‘Delay will put education reforms back five years’

Following on from the open letter published by St Sampson’s High School staff on 20 January arguing against the ‘calamitous’ new ‘one school over two sites’ model, La Mare des Carteret, Les Beaucamps High School and Guernsey Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre staff have supported their concerns and called for more time.

At Les Beaucamps 47 out of 62 staff completed a survey, 70% of those agreed they were willing to support the concerns raised in the letter by St Sampson’s staff, with the ‘majority of staff remaining particularly concerned about the management, infrastructure and the overall impact it could have on the educational outcomes and mental wellbeing of the students’.

From the Grammar School, 92 out of 105 staff completed the anonymous poll on the current proposed education plans.

Of those, 94.6% agreed with the statement: ‘There remain considerable concerns over the current plans put forward by ESC and we [the teaching and support staff at Grammar] strongly support the requete to secure a delay to the plans.’

This was in addition to the 55 out of 61 staff currently employed at La Mare de Carteret High School, who last week said were in support of the staff at St Sampson’s.

Education president Matt Fallaize said talks were ongoing with officials and representatives of teachers and support staff in schools, some that have led to some changes being made to the detailed plans for the 11-18 colleges.

‘We would like to continue talking to union colleagues to explore whether we can make further changes and reassure their members about the intent and pace of the changes we are leading,’ he said.

‘The States have twice determined the policy direction and set the financial boundaries for the education reforms, but within those boundaries we will use whatever flexibility we can find to support and reassure teachers through the period of transition to the new model of education and beyond.

‘I have advised union colleagues that we would like to meet them as soon as possible and that we would welcome a series of discussions as often as they can hold them. I hope our next meeting will be very soon.’

Back in January 2018, deputies voted 26-13 to pursue the one school, two colleges model. This was backed again by States members in September 2019, who voted 22-15 to provide £77.9m. for the plans to go ahead.

Deputy Fallaize said he hoped to discuss the requete, aimed at delaying the transformation, during the talks with the schools.

‘Teachers have been invited to state their firm views on the requete even before having the chance to read it.

‘The propositions in the requete on which the States will vote do not do what many teachers have been told they would do. This is not the fault of teachers, but it is something we are eager to talk through with them.’

He concluded it was never going to be easy to implement educational reforms on this scale.

‘The challenges of reform will remain, even if some deputies preparing a requete pretend that kicking the can down the road will magically produce an education model supported by a majority of teachers and a majority of the public,’ Deputy Fallaize said.

‘They are peddling a myth and nearly five years of endless debate and procrastination about the future education model risks becoming five more years or even longer.’

St Sampson’s and Les Beaucamps are set to cater for 1,400 students each under Education’s plans.