Children aren't commodities to be 'decanted'

As far as I can tell it was already agreed by the States to rebuild La Mare de Carteret as a 600-place school and look at expansion later, however T&R are now saying that they will not fund this desperately-needed work unless Education commit to closing another school. They are making this decision next week.

It seems to me that this is tantamount to simple blackmail by T&R, as there is no way that the Education Department can rationally commit to closing a school without looking at and reviewing all the evidence properly first, involving the local community and 'listening' to their views. We are the taxpayers and should be listened to. T&R should not be blackmailing Education to make a decision in the next week.

T&R deputy minister Jan Kuttelwascher seems to be all over the place and not making any sense. You only need to see his comment below to see that it's utter gibberish:

'What's interesting about Elizabeth College, and I've been around it, although it's been there for 500 years, believe me it's like a rabbit warren . . . in spite of that the College has outstanding results . . . it wouldn't surprise me, if, in a decade or two, most education will be delivered at home using digital information technology.'

The reason the three colleges (that have smaller class sizes, by the way) have outstanding results is they take the top performers in the 11 plus and the rest of the children are paid for by parents who, having paid, want to ensure their children do well, and also because of the teaching, nothing to do with home schooling.

They are suggesting that the new Les Beaucamps School be used as an adult education centre for the College of FE, and 'decanting' the children to a new proposed 960-place La Mare de Carteret.

Surely children at Les Beaucamps School deserve to have a nice new well-appointed school that has been built specifically as a secondary school. Why give this to adult education? Surely the children should have the best facilities, not the adults (who are motivated learners anyway).

I say this as someone who has benefited from adult education and am very happy to give up superior school buildings to allow the children to have the best we can offer. Many of these children need extra help and do not need to be shoved into another larger school during their school life.

T&R should stop looking at this purely as a financial issue. Why disrupt Les Beaucamps children? It's ridiculous.

I was silly enough to assume this school would be safe from the meddling States, just because it has only just been built to specification and at great cost.

It seems that they would rather get in a so-called 'expert' from the UK (who I have heard has only had mediocre results himself) to tell them what to do. Why can't they just stick to their decisions?

My son is very excited to be attending Les Beaucamps School this September. What kind of message is this sending to the kids, that they are simply commodities to be 'decanted' to another larger school half-way through their school life? What disruption will this have on them, their classes and their friends groups?

There is a lot of evidence to suggest this is very damaging to a child's education, as is uncertainty for the child, who particularly doesn't deal well with major changes and uprooting at this time of life.

Please see sense, T&R, and stick to the original plan and allow Education to do its job.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD