Meeting documents

Vice Chair of Governors, Oldfield School. Address to Council Cabinet Meeting 14 May 2008

I am here to put forward the view that the Governors of Oldfield wish the school to become co-educational.

There appears to be a perception throughout the Council that Oldfield is against becoming a co-educational establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth and, indeed, the Head and the governing body have been investigating how this can be achieved since 2005. The main barrier to such a change has been the lack of toilet and changing facilities, which must be put in place to accommodate both sexes. The school would, therefore, welcome such a change.

The Chair of Governors, in his address of 27 March set out the attributes of the school, but we feel these should be reinforced at this meeting.

Many people have referred to the schools in Bath as being "good" schools. Whilst this is not disputed, OFSTED has, in November 2007, stated that Oldfield is an OUTSTANDING school. No other school in Bath can claim this accolade and only one other secondary school in the entire B&NES area has achieved this status. In addition, Oldfield is confident of, shortly, being one of only a handful of schools in the Country to be awarded three specialisms. These will, over the next three years, add £700,000 to the school budget.

A criticism of the school is that 60% of its students come from outside the B&NES catchment area and the Governors recognise and sympathise with the needs of the Council to address this situation. The school has shown that it can achieve very considerable success, with high calibre teachers and strong leadership. It is this success that encourages parents to send their children to the school from many miles away in Bristol and South Gloucestershire. However, being a single sex establishment means that large numbers of local boys are unable to obtain that same high quality of education close to their home. The school also believes that becoming co-ed would greatly enhance the already good sixth form.

The issue of intake from the local area would be largely resolved by a change to co-educational status. The local parents would then have a real option for all of their children to obtain a quality education without the need to travel and this would meet the desire of Government that parents should have a choice, which local parents do not have at present.

Oldfield is extremely willing to work with the Council to achieve these increases in local student numbers and to reduce the oversupply of places in the Bath conurbation.

The Governing Body feels strongly that the closure of such a successful school would be a travesty and that it would deprive local parents of real choice in the education of their children. To open a new school would mean considerable disruption to the existing pupils, possibly disadvantaging them. A new school would take time to establish and to become the strong working unit that Oldfield already is. Whilst the new school is likely to obtain a specialism in due course, considerable funding would be lost in the interim by the loss of the existing specialisms already held by Oldfield.

However, the biggest loss would be to the local people of Bath.

In conclusion, we respectfully suggest the Council should build on the strengths of an outstanding school, rather than close it.

D Allen

Vice Chair of Governors

14 May 2008