A HEADTEACHER has pleaded with Powys County Council (PCC) to think again before carrying out wholesale closures of the county’s small schools.
John Parkinson is the headteacher at Llangedwyn Primary School. Currently home to 30 pupils (with the role expected to fall by four for next year), the school is on Powys County Council’s hit-list of 22 primary school’s facing reviews of their future viability.
After 13 years in charge of the school Mr Parkinson will be retiring in May this year.
However, as he prepares for retirement Mr Parkinson is fearful for the future of not only Llangedwyn’s primary school but small schools and communities across Powys.
Mr Parkinson has previously worked as a headteacher at the largest primary school in Leicester, a school which catered for around 650 pupils, giving him the perspective to judge the benefits and drawbacks of both big and small primary schools.
He is in no doubt that the geographical nature of Powys means small schools are a vital part of the social fabric of what is a unique sparsely populated rural county.
He said: “Fundamentally this is a financial short term view. Schools are inextricably linked to the community and I think if they had a wider vision in County Hall then they would take into account the impact these closures would have on villages.
They are not looking at what is going to happen 10 years down the line.
“They don’t just provide an education, they’re the heartbeat of communities. I think there’s a misconception that big is efficient and cost effective which may be true of a commodity based business but when you are talking about human beings the analogy falls down.”
Mr Parkinson says his experience of both large and small schools has shown him the advantages of smaller schools in providing a rounded education.
He said: “I think there’s a misconception that large schools perform better and it’s a puzzle to me where this comes from. If you look at Estyn reports it’s clear that small schools perform equally well. We don’t have disaffected pupils, we have just got children who feel cared about and are valued and have an identity and that’s the nub of what we do in a small school.”
Mr Parkinson said PCC needs to look at other ways of saving money. He highlighted an incident when he tried to purchase six chairs for the staff room.
He had identified models from a well known furniture retailer which would have cost £80 each. However when he asked PCC for approval to purchase the chairs he was told he would have to buy them from a council approved supplier at a cost of an extra £1,300.
He also tells of PCC produced ‘travel plans’ for staff members, which said one member of staff who only lived a mile from the school should in fact travel past the school, catch a bus to another town before catching another bus back to the school.
Mr Parkinson said that Powys’ councillors need to support communities which are facing a huge threat to their future.
He said: “If I look at the elected members of Powys and representing what I or the community want, there’s a huge disparity there and I think the county councillors going along with these wholesale closures are not in line with rate payers of Powys. Once they make this decision it’s irreversible and what you are going to lose is irretrievable.”