Give change a chance in this election

It’s less than three weeks until the elections for the National Assembly on 5 May and postal voters start casting their ballots next week. Yet moving around Pembrokeshire you would hardly know an election was underway. A few placards have appeared to be sure, but most of them are located along the roadsides in farmers’ fields, and fields don’t vote.

Springing up like Spring flowers

I should declare an interest. I am standing for Plaid Cymru in the election. The overriding issue is the future of Withybush hospital in Haverfordest. It is essential to restore the maternity and paediatric services that have been lost in the past couple of years. If we don’t, then other specialities will be undermined at Withybush with the provision of a 24-hour Accident and Emergency service at stake.

So how best can we get these vital services back? Labour’s Health Minister Mark Drakeford who has overseen the downgrading of Withybush, stated in February that he would not reverse the decision. Preseli’s Conservative Assembly Member for the past nine years has been ineffectual in preventing the downgrading of Withybush. Plaid Cymru is the only party committed to restoring paediatric and maternity services to Withybush and also has a chance of being in government to put this into effect.

So what are the priorities? First, we must press Hywel Dda Health Board to restore 24/7 paediatric consultant cover to Withybush as a matter of urgency. In March I met with the Health Board Chief Executive Steve Moore who admitted that removal of the cover in August 2014 had been a mistake.

Secondly, we need to campaign for the restoration of consultant-led maternity care at Withybush. Steve Moore had no answer when I put it to him that a woman in labour at Withybush who is suddenly found to require a caesarian operation constitutes an emergency. Plaid Cymru is committed to hospital-based Accident and Emergency services, including maternity consultants, being within an hour’s reach of everybody in Wales. That means that in an emergency you will reach hospital within an hour of calling for an ambulance.

And thirdly, we need an improved ambulance service in Pembrokeshire. Hywel Dda Health Board only has 15 ambulances, the lowest ratio of ambulances to population of any Health Board in Wales. We need at least 20.

It is also vital to defend other essential services that are threatened in Pembrokeshire. For example, we must persuade the council to stop it taking sixth forms away from secondary schools so that students can choose where to study.

Preseli Pembokeshire urgently needs a stronger voice in Cardiff Bay. The county has been let down by the Labour Government for the past 17 years - far too long for just one party to be in power. Only a change in government will give Pembrokeshire a fair deal. The London parties are divided and quarrelling amongst themselves. If Plaid wins in Pembrokeshire it will become the main opposition party in Cardiff Bay and Labour will lose its overall majority. Plaid will then challenge the other opposition parties to support Leanne Wood as First Minister rather than handing Labour another five ineffective years in power.

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.

Council faces legal blizzard on schools

Pembrokeshire county council’s secondary schools reorganisation policy is in a mess. On 13 July it was due to publish its proposals following a wide-ranging public consultation that has lasted most of this year. Three days later the full council was to vote on them. Then, on 9 July with only days to go, the Council put the whole process off until September, pending discussions with the Trustees of the Tasker Milward and Picton charity.

What does all this mean? In brief the Council wants to merge Tasker Millward and Sir Thomas Picton secondary schools in Haverfordwest and create a new English-medium and a new Welsh-medium secondary school in the town. On that there is wide agreement. However, the Council also wants the new English-medium school to be just for 11-16-year-olds and provision for sixth-formers made in a new Centre at Pembrokeshire College in Haverfordwest. This would also serve St David’s and Fishguard whose secondary schools would also lose their sixth forms.

These proposals have run into a storm of opposition. It is safe to say that when an authority manages to mobilise entire communities against its policy it has either failed to communicate effectively, failed to listen, or lost the argument.

As it happens, the same day the Council announced it was putting off a decision I was at Sir Thomas Picton School listening to the case in favour of retaining the sixth forms. The main audience was meant to be Pembrokeshire’s 60 county councillors but only a handful turned up and 37 didn’t even reply to their invitations – a case of a failure to listen?

It was the pupils who made by far the most impressive part of the case. We heard a performance by the school’s jazz band and an excerpt from The Sound of Music that was currently in production. Both were excellent and plainly benefited from participation of the schools’ wide age range, from 11 to 19. 

However, what rapidly became clear was that the if the Council presses ahead with removing the sixth forms it will run into a blizzard of legal challenges that could put off its plans for years. In the first place it has failed to square its proposals with the Tasker Milward and Picton Trust which owns most of the Tasker Milward site and is determined to support the continuance of 11-19 education there.

More generally, there were accusations that the Council came to a conclusion about its policy 18 months before the public consultations began, evidenced by documents uncovered through Freedom of Information requests. These, it is alleged, show Pembrokeshire College keen to take over the sixth forms to secure its funding base. As for the Council it is alleged that it wants to offload responsibility for post-16 education to maintain the lowest council tax in Wales. If these accusations prove to be the case the Council deserves to be in the mess it now finds itself in.

In a combative address to the meeting I attended, Paul Lucas, Chairman of Sir Thomas Picton Governors, declared the Council could face an investigation into possible mal-administration following the loss of thousands of pounds as a result of irregular consultation procedures. And he added, “This could be the final death knell of the Council itself, limiting its influence in any future local government reorganisation.” Unfortunately, it is secondary education in Pembrokeshire that could lose out as well.

Schools compromise on cards for county

All is not well with Pembrokeshire’s secondary education. The headline problems are these: Pupil attainment at GCSE in Pembrokeshire is ranked at sixteenth among the 22 Welsh counties when it should be eighth, on the basis of the socio-economic background. Meanwhile, there are 1,500 surplus secondary school places across the county, making a reorganisation necessary to save money. If the council does not act to correct these problems the Welsh Government will act for it. In January the council proposed the following changes:

•  Merge Tasker Millward and Sir Thomas Picton secondary schools in Haverfordwest and create a new 11-16 English-medium secondary school on the Sir Thomas Picton site.
•  Create a new Sixth Form Centre at the Pembrokeshire College campus in Haverfordwest.
• Remove the sixth forms from Ysgol Bro Gwaun in Fishguard and Ysgol Dewi Sant in St Davids, re-designate them as 11-16 schools, and transfer their post-16 provision to the new Sixth Form Centre.
•  Create a new Welsh-medium 11-16 secondary school in Haverfordwest at the Tasker Millward site.

 Some of these changes were readily agreed, in particular combining the two English-medium schools and creating a new Welsh-medium school in Haverfordwest. However, there has been uproar at the proposal for removing sixth form provision from the schools and centralising it at the proposed Centre at Pembrokeshire College.

The council has pressed the advantages of the sixth form college concept which, it claims, delivers better results. This has been bitterly contested by the schools, parents and pupils. According to Sir Thomas Picton’s head, Dr N. Poole, the row has led to an atmosphere of anxiety and distrust “borne out by claims and counter claims concerning results, class sizes, university admissions etc without clear transparent data being issued for everyone to view.”

There has been an impressive community-based campaign in St Davids to retain its sixth form. Schools for the Future has come up with an innovative scheme to establish, in effect, a federalised sixth form linking Fishguard, St David’s and Haverfordwest. Some subjects would be taught in all three locations, with video facilities and some travel by staff and students used for connecting the teaching between the three sites.

Pembrokeshire’s Director of Education Kate Evan-Hughes, will be publishing a revised plan on 13 July and a meeting of the full council will decide three days later. What will she propose? Something along the following lines, I suggest. The site for the English-medium school in Haverfordwest will be moved to Tasker Millward. This is closer to Pembrokshire College and will enable some kind of amalgamated Sixth Form Centre to be shared between them. The Schools for the Future proposal for a new 3-16 school in St Davids, embracing the two primary schools in the town, will be accepted. There will also be a proposal for sixth form units to be kept at Fishguard and St Davids, but closely integrated with the new Sixth Form Centre in Haverfordwest.

Will this be a compromise acceptable to the warring factions that have been moblised on this hotly contested issue? Let us hope so. And let us remember, too, that school attainment is more an outcome achieved by good teachers and good leadership in our schools and not by reorganisations, however necessary.

How the arts and fun can improve our schools

When we look back on our school days what do we remember most? Invariably, I would say it is something creative - an outstanding teacher who inspired us, a school trip, or perhaps a school play. In a new report published last week by Estyn, the Schools Inspectorate, three Pembrokeshire primary schools are among only 14 from the whole of Wales highlighted for embedding the creative arts in their lessons. The schools are praised for demonstrating how involving children in art and design, dance, drama, and music has spin-offs for their reading, writing, numeracy and, above all, for their confidence, initiative, and leadership. 

At Milford Haven Junior School all the children are given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument free of charge. Currently 80 are members of the school’s Big Band which meets weekly after school. In 2013 the Band reached the finals of the annual Music for Youth competition in Birmingham. The Estyn report comments how the children still recall their feelings of excitement at this event and how the audience joined in the Band’s rendition of a Tom Jones medley. It says they still speak “with pride and passion” about their performance.

  

This year Fenton Primary School in Haverfordwest, like many others in Pembrokeshire, is taking part in the annual UK-wide Shakespeare festival for schools, performing scenes from The Tempest. The school, which has also established a choir and orchestra, says the arts have a positive impact on its pupils’ wellbeing and broadens their horizons, especially those from poorer backgrounds. Significantly, involvement in the Shakespeare festival has improved attendance. “Pupils say this is because they want to be present for the rehearsals and are looking forward to the performance on stage.” 

Puncheston Primary School in the Preseli hills owns an impressive collection of over 200 original art works donated by many famous Welsh artists including Kyffin Williams, David Tress, and Stan Rosenthal. Built up by a previous headteacher Alun Ifans, the collection is used to provide inspiration for cross-curricular lessons. Estyn comments, “Nearly all pupils showed a rich respect and reverence for the art and culture of Wales displayed in their school. They have a clear understanding of their own cultural identity. They speak knowledgeably and fondly about familiar artists, their styles and techniques.” 

We can be proud that three of our schools in the county are among those carrying the torch for the arts in Welsh education. We pay too much attention to the bottom line of results in examinations without first appreciating what it takes to inspire children to want to learn in the first place. The challenge is to ensure the approaches demonstrated by forward looking schools travels to others. As the Estyn report (Best Practice in teaching and learning in the creative arts at Key Stage 2) says, too much depends on whether there is an enthusiastic teacher on the staff with specialist skills and knowledge. The answer, I think, is to value and respect our teachers more, and invest in their training, professional development and support. After all, it is good teachers who make great schools.