On the penultimate day of the Easter term, all eight of the island’s Year 11 students went ‘on strike’ and took the day off school, staging a silent protest in the centre of St Anne’s town instead.
Two Alderney States members met the students and their parents the following day and concerns raised are to be escalated to the island’s Policy & Finance Committee and are expected to be raised with authorities in Guernsey, which has responsibility for education provision in Alderney.
States members Veronica Taylor and Alex Snowdon hosted the meeting the day after the strike.
‘We listened to the concerns and we have shared these with the St Anne’s School chair of governors and will share them with the director of Education after the Easter break,’ said Mrs Taylor yesterday.
‘We are committed to working collaboratively with all parties to find ways to address the concerns raised by the parents and students.’
Policy & Finance next meets in a fortnight.
Students had been upset by staffing and management issues at the school which they said were affecting their chance of passing GCSEs and meeting the requirements for sixth form.
One parent, who asked not to be named, said they were pleased the school now appeared to be listening to concerns and that the States ‘had woken up’ to problems they wanted to highlight.
‘We are feeling a bit more confident now,’ they said.
‘The school is putting on catch-up classes over Easter which nearly all the kids are attending. Though it means they are all working hard over Easter when they should be on holiday and getting some rest.’
They said the one extra lesson that some pupils were not attending was French.
‘There is a feeling they are just so far behind, it’s not worth going just to get one mark better than a fail, so some are focusing more on the other subjects that they need good grades in to do A-levels. Any criticism from the school for them not attending French would be unfair.’
However they added that even with the late intervention, it may be too late for this year 11 cohort.
‘But in order to help other years and not put off people moving to Alderney the situation has to improve,’ they said.
The two Alderney politicians have summarised the concerns raised and actions they propose to take in a letter to parents.
It stated that the issues raised by students and parents would be formally escalated to the director of Education, the chair of St Anne’s School governing board, and the head of primary leadership and development after discussion at the Policy & Finance Committee meeting.
Education had previously said that it recognised the difficult of recruiting teachers to Alderney and the frustration of some students about the disruption to their learning caused by a significant churn of teachers.
It had provided additional support for the GCSE cohort in recent weeks and the school had offered individual mentoring and additional revision sessions.
The possibility of subject specialists going to Alderney for extra revision sessions had also been discussed.
Director of Education Nick Hynes is expected to visit the island early next term and offer to speak to parents and students.