Rural Development Sub-Committee

Inquiry into Reorganisation of Schools in Rural Wales

Response from Ysgol Gynradd Rhiwlas

29^th June 2008

Note

This document has been drawn up by Dr Alexandra Plows, Ysgol Rhiwlas School Governor, on behalf of Ysgol Rhiwlas and its stakeholders, in consultation with Ysgol Rhiwlas head teacher Mrs Eluned Davies and the school governing body. I am a qualified sociologist with expertise in Welsh rurality issues, public engagement policy processes, and sustainable development. This document also incorporates my analysis (accrued via participant observation) of local peoples’ and local parents’ responses to Gwynedd Councils’ plans for schools "reorganisation” and the threatened closure of local village schools and specifically the threatened closure of Ysgol Rhiwlas, during 2007/8.

Public Engagement Processes

The general public and affected stakeholders have to date been badly served by the processes of public consultation accruing to local schools closure and broader background of a long term "crisis in the countryside” in relation to community sustainability (economy, housing etc), population demographics, and potential policies and strategies for change within Gwynedd/ rural Wales. The Gwynedd Council schools "reorganisation” consultation of Jan 2008 was poorly advertised and distributed, and there are significant criticisms to be made in terms of both the process of the document (its remit) and the content of the document (specifics of the way questions were framed). The consultation process fell very far short of UK Gov "best practice” guidelines on several counts. Despite such difficulties, the overwhelming public response to the consultation document was to demonstrate opposition to schools closure and the reorganisation package on offer, and to clearly identify a broader issue of challenges facing rural Wales and specifically Gwynedd, clearly stating that to close local schools would be to exacerbate these problems, and that local schools were essential to the long term sustainable survival of village communities. This clear message and the associated reorganisation of council membership following the elections in May 2008 have seen Gwynedd Council respond positively to this challenge (see minutes of Gwynedd council meeting 19^th June 2008).

The WAG Rural Development Sub- Committee consultation/inquiry to which this document is a response is a welcome opportunity to consider this ongoing analysis of how best to sustain communities in rural areas and the role of local schools, and one would hope that the initiators of this inquiry are also proactively seeking evidence and input from the findings of the Gwynedd Council schools consultation and the subsequently ongoing debate within Gwynedd Council and the new working group set up to re evaluate the issue of education and broader questions of community sustainability within Gwynedd. However it should be noted that this Rural Development Sub-Committee inquiry has not been particularly well publicised (acknowledging however that this has been a short inquiry rather than a public consultation). The governors of Ysgol Rhiwlas were only made aware of the existence of this consultation on June 19^th by an indirect route, to which this document is a rapid response. We trust that subsequent public consultations will be more proactive in line with existing UK Gov guidelines for best practice in relation to public consultations and the identification and involvement of core stakeholders.

A further comment is that the excellent response to this consultation by Powys Community Schools Action is one which Ysgol Rhiwlas wholeheartedly supports and endorses.

Ysgol Rhiwlas

Ysgol Rhiwlas is a relatively small size, thriving and successful school. The children who attend Ysgol Rhiwlas are happy, confident and well cared for and benefit enormously from the nurturing, family atmosphere of a small school which is at the heart of their community, and where each child is well known and has the opportunity to shine and to develop their potential. Anecdotal evidence from teachers and the children themselves demonstrates that mixed- age classes provides significant benefits to the children in terms of sociability and in learning through interaction with each other. Ysgol Rhiwlas has achieved consistently high academic standards at key stage one and two, and there is thus plenty of evidence, both narrative and statistical, to demonstrate its capacity and that the children are thriving there both in terms of academic achievements and the attainment of personal life skills/ citizenship including confidence and happiness. It might be noted that such indicators of achievement and success have not been incorporated into any previous criteria for evaluating the schools’ performance or Gwynedd Council’s previous (now hopefully withdrawn) threat of school closure. The children are able to walk to school which is good for their health; they are further aware that walking to school is an environmental benefit and that having to be driven to school out of the village would increase CO2 levels. The children are extremely committed to developing the "green school” status of their school as an asset in the local community and for broader environmental goals (see sections below for more comments on sustainable development and the role played by local village schools and Ysgol Rhiwlas in particular).

In recent consultations, much has been made generally of "old school buildings” as if these buildings were a problem. Ysgol Rhiwlas’ school buildings are an important asset. The school is a classic Welsh stone construction, extremely solid and well maintained. It has withstood the climate for well over a century and its stone construction further contributes to energy efficiency as stone is an unparalleled insulator. The buildings can be easily made more energy efficient through further insulation.

Ysgol Rhiwlas and Village Life

Ysgol Rhiwlas is at the heart of the village community and life. Rhiwlas is poorly served as a village, having no shop, post office, or pub, and no broadband. The school’s role as a community asset is thus even more crucial to any sense of community belonging, interaction, and village life. It is one of the few spaces where young and old people are able to come together, through events such as school fairs, end of term concerts, and initiatives such as a recent event where senior citizens in the village came to have lunch with the children at the school, and a recent school newsletter produced by the children and distributed around the village. Both staff and children are extremely aware and increasingly proactive about the role the school does and can play in sustaining and improving village community life. They proactively work at contributing to its community role through, for example, enabling interaction between generations, sustaining and promoting the Welsh language and cultural life, and also acting as a "green school”, setting an example and providing resources such as a recent initiative for clothes recycling and composting, enabling villagers to be involved in the school, take part in green initiatives, and reducing waste and hence the village’s "ecological footprint”.

The school is a village asset and to reiterate is practically the only village asset and is a core reason why couples with young children might choose to stay in the village or move to the village. The broader issues of population decline in rural Wales, and associated knock- on effects, can only be addressed through better resourcing of the few assets this village has left, as well as addressing other needs such as employment and housing. It is evident that a thriving school is an asset which would attract young couples to the village, and provide an incentive for young people and Welsh speakers to stay in the area, especially if the school is proactively seen and supported as a resource which provides multiple benefits in the local community and economy (which are currently not well identified or appreciated by the relevant authorities). Conversely, if the school were to close, there would be an adverse long term impact on population demographics and community sustainability, exacerbating current trends. This micro level analysis also impacts at the regional level; long term rural sustainability must focus on shoring up resources at the local community level. Whatever resources and increased funding are required by the school to maintain and develop it and support staff and pupils would be an investment in the long term future of the village and of rural Gwynedd and an important contribution to the aims of WAG in many linked arenas of policy and strategy. Taken together it can be clearly seen that local schools being kept open in rural villages generally, and the role of Ysgol Rhiwlas specifically, is intrinsic to identified WAG sustainable development criteria and long term aims and objectives

Sustainable Development (SD)

Wales has a constitutional commitment to Sustainable Development. (1) The above evidence has clearly demonstrated that maintenance of local schools in local villages is intrinsic to sustainable communities and to Sustainable Development goals. In fact, to put this another way, the closure of local village schools could be legally argued to contravene WAG’s constitutional commitment to Sustainable Development (SD). WAG has policies, strategies, aims and objectives across numerous fields, from Welsh language provision to community development to economic regeneration, and an SD approach is a means of ensuring that "joined up thinking” enables these targets to be achieved through a coherent strategic approach. Such a lateral, strategic, approach would thus see an analysis of the existing contribution of local schools to WAG SD aims and objectives. For example, the contribution that local schools already make to reducing Wales’ carbon footprint (where children are walking to school) could actually be calculated. Conversely, the environmental impact of driving children to school out of the village even by bus would mean an increase in Wales’ carbon footprint. Parents would inevitably have to drive children to and from school out of the village even if there was a bus (eg if their child was ill and had to be taken home) and these journeys would not only increase CO2 levels but would also, (especially in the context of rising fuel prices) hit the poorest hardest. Local schools such as Ysgol Rhiwlas also make a (currently unacknowledged and unquantified) contribution to health targets in relation to childhood obesity and the necessity of exercise, by enabling children to walk to school. Obviously such achievements would disappear if local schools were to close. Further, the children and staff at Ysgol Rhiwlas are extremely committed to the "green school” status of their school and carry out a range of energy and resource saving initiatives, and the children are thus not only learning about environmental and citizenship issues essential to their education and development as 21^st century citizens, but are also actively making a contribution to WAG SD policies targets through their activities. To reiterate, the very existence of a local village school is an important contribution to sustainability.

These examples provide just some indications out of many possible examples, of how local schools, and here specifically Ysgol Rhiwlas, are contributing to important WAG policies in multiple arenas and are not having this contribution acknowledged both in terms of how they are helping WAG achieve national targets or why it is essential to keep schools open in rural communities and the multiple roles which village schools perform. Further to this, there has been absolutely no assessment in recent consultations of the informal social networks which exist between the school and parents, and between parents and other villagers, in terms of mutual support networks where for example, parents running late can rely on each other to look after children at short notice and so on. Such networks work best at the local level and would dissolve if the school were to close, taking away a valuable support network for parents and further eroding the sense of community cohesion which is an intrinsic part of village life. Such resources, networks and impacts are relatively invisible and only surface during well constructed (academic) research. There has been relatively little research done which accurately defines and assesses the contribution of local schools to rural village community life and to broader national policy targets, still less what would be the impact of the removal of such resources, and it is recommended that such research is undertaken.

The bullet points below summarise many of the points made in this document. These bullet points indicate key issues raised in this document but are not a definitive list and rather a means of reiterating examples in a summarised fashion.

Positive reasons the school contributes to SD goals

SD goals defined as cross- cutting, mutually reinforcing targets and policies across different social, economic and environmental criteria: (summarised here and detailed throughout)

Youth policies, citizenship skills (encouraging the children to take part in village life and vice versa)
Educational excellence
Community sustainability and cohesion strategies (multiple examples given in this document, eg resources for the elderly)
Environmental benefits- such as walking to school, and the "green school” initiatives developed by the school itself (reducing the schools’, and the villages’, ecological footprint through energy saving measures, recycling etc)
Language provision and sustainability
Tackling long term demographic problems/ Population decline
Economic regeneration through community sustainability and micro finance, ( an often overlooked contribution to the local economy, such as raising and saving money through school- based community initiatives)

Reasons why closing the school would have a detrimental effect on rural village life and WAG SD aims summarised here in bullet points, see throughout this document for the detail

Green costs/impacts
Social costs/impacts
Health costs/ impacts
Long term population impacts (no resources means further population drift out of the area)
Decline in village community life- schools closure is a nail in the coffin of the community.

Thank you for your attention

Dr Alexandra Plows, School Governor, on behalf of Ysgol Rhiwlas, 29^th June 2007.

Footnote (1):
http://wales.gov.uk/news/archivepress/environmentpress/enviropress2004/707651/?lang=en