Final proposals to close a school in Walney from the end of the academic year are set to be approved.
Members of the cabinet for Westmorland and Furness Council are recommended to approve the proposal to close North Walney Nursery and Primary School on August 31 this year when they meet next week.
A statutory representation period ran on the proposed closure ran from February 5 to March 3 in which the council received one response.
Among issues raised, the response queried why the school was being closed in the context of indicative housing developments in Barrow as a result of the BAE Systems expansion.
In response, the council said in a report prepared for the meeting: “The housing developments referenced have been considered as part of our assessment of future pupil projections and yield.
“There are sufficient surplus places in the local area to accommodate any additional pupil yields resulting from these developments.”
In a public consultation, which ended in December 2023, the council received 17 responses to the proposed closure with five people stating concerns that the quality of education for the children would be negatively affected from being compelled to relocate to other schools.
However, a council report prepared for a meeting in January said: “The local authority is confident that, in the event of a decision to close the school that all pupils would be able to be accommodated within local schools within a reasonable walking distance to their family home.
“It was also noted all local schools in area were categorised good at their most recent Ofsted inspections.”
In a report prepared for the cabinet meeting on March 26, it said the school had continued to provide a quality educational offer during what has proven to have been a challenging period for the school.
Numbers at the primary school have dropped from 84 in 2019/2020 to 27 as of September 2023 and there was a significant number of surplus places in the Walney Island area, a council report prepared for the Furness locality board in November said.
School budgets are directly linked to the number of children at a school so when numbers decrease there is less money available to support teaching and this makes it ‘increasingly challenging’ to provide a ‘broad and balanced quality educational offer’, it added.
The report said: “The local authority is concerned that the school’s current financial position is increasing the workload on school staff to levels that the council believes is reaching an unsustainable level.
“This will inevitably impact on teaching standards and would likely give a reduced rating under the current Ofsted inspection framework.
“The local authority is concerned that staffing instability and funding have also hampered development of leadership at subject level and impacted on the professional development, workload and well-being of staff.”
Councillor Frank Cassidy (Walney Island, Labour) previously said: “Walney’s three Labour councillors namely myself, Therese Assouad and Anita Husband would like to place on record our wish that North Walney Primary and Nursery School can in the future be re-purposed to accommodate children who find things a bit difficult in mainstream education.
“We say this after taking opinion from a number of senior educators who are familiar with what’s happening locally.”
Members of the cabinet for Westmorland and Furness Council are recommended to approve proposals to close North Walney Nursery and Primary School when they meet on March 26 at the County Hall in Kendal.
