Parent power should persuade council

In an extraordinary move last week the county council opened a new five-week consultation on its plans for the organisation of secondary schools in Haverfordwest. This followed the consultation on exactly the same issue that has taken place for most of this year and which has now been declared null and void. What is going on?

The Council wants to merge Sir Thomas Picton and Tasker Millward schools into a new English language secondary school and at the same time create a new Welsh medium secondary school in Haverfordwest. Most people agree that this.  However, the schools and most pupils and parents don’t agree with the Council’s proposals for taking away their sixth forms and creating a new Sixth Form Centre at Pembrokeshire College.

Indeed, there has been overwhelming and vehement opposition to this proposal. It's hard not to conclude that the Council’s main reason for re-opening the consultation for a much shorter period is a cynical mechanism to disregard this opposition.

It’s hard not to conclude, either, that the whole of the previous consultation was undertaken in bad faith. That’s because the Council had already made up its mind on the need for sixth form collaboration with Pembrokeshire College. Well before the consultation started last January the Council had forged links with the College to reorganise post-16 learning in Pembrokeshire as a whole, and not just Haverfordwest. Eventually, all Pembrokeshire’s post-16 funding would be routed through the college, which would also take responsibility for all 14-16 vocational learning. The local authority and the College commissioned a joint review which recommended the creation of a Sixth Form Centre. They then jointly appointed a transformation manager and an estates manager responsible for implementing the scheme.

But when they went out to consultation they ran into a brick wall of opposition in Haverfordwest and also in St David’s and Fishguard where parents were worried either by threats of schools closures or the removal of their sixth form. The local authority’s plans for centralising sixth form provision at Pembrokeshire College will also affect Milford Haven, Pembroke Dock and Tenby.

If the county council were to follow the responses they received in the last consultation they would do the following. They would establish a new 11-19 English-medium secondary school on the Sir Thomas Picton site and a new 11-16 Welsh-medium secondary school on the Tasker Millward site, making it clear that if there is demand after five years the latter will be extended to create a sixth form. Pembrokeshire College would focus on its primary purpose of providing excellent vocational courses, though pupils throughout the county would still be able to choose to study A-levels there. The secondary schools at St David’s and Fishguard would negotiate a federal arrangement with the new English-medium school in Haverfordwest to provide sixth form courses.

Is this argument about the best way to educate out children in Pembrokeshire? Or is it about shoring up the finances of Pembrokeshire College and about lightening the education responsibilities of the local authority? The Council now has a month to persuade us that the educational prospects of our children are uppermost in their thinking.