10th June 2009

 

Dear Parents

 

I hope that you all received a copy of the latest Parents’ Newsletter last week. The Friends of Ryton Comprehensive School kindly decided to fund its postage home because they felt so strongly that you should be made aware of the Secondary Review of education in the West of Gateshead. The Parent Governors are hosting a meeting to discuss the options next Thursday, June 18th in school at 7.30p.m. Please come along to find out more and help us to prepare for the Local Authority consultations. We will let you know the dates of these when we are informed of them.

 

Steve Williamson (Headteacher from September 2009) and I would like to set out some of our thoughts on the implications of the various proposals for you to consider prior to any of the consultative meetings.

 

Our prime concern is ensuring the best education for young people in the West of Gateshead. At Ryton Comprehensive we have an established highly successful school of 1270 students which is oversubscribed. We have developed an excellent teaching and support staff and a well respected, highly effective Governing Body. We recognise that Hookergate School has similarly made great progress in raising standards. Sadly Hookergate School has suffered from a reduction in student numbers over the past few years and the Local Authority feels that it is on the verge of becoming unviable – by that it means that the size of the school limits the number of curriculum options the school can offer. The council report makes it clear that there is not an option to leave things as they are.

 

All options involve the closure of Hookergate School.

 

The options are clearly stated in the cabinet report but we feel it might help to explain our response to them.

 

Option A

·        Keeps Ryton Comprehensive open

·        Closes Hookergate School

·        States that it would seek to build a new school on an unspecified site in Greenside. This would of course be dependent on whether Government funding is available for a new school and whether planning permission would be given for greenbelt land.

·        In Option A, staff at Hookergate will lose their jobs.  New jobs would be created in an expanded Ryton School, followed by a move for all staff to a new school.

 

Option B

·        Closes Ryton Comprehensive School

·        Closes Hookergate School

·        States that the two schools should be amalgamated and a new school built on an unspecified site at Greenside. The same qualifications apply that as yet there is no funding available for this “state of the art” new school and no planning permission for such a building in Greenside.

·        This option allows for “competition” – in brief this means that the Local Authority may no longer be in control of the new school for example it could be an independent academy.

·        In Option B all the staff in both schools will lose their jobs. New roles would be created in a new school, and there would be open competition to fill them.  Every member of staff across both schools would be affected.

 

Option C

·        Ryton Comprehensive stays open

·        Hookergate school closes

·        Transition arrangements are put in place to accommodate students on the Ryton site and when funding is available Ryton Comprehensive will have some new buildings and some refurbishment.

·        In Option C, staff at Hookergate will lose their jobs. However, New jobs would be created in an enlarged Ryton School.

 

We believe that it is the staff and traditions of a school which have the greatest impact on maintaining standards. Ryton Comprehensive School achieves excellent results, has an outstanding reputation for pastoral care and this is achieved by well established highly effective members of staff. If those teachers and support staff find themselves in a position where they lose their jobs and have to re-apply to a newly formed Governing Body they will find it very difficult not to be distracted from their core purpose – educating children and encouraging them to fulfil their potential.

 

Inevitably some teachers and technical and administrative staff will look for jobs elsewhere as they will be unsettled by the threat of school closure. Once this trend starts there is the risk that something which has taken many years to build up will be destroyed in a matter of months. Unfortunately all three options pose this threat for Hookergate staff.  We believe that by keeping Ryton Comprehensive School open, we can provide stability which is vital not only to our students, but to all the students in an enlarged school.  With Option C, Hookergate staff can be considered for redeployment in Ryton in a positive and welcoming way rather than under the stress of Option B where no such guarantee exists.

 

Our views are that although the carrot of “a new state of the art school” is very appealing, we are concerned about the environmental factors of resiting Ryton Comprehensive School. Surely the fact that over 52% of the students walk to school is a strong argument for keeping the school on its current site.

 

The strongly preferred option from the perspective of staff and governors at Ryton Comprehensive is to recommend Option C to the council.

 

Next week the students will be involved in a detailed consultation process so that their views can be presented in a strong and clear way to the Local Authority officers and councillors.

 

 

The Governors and staff have been active in putting into motion a number of methods of communication to enable you to express your opinions these include;

 

Facebook                     "Keep Ryton Comp in Ryton.......(and Greenside green)"

Website                        www.rytoncs.co.uk

Comments box in reception at Ryton Comprehensive School

Downing Street petition – a link to this is on our website.

 

Parent Governors can be contacted via the school website or via;

Ian Scott                      iscott@rytoncs.co.uk                0191 413 5823

John Below                  jbelow@rytoncs.co.uk  0191 413 8884

Alison Bourne               abourne@rytoncs.co.uk            0191 413 1852

David Campbell            dcampbell@rytoncs.co.uk        0191 413 8894

Andrew Jongman          ajongman@rytoncs.co.uk         0191 413 1754

Coralie Morton cmorton@rytoncs.co.uk           0191 413 8893

Catherine Soper           csoper@rytoncs.co.uk              0191 413 3542

 

 

Finally we strongly urge you to come to both the open meeting on 18th June at 7.30p.m. and, most importantly attend the consultation meetings when they are finally announced.

 

Steph Howarth & Steve Williamson