Guernsey Press

Almost all Les Beaucamps staff criticised Education's plans

LES Beaucamps High School teachers have written to all deputies offering their own secondary school model suggestions they believe would be better than Education's preferred model.

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Les Beaucamps High School. (Picture by Sophie Rabey, 29668197)

Almost all LBHS teachers, learning support, administration and building staff supported the letter which criticised Education's model along similar lines to other schools' concerns, including class and classroom sizes, the need for a new sixth form, staffing and timetabling, curriculum reductions and the lack of detail around key plans.

The teachers said: 'Staff have been accused of bringing only problems to the table rather than solutions. As such we have chosen to list three possible alternative ways forward.'

Their first solution was to follow Deputy Andy Cameron's suggestion and leave the sixth form centre at the Les Varendes site rather than spend £30m. moving it down the road to Les Ozouets.

'Those capital savings could then be reallocated by investing in the 11-16 sector, through providing adequate building extensions.' they said.

In another suggestion, the teachers said that, if the sixth form remained at Les Varendes, the school should be run as an 11-18 school to avoid costly overheads of a separate operation.

'The lack of equity [with one high school having a sixth form] could then be addressed by reinvesting the revenue savings into bringing the other 11-16 schools in line with Les Varendes in terms of pupil-teacher ratios and curriculum breadth.'

Presenting their final 'and perhaps most sensible way forward', the teachers said Education should publish the review of all secondary education options.

'Bring representatives from each school together to look at the relative merits of each configuration, as well as the perceived compromises, with the ultimate aim of coming to a consensus understanding of the way forward.'

  • Education has published its summary of the school engagement meetings on the States website giving its precis of the positive and negative feedback from each school meeting. It can be found under 'thematic summary of recent round of school engagement' at gov.gg/educationtransformation.