Secondary Review Index

Press Release from Ryton Comprehensive School

Re: Consultation on Secondary Review Proposals for the West of Gateshead.

Ryton Comprehensive School is a strong, popular and successful school which has a close relationship with its local community. The leadership team of the school has worked in partnership with the staff at Hookergate School for many years starting with a Rural Pathfinder Project. There has been collaborative teaching in both Sixth Form and Key Stage 4 in a variety of subjects as well as joint conferences and staff training. We have tremendous concern for the staff and students at Hookergate who find themselves in a situation where their school is under threat of closure due to falling student numbers and vacant places. It is clearly important to ensure that they know that every effort would be made to welcome them into our school and to ensure their needs are met should they join Ryton Comprehensive School. This should be seen as a continuation of a process which started many years ago.

One of the options proposed within the consultation is to close both Ryton Comprehensive School and Hookergate and amalgamate them. We cannot accept that the best way forward is to close a very successful and over subscribed school which is held in high regard by its community in order to achieve a reduction in surplus pupil places in Gateshead. We are happy to consider any options which look at accommodating additional pupils within Ryton Comprehensive School on its current site or at an alternative site which will be built in the future. There will however be a groundswell of public opinion against the option which involves the closure of Ryton Comprehensive School. This would be to the detriment of pupil progress and staff well being with no obvious advantage to Hookergate School staff, students or community.

The other two options mean the closure of Hookergate School but with this school remaining open. We guarantee that we will work with the staff and governors of Hookergate in every way possible to ensure they are supported through this difficult transition and reassure them that we would want to make them feel equal partners in the development of education in the West of Gateshead. The consultation will also accept other proposals for reduction of surplus places. The Governors at Ryton Comprehensive School feel strongly that a more detailed appraisal of the capacity of the Western area schools to accommodate students from the areas of High Spen, Chopwell and Rowlands Gill is needed.

On educational grounds alone there is no logical argument in closing a good, forward looking and successful school which is full to capacity with waiting lists in every year group. On environmental grounds there is no logical argument to closing a school where 52% of the students walk to school and then bussing all but a small minority to Greenside.

The retirement of Stephanie Howarth at the end of August 2009 and the start of Steve Williamson as Head Teacher at Ryton is in no way compromised by these proposals. It is part of a strategic plan devised by the governors. Steve Williamson will provide the continuity and the strategic direction of the school for which the Governors have planned consistently over the last three years.