Give Abbeydale Grange a chance

27th July 2009

The Greens have called on the Council to give Abbeydale Grange School more time to improve instead of being forced to close. The Greens want the LibDem administration to support the school for the same reasons that they campaigned to keep Wisewood School open, saying that they were responding to the wishes of local people and that they valued community schools.

Cllr Creasy said "Abbeydale Grange has the potential to be an excellent school serving the needs of the local community. It needs time and support for the Ofsted measures to work, not threats of closure. A petition of over a thousand signatures has been submitted to the Council to keep the school open, and Green Cllrs are supporting this grass roots campaign."

Last year the school fell below central government targets for GCSE results and was entered into the "national challenge" programme. In February of this year, it was put into "special measures" following an Ofsted report.

Green Councillor Jillian Creasy said, "The pastoral care at Abbeydale Grange is exceptionally good and the number of children going on to higher education, including top universities, is high. National challenge status and special measures automatically provide processes and extra resources to turn things round.

"We have met the new interim head and the chair of governors who are confident that the school is improving fast and expect this to be reflected in GCSE results this year and next. Their assessment was confirmed by council officers who visited a couple of weeks ago to monitor progress."

ENDS

Notice Of Motion Given By Councillor Robert Murphy

That this Council:-

(a) notes the petition of over 1000 signatures in support of Abbeydale
Grange School, submitted to Full Council on 1st July, 2009 and Cabinet on 8th
July, 2009;

(b) notes the decision of the Cabinet on the 10th June, 2009 to seek a
school to form a ‘Hard Federation’ with Abbeydale Grange and then the decision
on 8th of July to consult on closure of the School;

(c) notes that no incentive was offered to schools invited to consider
the ‘Hard Federation and that the short timescale meant that Abbeydale Grange
School had no time to prepare a prospectus or properly involve the wider school
community before a decision was reached by the schools approached;

(d) believes that the use of the phrase "failing school" in the media is
unsupportable and incorrect given that special measures have only just been
instituted and that progress is already being made and is concerned the use of
this phrase has impacted on the process of seeking a ‘Hard Federation’;

(e) thanks the parents and pupils of Abbeydale Grange for campaigning to
save their local school and is fully mindful of the disruption that has been
caused to students, parents and staff by the review process, particularly the
decision to consult on closure;

(f) notes that closure of Abbeydale Grange will have a negative impact
on public services and roads due to surrounding communities having to bus or
drive their children to schools further afield and will remove the possibility
of a thriving community school that could take many pupils who currently
commute to more distant schools;

(g) believes that the opportunities for transfer of students to the
surrounding schools: High Storrs, King Ecgberts, Silverdale and Tapton is
limited, especially given that these schools are all oversubscribed and that
pupil numbers are expected to increase in the Abbeydale Grange area from
2013/14;

(h) requests that the impact of new arrivals on attainment at the School
is fully assessed as part of measuring the performance of Abbeydale Grange
School;

(i) notes the recommendation of the report to Cabinet of 10th June,
2009
that there should be a ‘clear expectation on all secondary schools to cater
inclusively for their local children including new arrivals’ but recognise that
it will take time to build capacity in many schools so that this will happen
and that Abbeydale Grange School has a lot of expertise to offer. Recognises
that if this should happen in parallel with improvements being made at
Abbeydale Grange, the school will begin to attract a higher proportion of
children from its local area.

(j) notes the comments of the Leader of the Council that “Real
consultation is putting forward a number of options, sharing ideas and having
an open mind”, and is therefore disappointed that despite a ‘Soft Federation’
being recommended by the Advisory Group and interest being shown from other
schools, this option has not been pursued and requests that all options,
including ‘Soft Federation’, are fully explored in the next phase of the
process;

(k) believes that whilst a “commitment to improvement” was thought to be
the main advantage of a ‘Hard Federation’, such a commitment has already been
demonstrated through the improvement in performance reported by the HMI Ofsted
Interim inspection conducted on the 1st and 2nd July and the recent local
authority review which noted that ‘The school has begun to make the changes
that will deliver sustainable improvements in the months and years to come’.

(l) notes that the school has also been successfully piloting the new
14-19 diplomas which will need to be available to all students by 2013 and that
Sheffield may benefit from Abbeydale Grange making this offer in the South West
of the City;

(m) believes that the closure of the School would be an admission of
failure by the Local Authority;

(n) believes any consultation should re-examine all possible scenarios,
including ‘Soft Federation’ and the status quo, especially in the light of
forthcoming GCSE results that are expected to have shown improvements; and

(o) therefore asks the Cabinet to consider the option of ‘Soft
Federation’
with other Sheffield schools, retaining the possibility of a position of status
quo pending verification of the effects of special measures.

.