Stopping the closure of an excellent primary school

[aliinwonderland]

Hello ladies

Just wondered if anyone has any ideas of how to raise the profile of an ongoing campaign to save an excellent primary school under threat of closure in Whitchurch, North Cardiff?
The school concerned is Eglwys Newydd and it has been educating the children of Whitchurch for over 100 years.
Previous Estyn reports described it as one of the highest achieving schools in the county when weighed against socio-economic mix.
Much has been said recently about a vision of a 'big society' with communities working together to achieve a common goal, 5090 letters were sent opposing this plan and only 2 in support; is democracy dead?
There can be no guarantee that combining the children of this school with another primary in the local area will replicate the high standards of the 2 that are being combined and many believe it would take years, in fact the first minister himself came to that conclusion when deciding the fate of Landsdowne Primary School in Canton, Cardiff; he stated that the standard of provision would not improve for the children, especially in the short term, and may take 6 years.
It seems utter madness to close good schools when standards all over Wales are falling behind the rest of the UK.
Now we are planning on a Judicial review to examine the case, but in the meantime what should/could the action group do to raise greater awareness of this? Is there really a big society out there who would care about the loss of an excellent primary and the effect it will have on the community? Quite a number of friends are talking of leaving Whitchurch or even moving out of Wales altogether, I would rather stay and fight this. So, any advice greatly appreciated, how can we Save Our School?

Why is it being closed, falling numbers or ?

hi, sorry for delay in replying, have been busy with other mums trying to arrange a protest meeting at the Senedd Assembly Building, Cardiff Bay at 11am on Thursday 3 March, just to state our view that great schools should be supported, not closed!
The closure is part of Cardiff County Council school reorganisation plan, they want to spend less money on schools in Cardiff and sort out a surplus capacity problem. Despite the school being 90% full (within Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) reccommendations) they argue that some children are out of catchement. However they are local children in the real sense of the word, the vast majority living within 1.5 miles of the school. My child lives within a 10 minute walk to Eglwys Newydd and a 15 minute walk to another primary school, yet he is 'in catchment' for a different primary a 30 minute walk away.

On close scrutiny, the figures don't justify risking 2 successful schools when so many are lagging behind the rest of the UK.

The whole saga has dragged on for years, with previous proposals (options 1,2 and 3) having been fought over and eventually rejected. Now that the WAG have given this option their approval, many people feel they don't know how to continue to oppose this, hence my question, does anyone have any ideas on how to save a school?

Wales has an education system that spends £527 less per child per year than England and a Government that santions closure of successful schools.

Was it The White Rabbit in Wonderland who stated 'Most everyone's mad here!'?
I know how he feels, any ideas, anyone?

Bumping this as I have no ideas myself but there must be others out there who have been through something similar.

The people in charge of these things simply look at the cost and they see it not as a school as such but as expenditure and return so if you want to fight them the best way to do it is with numbers. Get all the info you can about the amount of money that is spent on the school and then one they are looking to combine it with, try and get what the projected costs of running the new combined school (including things like would a new site need to be built, if they would be having the one larger school on an existing site what kind of costs would be involved in making it able to cope with the greater number of pupils).
Once you have the numbers you can try and work out a way of using them in your favour, try and come up with ways that money can be saved on the running of the two existing schools that make it a better prospect of keeping them separate, look at building costs and maintaining the existing buildings.
I know your focus is on your school but look at the other school involved as well, what to the parents of that school think, are they in favour of the schools being closed and creating one new larger school or are they like you, wanting to save their community school? If they are wanting to save their school work with them to present your case.
This business of some children in the school not being from the set catchment area is rubbish, it doesn't mater where the children are coming from as long as the school is filling it's places.
I wish you all the luck in the world with this, I am very much in favour of small community schools rather then huge schools that while they may perform well can lose that community feel.
My dd (and later my ds) goes to our lovely small village school, it is an outstanding in all areas school with excellent SAT results but the most important thing about the school is that it is a community and part of the larger community, there are 20 places in each year group, the children all know each other, the teachers know every child in the school. The headteacher knows every childs name, their parents name, their siblings name, she knows about all aspects of each child in the schools education and pastoral care, it is these things that make it the school I am delighted to send my child to and want to send my son to and I imagine it is this kind of thing that makes you want to keep your school as it is, all the best and I hope your fight is successful.