‘It’s what goes on inside the school that matters’

Education, Sport & Culture are moving forward with its proposed two-school model, where a new 11-18 school will be created and based across two sites – Les Beaucamps High and St Sampson’s. Each would have up to 1,000 pupils.

Between 30 and 40 parents attended a drop-in at Les Beaucamps High on Wednesday evening. This followed a meeting with Year 7 parents at the Grammar School earlier this week.

Most of the people at the drop-in were parents with children currently at primary school.

Education president Matt Fallaize said people had been keen to understand how the system would work.

‘Most parents have wanted to discuss certain issues about what the provision will look like rather than raise concerns about the model itself,’ he said.

‘There has not been the fiery stream of outrage that some of our critics predicted. Most of the discussions have been constructive and very civil.’

Education director Andrew Warren said issues raised included what the new school uniform would look like, how the new sixth form provision would work and how children would cope with the new larger schools.

Mr Warren said the size of a school did not affect how good it was.

‘It’s what goes on inside the school that matters,’ he said.

Sixth form provision will be spread across the two sites. Mr Warren said they would offer similar courses, but would not be identical, so some pupils might need to move schools at the end of Year 11. It expected that only one site will offer the International Baccalaureate.

The new school uniform has not yet been designed and it is unclear when it would be introduced.

Deputy Fallaize said they were looking at having a single uniform, with something distinguishing which site the student is based at, such as a coloured tie.

He reassured parents that they would get plenty of warning before the uniform changed.

Among the parents was Darren Sylvester. He has a daughter in Year 9 at the Grammar School and a son in Year 5 at Hautes Capelles. That means his daughter will stay at Grammar, but will be Year 13 when the school only has a Year 11 and a Year 13. These students will not be moving to avoid disrupting important exams.

Mr Sylvester said it was important to ensure the pupils of these last cohorts still had quality teaching, despite there only being a few pupils. He was also concerned with how pupils would cope – he had been told parts of the school were likely to be boarded off as it closed down.

‘They will do their best, but I’m still quite concerned as I’m not sure they can maintain a community with only two year groups,’ he said.

Another mother, who asked not to be named, had two sons at St Sampson’s. She said while she did have concerns about how the system would work, she backed the two-school model and said it was important for islanders to get behind the scheme as it moved forward.

n Another drop-in will be held at Les Beaucamps High between 10am and noon on Saturday.