Three-school model had already been approved

It was just a matter of days ago that Deputy Fallaize issued his response to the laying of the requete and he maintained that to back the requete would leave ‘hundreds of students in sub-standard facilities stuck in a system which is unable to provide anything close to equality of opportunity across all schools and colleges in secondary and further education’.

Then following the march, at which upwards of 2,500 people marched against the two-school model, he still maintained that ‘it remains the case that there is not much agreement in our community about how to organise secondary and further education. This is why it has proved so challenging for committees and States assemblies which have tried to lead change in education. The reforms we are leading were agreed because evidence supports the 11-18 model as the best way to provide high standards, equality of opportunity and value for money’.

So, let’s look at this in more detail. Deputy Fallaize stood on a manifesto at the last election which stated the following:

‘There has been no decision not to rebuild La Mare de Carteret High School or to cease 11-16 education on the Grammar site. With the right leadership the new Committee for Education, Sport & Culture could quite swiftly report to the States with the optimum three-school model. If that model includes La Mare de Carteret, which is achieving great things in wholly unsatisfactory conditions, the school must be rebuilt without further delay. In addition, any movement of students and teachers in the three-school model must be managed with the utmost care’.

It is true that this debate has been going on for some time and many decisions have been made and revoked, but in fact the States of Deliberation made a decision some two years ago which, if they had been able to carry it forward there and then, would have resulted in the three-school model being implemented and La Mare de Carteret now rebuilt and up and running without the protests we are seeing now. We would also have maintained our high-performing sixth form centre and in all probability saved millions of pounds in consultants’, architects’, PR and other experts’ fees.

The Assembly in fact voted in favour of the three-school model, which proposed no change to St Sampson’s High or Les Beaucamps High but suggested the rebuild of La Mare de Carteret which was, as Deputy Fallaize mentioned in his manifesto, achieving great things.

The plans which were drawn up by the last committee had been shared with the neighbours and had received planning approval. These plans included detailed environmental impact studies (unlike the most recent plans to extend the two chosen sites), detailed traffic assessments and solutions designed and approved by planners.

Ecological studies, noise and light pollution studies had been carried out. Flood risks had been modelled and drainage improvements designed to benefit the whole area, not just the school. Building materials had been chosen and approved, a full project team was in place including architects, mechanical and electrical engineers, structural engineers, quantity surveyors and landscape architects were all ready to go.

All had been costed. All this without the need to convince the teachers, parents, pupils and members of the public with a PR campaign.

Clearly a considerable amount of detailed work had been done, the cost of which was presumably written off.

Deputy Fallaize in his recent response to the requete states, ‘The requete is based on a fantasy that a short pause in the current reforms could be resolved neatly by the next States a few weeks into their term. The deputies who have driven the requete – Deputies Dudley-Owen and Meerveld – should explain its very serious effects on students’.

Perhaps we should ask him and his committee together with P&R to explain why they thought it fit to delay these decisions on education two years ago and effectively cause these serious effects on students, rather than passing the blame onto the deputies who are reflecting the vast majority of public opinion and trying to establish common sense education in Guernsey.

We are not proposing any kind of model in this correspondence, but clearly a lot of work has been done in the past on other options and if the majority of teaching professionals, parents and general members of the public are against the two-school model, as has been demonstrated recently, then surely it would not take too much effort for ESC together with P&R to reconsider the situation. Surely, if there were plans in place to push the button two years ago it wouldn’t take too much effort to reinstate them now? Particularly as the current plans to rebuild the two sites are very lean on detail. Let us all hope that these plans are not constrained by cost. Our children’s education is more important.

The public are calling upon these two committees to reconsider the alternatives. The requete is simply asking that these two bodies do that very thing.

The call to pause and review is very relevant because there is so much data we can go back to. ESC’s proposal, which is being railroaded through, has not been considered at anywhere near the level that previous plans were.

The majority of parents don’t want the two-school model, 87% of all the teachers clearly don’t want it and all we can see is that it is likely to be an educational, environmental and traffic disaster.

Surely the intransigence of the ESC is bringing the whole of the States of Deliberation into disrepute?

Please listen to the public and think again for everyone’s sake.

MR AND MRS C. WILKINSON

Address withheld.