Following the 15 months of campaigning about the fate of Church Lawford School – detailed here – the next step in the campaign was to consider applying for Grant Maintained Status.
The Guidelines were detailed thus, towards the end of 1994:
The rules for going GM are set out by law so we have to follow a strict procedure. Only the parents of children now at the school can decide whether the school should apply for GM status and they do this by voting in a secret ballot which the Governors are now organising through the Electoral Reform Society. Nobody else is eligible to vote, not even the Governors who are not parents of children at the school. If a majority of parents vote in favour of applying for GM status then the Governors have to make an application to the Secretary of State within a specified time. In practice, if we are going to make an application we have to get it in by Mid-December in order to fit in with the timescale for consultation on the County’s closure proposal.
This possibility was laid out in an update to Parents – after which they were invited to vote on progressing such an initiative.
The report in the first Village Magazine of 1995 provided a positive update, detailed by the Chairman of School Governors, as reproduced below:
CHURCH LAWFORD (C OF E) FIRST SCHOOL
As you will have seen in the local press the parental ballot produced a resounding vote in favour of GM status for the school.
The total number of parents who were eligible to vote was 77 and 69 of these actually voted. That is 90% of the total. 65 votes were cast in favour of GM status and only 4 votes were cast against. I could not have hoped for a stronger vote of confidence in the school and the Governing Body.
We have now published proposals for GM status. A notice appeared in the press on Thursday, 15th December and copies of the proposals were posted the same day at the entrance to the school and on the village noticeboard. Full copies of the document are also available for inspection at the school (by appointment) and at Rugby Public Library. A further copy of the proposals, together with a great deal of other supporting information, was posted to the Secretary of State for Education on Saturday, 17th December.
There will now be a statutory two month period in which anyone who wishes to lodge objections may do so. We cannot therefore expect a decision from the Secretary of State earlier than about March 1995. She will consider our GM proposal at the same time as she considers the County’s closure proposal. However, she will make a decision first on the GM proposal and, only if she rejects it, will she go on to decide on the County’s closure proposal. A small delegation of us hope to visit the Secretary of State in London before she makes her decision.
Other than that, all we can do now is to wait and pray.
Unfortunately the Secretary of State For Education – Gillian Shepherd – approved the County Proposal to close the school at the same time as refusing the application for Grant Maintained Status – as reported in the Village Magazine of September 1995:
SCHOOL CLOSURE
The news that the Secretary of State for Education has refused our application for Grant Maintained status, and approved the County’s proposal to close the school, came just too late for inclusion in the last Newsletter, and so it is now stale news.
Unfortunately there is no further appeal and nowhere else we can turn. We must now accept that our village school will close in July 1996.
Two important tasks remain. The first is for the Governors of the school: that is to ensure that the school continues to deliver the usual high standard of education right up to the day the school closes, and to ensure that the children do not suffer in any way from the trauma of the school closing. The Governors have already committed themselves to that task and we know we have the full support of the staff.
The second task involves not only the Governors but our whole community. That task is to keep the school buildings available for use by the community, so that the Playgroup, the Youth. Club, and the Mothers and Toddlers, are not lost as well as the school. That is not an impossible dream, but it will only be achieved if we are prepared to work together, and to work hard, to produce a scheme which is practical and which the Education Authority and the Diocese will accept.
An Action Group needs to be formed, made up of representatives of all interested groups in the community. The Governors, or at least some of us, are willing to act as a catalyst for the formation of such a group but we must have the active support of others. We already have a massive task in managing the closure of the school. We need others to take a lead role in securing the future of the school buildings as a community facility. Would any person or group within the village who would be willing to be a part of this work please contact me and I will try to organise an initial meeting.
Howard Parvin, Chairman of Governors.
