment with tempers rising throughout debate.

Pictured: Deputies Aidan Matthews and Peter Roffey.

Deputy Matthews said students and parents were nervous about the plans the temporary relocation to La Mare. Teachers he had spoken to thought the idea was “an absolute anathema”. 

Staff turnover in secondary schools between 2020 and 2021 was around 20%, much higher than English levels, and represented teachers being “brow beat and fed up”, he added. 

Keeping sixth form studies at Les Varendes permanently could result in a saving of up to £10m or could cost nearly £3m in worst case estimates, given that changes would be needed to accommodate a higher number of students. It would nevertheless result in a better education system for children, and please parents and teachers, Deputy Matthews concluded. 

“There is an alternative.”

Deputy Victoria Oliver was applauded after her speech where she angrily expressed her dislike of the amendment which she labelled “absolutely flabbergasting.

“We’ve got to stop; we’ve got to make a decision… not once have I heard about the children. All I hear about is the buildings.”

She said further delays and uncertainty was “gambling with children’s education and the future workforce”. However, she went on to vote in favour of the amendment, but later explained in a special statement to the States this was an accident.

Pictured: Planning permission was given for the campus in July 2022.

Education member Deputy Andy Cameron, who doesn’t support the rest of the Committee’s plans for post-16 education, warned that a two-year stay for sixth form centre at La Mare could become much longer.

He said St Peter Port school was only supposed to be used as a “two-year stop gap” for the College of Further Education but is still in use more than a decade later. Using La Mare in the same way would be “gambling with children” too.

Deputy Cameron rejected suggestions that Education hasn’t had time to properly consider the implications of keeping an 11-18 school, saying he has “bounced it off officers and deputies for two years”.

He added that around 450 metres squared of additional teaching space is required for students at Les Varendes which could be provided through the defunct swimming pool area if an mezzanine level is added. This could be cheaper than the overall capital expenditure and ongoing revenue costs required at La Mare, he said. 

A difficulty cited with removing the sixth form from the Les Ozouets plans were planning permission had already been granted for a larger site which may cause an additional one-year delay and cost £7m. Another concern was that there would be far too many parking spaces allocated at the site without the standalone centre.

Deputy Cameron said the extra parking and facilities should be retained as a contingency, for example in case more adults choose to take vocational courses in future.

Education Vice-President Deputy Sam Haskins rejected that and suggestions using Les Varendes would be cheaper in the long-term. He said the amendment was a “clutching at straws” attempt to rehash debates over the education system.

Pictured: Work to demolish the existing buildings was days away until RG Falla Ltd collapsed. 

Deputy Peter Roffey, the amendments seconder, said the danger of borrowing huge sums for projects without a guaranteed income stream to service the debt was “too high”.

He didn’t want to see the brakes put on the Guernsey Institute but said the decision of the States at the end of the whole debate would probably see the whole project paused anyway.

Deleting parking spaces from the original plans should be easy, he added: “Surely the officers of ESC and the DPA can meet and with a felt tip pen delete 40 parking spaces without it costing £7m and a year’s delay – if not then really, what has happened to the government of this island?”

Deputy Yvonne Burford quoted from an anonymous letter purportedly from a teacher reporting that staff are leaving secondary state education because of the model itself and the timetable requirements that would see them travelling between sites lesson-to-lesson. 

But Deputy Simon Fairclough noted he had spoken to senior educationalists at a presentation who assured him that changing direction for post-16 studies now would be “catastrophic” to the recruitment and retention of staff.

How they voted:

Pour: Burford, Bury, Cameron, De Lisle, De Sausmarez, Falla, Gabriel, Matthews, Oliver, Parkinson, Queripel, Roffey, Soulsby, St Pier, Taylor, Trott.

Contre: Aldwell, Blin, Dudley-Owen, Dyke, Fairclough, Ferbrache, Gollop, Haskins, Helyar, Inder, Kazantseva-Miller, Le Tocq, Leadbeater, Mahoney, McKenna, Meerveld, Moakes, Murray, Prow, Roberts, Snowdon, Vermeulen.

Ne vote pas: Brouard, Le Tissier.