Plans revealed to close small school in tiny Yorkshire village causes dismay from councillors

Some of Weaverthorpe’s 350 residents said they expected to see North Yorkshire County Council’s executive on Tuesday agree to close Weaverthorpe C of E Primary School, which has traditionally served as a key hub for the rural community, from August.

Parish council chair and former chair of the school’s governors Femi Shellard said the county council had increased staff support for the school, but the quality of the support had been “variable”, rather than the “experienced, capable and effective” staff needed.

As a direct consequence, Councillor Shellard said the council issued a warning letter to the school to improve, triggering an Ofsted inspection which found the school to be ‘inadequate’, leading to an automatic move for the school to become run by an academy.

He said: “The school is caught in a Catch-22 of central government making as the poor Ofsted saw an academisation order forced upon the school. The academies have looked at the school and said it is not profitable, so the next step is to close the school.”

Coun Shellard said the county council was now proposing to spend more money over the next five years transporting children from the village to another school than it would cost to “wipe out the school’s deficit, improve standards and keep a school in the community”.

He said: “We want to appeal to the regional school’s commissioner, but then it gets into a position of the computer says no. Where is the humanity, where is the common sense coming into this whole process?

“The children of the village will over time become strangers to one another. Events such as sports days, Nativity plays and harvest festivals aren’t going to happen in the village any more.

"There can’t be an upside to closing a small rural school. The community believes the closure is a foregone conclusion and whatever emotion we bring to it, it’s not going to change people’s minds.”

In a report to the county council’s executive, officers highlight how pupil numbers have fallen from 36 to 21 at the school since the Ofsted inspection two years ago, undermining the school’s financial position, despite the extra annual £10,000 sparsity funding the government would provide from next month.

It adds: “Weaverthorpe Primary School remains vulnerable as a stand-alone school due to the uncertain nature of leadership beyond the current temporary arrangements. The responses to the consultation process have failed to identify a viable alternative option that would secure the school’s future.

“The local authority provides support to all maintained schools but is unable to replicate the work that is the responsibility of the headteacher and governing board. The local authority was providing support to Weaverthorpe at the time of the Ofsted Inspection and had used one of its powers of intervention to issue a warning notice to the former governing board.”