A Declaration for Life

We declare our belief in a responsible Society; where
we can live in peace, each striving to achieve our own
personal goals without interference from others and
without interfering with the ability of others to do
the same.

Exercising tolerance and understanding in our dealing
with others, accepting that we are equal members of
the one Society regardless of age, status, sex, wealth,
nationality, religion, race, ability, disability or any
other differences.

We accept responsibility to our Society and for our own
actions/ omissions, and we will encourage others to do
the same through our example, in the knowledge that
the best way to help ourselves is to help others.

Affording to others the same rights and privileges that
we seek for ourselves; undertaking at all times to treat
others as we wish them to treat us; accepting that we
are all responsible in some way for what takes place
in our Society, whether through what we have done
or what we have failed to do.

Dear Community,

We are sorry to say insufficient numbers of parents have registered their children for places at the free school proposed at Ingleton and as a consequence we are withdrawing our proposal.

The closing of the school in July will bring to an end a tradition of education in this community that started in Blue Hall towards the end of the nineteenth century and lasted for more than a hundred years. I fear for the future. What we have witnessed over the past eighteen months is undoubtedly a rounding down of provision. The justification for this action has been based on poorly researched and cynically presented evidence and taken place amid noisy reassurances from those that stand most to gain that it will all be alright in the end. Well there is no evidence and no reason to believe that it will be alright and those that will suffer will be those we should care for most.

Things can only get better if learning experiences and outcomes improve and I see no evidence or reason to believe that it will be so. Evidence shows a dip in attainment when pupils move from the middle schools to the high school, it is counter intuitive therefore to close the schools where the children have been shown to thrive and extend their stay at those which have shown themselves to be less effective.  It may well be that those Headteachers and people responsible for the decision wish that things will improve but good schools don’t just arrive and they especially don’t arrive out of a situation which forces parents into a situation against their wishes as has happened here. Responses to the counties consultation overwhelmingly rejected the proposals they are now putting into place.

Schools thrive if the educational vision of the school is enlightened and appropriate and if they enjoy the support of the parent body. What I see is more and yet more of the same. I see schools with regressive educational philosophies and discredited improvement strategies based on the principles of discipline, conformity, selection and tightly defined academic goals. Ofsted warns against the practice of teaching to exams pointing out that where teaching is concentrated on the acquisition of qualifications students are generally good at passing those exams but are not adequately provided with the skills they need for later life yet that is common practice.

It was to fill this void that we proposed to establish the free school. The purpose has been to create a school that engendered creative, confident, problem solving young people, a school that put the pupil and their learning experience at the centre of its purpose, a school where the delight in learning is fundamental. Because the school would now be owned by the community rather than the county we would also be in the position to use the facility to create a hub for lifelong learning for the whole community and a catalyst for rural regeneration in North Craven.

This is an inspirational vision and had it been successful it would have guaranteed funding from central government but, as I explained, the timetable and the conditions for securing an application have been very tight and the most demanding condition has been to show sufficient parental support for the proposal by 24th February 2012. To this end we have held a series of public meetings but regrettably have been unable to achieve the support necessary. As a consequence I am very sorry to have to say that we have been unable to complete the application and therefore will not be able to start a school on this site, as we had planned, in September 2013.

Though we did not have sufficient numbers to make the application, there are many who recognise and share the vision of learning that we proposed and who will now most share our regret that we have been unable to bring it into being. It is a great sadness that these people have no way of achieving the education they wish for their children without moving them out of the area completely or paying for them to go to schools in the private sector.