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It was one of the few ways that the Local Education Authority could save money; one cannot spend money twice (which I have found out from my own personal experience), and so that council tax recipients didn't have to pay much for local services, and therefore wincing Garnett-alike pensioners didn't waste too many sheets of Basildon Bond and correspond to their local newspaper's Letters to the Editor page, and making a change from moaning about dog faeces on local pavements of the cost of the TV licence. The county councillors made the decisions, but alas, they had no direct connection with the school such as teaching Mathematics or sweeping up the classroom floors literally at the end of the school day, and they were certainly not pupils there either; the closest they probably had with any school was to sit as an LEA governor. This "arm's length" approach made them just a bit too much on the safe side. Too many surplus places in some comprehensive schools, some were two thirds empty which meant that the local council had to put one of them out of their misery; there were some primary schools which had more pupils on roll. It happened to Grange Hill in 1984; the lower-social scale mixed Brookdale and the elite boys' Rodney Bennett (named after a BBC film director) was to merge into the new Hill in time for the 1985 series, and I assumed that it was all because Maurice Bronson wouldn't existed had it had not taken place. "Small is beautiful" as Samuel Maguire's mother mentioned in a conversation with Bridget McClusky. Even Allan Ahlberg satirised the closure of small schools in his children's book Mr Tick the Teacher - but the Ticks had won in the end.
As I hated comprehensive school myself, I thought that it was poetic justice that the school had closed down just over a year after I took "voluntary redundancy" myself - i.e. I had refused to come back after being bullied both inside and outside the place; and youngsters pretended not to tell the difference between a fellow human being's face and a punchbag. Reading old copies of my local newspaper on the BNA website, incidentally from the same year that I had left, I was amazed how "shocked and upset" the pupils (as quoted) was at the school facing closure - I have to say that they would not be adjectives that I would use if I was giving my own personal opinion: "good" and "riddance" would probably be two words that I would have used had I have been Vox-popped at the time. Yes, I had the time of my life there... if I wanted to dress up my stint at that school and make it sound so beneficial. One could obviously understand about the staff being upset about the closure for their jobs were at risk - climbing the Mount Everest of teacher training: university; PGCEs; and then what? - the Job Centre or the Times Educational Supplement at least? By the time that the school gates had closed for the final time in July 1995, and that the acting Head had hung up her - chalk? - most of them had got new jobs or had taken early retirement, no skin off any academic's nose - one or two were planning to leave or retire at the end of the academic year anyway. Even the Headteacher had got a new job at another school in the New Year and so that her job was safe, leaving one of her remaining Deputies in charge - a feel of "washing one's hands of the situation" seems more than apparent, and so I did I just a few months before.
Reading the letters page of my local newspaper, I counted at least seven different members of teaching staff at my school; all were familiar names to me, albeit incognito under the titles of Mr, Mrs, or Miss while I was there - one of them made a point that closing a school in the community due to a lack of pupils on roll was exactly like closing a medical centre because no one longer got ill (what an ideal world that would be), or closing a church due to a lack of Christians in the local vicinity. The school was supposed to merge with one which was two miles away, and as this is not the United States with yellow buses shipping youngsters from home to school five days a week (or rural areas or villages where something like this would more like to happen if the local county council had anything to do with it), points were made about no direct bus service to the next school and having to cross three main roads, taking 45 minutes to get there, which would have been even worse during the cold, dark and foggy months of winter. The council was alleged to save up to 300,000 pounds on closing the school down - the then equivalent of one pound for every person in the City area. The irony was that most of the teaching staff who contributed to the local media did not live in the catchment area of the school and had lived several miles away in the suburbs or even villages, but if and when the school had closed down, they had a chance to find another teaching job or even opt out and go for an entirely different career overall. Many years before that, one teacher had not only left the school but had left teaching altogether in order to enter the insurance business.
It started when there was a literal U-turn another school three miles away was threatened with closure, and they were supposed to go to my old school. However, county councillors had a change of heart and the other school was saved, leaving my school facing the axe. I had left the school three months prior to the news of the U-turn and that my school was to close, and that was over a year prior to its actual closure. Even if I had reached the end of my stint there in May, I would have been left a few weeks prior to the news breaking. My former school was on just 32% occupancy when the news was originally announced, and as a result, was probably the most expensive to maintain per pupil, hence the saving money aspect. Had it been a special school which served the needs of youngsters with learning disabilities closing down then I would probably had shed a tear as that - I know that special schools obviously do not have as many youngsters on roll as mainstream schools do, and in many ways, that is a good thing because it allows the pupils more freedom and space to be educated and to have their needs been adequately met. I was in the support department of that school even though it was mainstream, and the support was increased, usually during practical subjects like CDT but this had become a fulltime situation when I was forced against my will during the final weeks there and driven there, but not back then. Protesting against my own Human Rights as a 15 year old in early 1994 was something that I had more or less failed on back then as I wanted people such as school staff to listen to me, but nine times our of ten, I was met with deaf ears. This was a school that due to 79% of pupils missing at least one half day's school during one term, an extra Education Welfare Officer was working there, part time at least.
The school finally closed at around 3.00 pm on Tuesday 25th July 1995; a news article had appeared in the next day's local newspaper. By then, all the remaining pupils still there could fit into one classroom, which was some comparison to the schools' heyday in the 1970s when around 1,500 pupils had attended the school, and school assemblies consisted of the pupil population flooding out of the school hall, along the corridor and into the main entrance part. After the closure, the county council sold the buildings to various businesses including a college, so that it would still be involved within the educational sector; there were plans for a local builder to eventually demolish the buildings and turn them into new homes, but the plans were reversed and the school buildings were saved and are still around today. Since my school closed, I have heard of other schools in the city and county merging, closing down due to fewer pupils on roll than in previous years, while some schools have had their names changed as a result, and not because of anything to do with the slave trade. It would have been very interesting had my school had been saved and the school three miles away had merged with mine.
The school didn't do much for me as the staff had failed to protect me, but I feel that nearly 28 years since it closed its doors, I can now write and talk about what had happened back then. Personally, the closure was a mere blessing in disguise.
As I hated comprehensive school myself, I thought that it was poetic justice that the school had closed down just over a year after I took "voluntary redundancy" myself - i.e. I had refused to come back after being bullied both inside and outside the place; and youngsters pretended not to tell the difference between a fellow human being's face and a punchbag. Reading old copies of my local newspaper on the BNA website, incidentally from the same year that I had left, I was amazed how "shocked and upset" the pupils (as quoted) was at the school facing closure - I have to say that they would not be adjectives that I would use if I was giving my own personal opinion: "good" and "riddance" would probably be two words that I would have used had I have been Vox-popped at the time. Yes, I had the time of my life there... if I wanted to dress up my stint at that school and make it sound so beneficial. One could obviously understand about the staff being upset about the closure for their jobs were at risk - climbing the Mount Everest of teacher training: university; PGCEs; and then what? - the Job Centre or the Times Educational Supplement at least? By the time that the school gates had closed for the final time in July 1995, and that the acting Head had hung up her - chalk? - most of them had got new jobs or had taken early retirement, no skin off any academic's nose - one or two were planning to leave or retire at the end of the academic year anyway. Even the Headteacher had got a new job at another school in the New Year and so that her job was safe, leaving one of her remaining Deputies in charge - a feel of "washing one's hands of the situation" seems more than apparent, and so I did I just a few months before.
Reading the letters page of my local newspaper, I counted at least seven different members of teaching staff at my school; all were familiar names to me, albeit incognito under the titles of Mr, Mrs, or Miss while I was there - one of them made a point that closing a school in the community due to a lack of pupils on roll was exactly like closing a medical centre because no one longer got ill (what an ideal world that would be), or closing a church due to a lack of Christians in the local vicinity. The school was supposed to merge with one which was two miles away, and as this is not the United States with yellow buses shipping youngsters from home to school five days a week (or rural areas or villages where something like this would more like to happen if the local county council had anything to do with it), points were made about no direct bus service to the next school and having to cross three main roads, taking 45 minutes to get there, which would have been even worse during the cold, dark and foggy months of winter. The council was alleged to save up to 300,000 pounds on closing the school down - the then equivalent of one pound for every person in the City area. The irony was that most of the teaching staff who contributed to the local media did not live in the catchment area of the school and had lived several miles away in the suburbs or even villages, but if and when the school had closed down, they had a chance to find another teaching job or even opt out and go for an entirely different career overall. Many years before that, one teacher had not only left the school but had left teaching altogether in order to enter the insurance business.
It started when there was a literal U-turn another school three miles away was threatened with closure, and they were supposed to go to my old school. However, county councillors had a change of heart and the other school was saved, leaving my school facing the axe. I had left the school three months prior to the news of the U-turn and that my school was to close, and that was over a year prior to its actual closure. Even if I had reached the end of my stint there in May, I would have been left a few weeks prior to the news breaking. My former school was on just 32% occupancy when the news was originally announced, and as a result, was probably the most expensive to maintain per pupil, hence the saving money aspect. Had it been a special school which served the needs of youngsters with learning disabilities closing down then I would probably had shed a tear as that - I know that special schools obviously do not have as many youngsters on roll as mainstream schools do, and in many ways, that is a good thing because it allows the pupils more freedom and space to be educated and to have their needs been adequately met. I was in the support department of that school even though it was mainstream, and the support was increased, usually during practical subjects like CDT but this had become a fulltime situation when I was forced against my will during the final weeks there and driven there, but not back then. Protesting against my own Human Rights as a 15 year old in early 1994 was something that I had more or less failed on back then as I wanted people such as school staff to listen to me, but nine times our of ten, I was met with deaf ears. This was a school that due to 79% of pupils missing at least one half day's school during one term, an extra Education Welfare Officer was working there, part time at least.
The school finally closed at around 3.00 pm on Tuesday 25th July 1995; a news article had appeared in the next day's local newspaper. By then, all the remaining pupils still there could fit into one classroom, which was some comparison to the schools' heyday in the 1970s when around 1,500 pupils had attended the school, and school assemblies consisted of the pupil population flooding out of the school hall, along the corridor and into the main entrance part. After the closure, the county council sold the buildings to various businesses including a college, so that it would still be involved within the educational sector; there were plans for a local builder to eventually demolish the buildings and turn them into new homes, but the plans were reversed and the school buildings were saved and are still around today. Since my school closed, I have heard of other schools in the city and county merging, closing down due to fewer pupils on roll than in previous years, while some schools have had their names changed as a result, and not because of anything to do with the slave trade. It would have been very interesting had my school had been saved and the school three miles away had merged with mine.
The school didn't do much for me as the staff had failed to protect me, but I feel that nearly 28 years since it closed its doors, I can now write and talk about what had happened back then. Personally, the closure was a mere blessing in disguise.
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