9:00am Thursday 9th July 2009
THE future for the county’s smallest schools as rolls and funding fall has been passed to Herefordshire Council’s cabinet with calls for it to show “strong leadership” in seeking a solution.
Herefordshire Schools Forum this week was told that current funding arrangements would not be possible in future without serious impact on the quality of education in the county.
The forum acknowledged the scale of the falling rolls and funding – as outlined in the Hereford Times last week – and resolved to ask the cabinet to clarify what could be done in the coming financial year.
An independent report to the forum suggested the process “could be assisted” by cutting the current protection for s m a l l s c h o o l s a n d channelling the money i n t o s u p p o r t f o r t h e remaining schools.
Dr Sharon Menghini, director of children’s services, stressed that the issue was not about making savings but redistributing a reducing budget into a system already “creaking at the edges”. Nigel Griffiths, forum member and head of Rosson- Wye’s John Kyrle High School, said that the circumstances called for “very strong leadership”.
Cabinet is expected to debate the issue in November.
Meantime, the agreed protection policies for small schools stay unchanged.
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