How can we help maintain and grow good rural village schools?

 

With more housing coming to Norfolk villages it’s madness to close small primary schools and bus children to big town schools. We need to give our children the best start and chance in life. Classroom standards are key. But so is the quality of the wider school environment - culture, sport, values, quality of space.

 

The Department for Education, Ofsted and the educational establishment has a policy of closing small schools. That isn’t always the right thing - especially where a great local school is thriving and helping drive village renewal.

 

It would be bureaucratic vandalism to close a great local school in order to hit some Department for Education or Norfolk County Council target.

 

I was delighted to Chair the Rocklands/Ellingham School Project on Friday to try and get the right plan for children in this area, showing Norfolk County Council officers around the tiny Rocklands School (rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted) squeezed into an old Victorian building and our proposal to relocate it to a new site next to the village playing fields - offered by Breckland Council - in order to allow the redevelopment of the old site to help provide affordable housing and fund the new school.

 

This sort of creative partnership working is what our constituents - and children - have a right to expect from us.

 

I’m determined to make this project work.