Herm ‘has no community or future without school’
Without a school, Herm has no community and future, the island’s leaseholder John Singer and the families who live on the island have warned.
The one-room school closed briefly last year and pupils had to get the boat to Guernsey every day to attend Vauvert, before deputies forced a U-turn from Education, Sport & Culture.
But as budgets tighten, fears are growing that the school is under threat again.
The school currently only has two pupils, but with eight preschoolers on the island, parents and management are united in claims that it is as vital now as it has ever been.
Mr Singer said the threat of the school’s closure hung over everything they were trying to achieve on Herm.
‘The president of ESC might stand up again and say, we’ve decided to close Herm School,’ he said.
‘I am trying to preempt that by showing to the Guernsey people the paramount need that we have.’
Just last week in the States ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen claimed the school could cost up to £200,000 a year to keep open and may have just one pupil next year, a claim which Mr Singer disputed.
‘That was an erroneous statement and it is necessary to have a correction of the error,’ he said.
‘We are recruiting for a head chef at the moment, and we have a strong applicant who has two children, aged five and six, which leads me to think that next September we will have four children in the school, rather than the one proclaimed by Deputy Dudley-Owen, and the position may change further, as next September is 10 months away.’
Read more in Thursday’s Press.
