The Isle of Wight Council plans to close six primary schools across the island next year, including Arreton, Brading, Cowes, Godshill, Oakfield, and Wroxhall.

The closures will force affected children to attend alternative schools by July next year, in some cases long distances from their homes.

Isle of Wight parents and children have begun organising themselves, meeting and discussing the situation, and staging protests outside affected schools. "Scores" of people were reported to have gathered outside Brading Primary School on September 12 in one such demonstration [1].

Diane Barker, Governor of Godshill Primary School, expressed concerns about the potential loss of primary education provision in the rural Island. She noted that pupil roll is increasing, with 177 children enrolled, including preschool provision, in an open letter to the council's cabinet. "We feel strongly that at least one school should serve our rural communities," she wrote [2].

Despite the opposition, the council at its cabinet meeting on September 12 decided to begin a public consultation on the plans eight days later. That is despite hearing an extended hour-long session of public questions raising a variety of concerns before taking its decision.

Suzie Ellis, councillor for Central Rural, pointed out that "this decision could leave the rural centre of the Island, and some 400 children, entirely without primary provision," reports On the Wight.

Michael Lilley, councillor for Ryde Appley and Elmfield, told the same publication: "I am deeply disappointed that a school in the poorest area of Ryde, Oakfield and parts of Elmfield, with children and families living in the reality of low incomes, food poverty and a cost-of-living crisis are now faced with the insecurity that the school which really cares is threatened with closure." [3]

The island has long suffered some of the worst effects of the generalised crisis in education and other social programmes. The school system on the Isle of Wight, in the Council's own words, "has consistently underperformed compared to national trends," adding that the island "currently ranks in the bottom 10% for key education performance indicators." [4]

Taking this as a truism to prepare the way for closures, the Council argues that the main block to finding solutions is that there are too many schools on the island, leading to a so-called "surplus" of places; there are not enough children. Closing schools is therefore key to unlocking the big changes that will create a "world class" system on the island.

As usual, first to come under attack by the authorities as to blame as the cause of problems are the people, who are allegedly simultaneously too many, ageing, under-productive, and so on. The people are a problem of every kind of quantity and quality; in this case, we are told that people are narrow-minded, and there are too few children.

People need to see the "bigger picture", says Cabinet member for education Jonathan Bacon. School funding is allocated per child, making the "surplus" unviable.

"The problem with surplus places in our schools is leading to our inability to address educational standards on the island," he claimed. "Too few pupils spread across too many schools means all the schools end up being underfunded and governors and head teachers concentrate on day-to-day financial survival instead working to address standards," he added [5].

Falling numbers of children on the Isle of Wight certainly poses problems for the island, but what problems will closing schools solve?

The conception that there is a "surplus" of classroom places is fundamentally at odds with right to education. Surplus defined by what measure? As the people affected are saying: what is wrong with smaller class sizes!

These are well-established schools deeply rooted in their local communities. To close them is an attack on the very fabric of the society of which they are part. As one put it, the town of Brading "is having the heart ripped out of it" [1].

Dressed up with the pretext of improving standards (meaning: rise up the league tables), the closures are cuts, plain and simple. Smaller schools are not "viable". Schools, of whatever size, add massive value by educating the young, value that is not paid for by those who employ and profit from those educated in the school system. Closure is destruction of the productive forces: both destruction of the schools themselves and destructive to the next generation.

Closures are not solutions, but that is not their point. The closures are part of the anti-social offensive, the restructuring of all the arrangements of the state, its institutions and social programmes it provides, being given new emphasis with Labour's "investment with reform". This is a particularly stark example of what this really means, a shock and awe imposition of control and destruction of what cannot be controlled. The aim is academisation and centralisation.

Those pushing this plan see small local schools will small class sizes as liabilities but does nothing to turn them into assets. Instead they dispose of them. These schools could be a model of how things should be done, and the island could truly lead the way.

Not only will they not solve either the crisis in the education or in the demographic makeup of the island, but also the closures will surely exacerbate these problems as families continue to move away and relations are broken down. Local schools for the people were an achievement on the high road of civilisation. Now the intent is to turn back the clock to a time when education did not exist as a right of all and schools were in short supply. Such sweeping closures are a thoroughly backward step and must not be allowed to pass.

Notes
1. "Isle of Wight parents protest over plans to close Brading Primary", Isle of Wight County Press, September 12, 2024
https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/24579441.isle-wight-parents-protest-plans-close-brading-primary/
2. "Isle of Wight Council urged to rethink school closure plans", Isle of Wight County Press, September 12, 2024
https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/24581553.isle-wight-council-urged-rethink-school-closure-plans/
3. "Cabinet members vote to go ahead with the public consultation on school closures", Sally Perry, On the Wight, September
https://onthewight.com/cabinet-members-vote-to-go-ahead-with-the-public-consultation-on-school-closures/
4. "Ambitious plans for world-class education for Island youngsters", Isle of Wight Council, July 10, 2024
https://www.iow.gov.uk/news/ambitious-plans-for-world-class-education-for-island-youngsters/
5. "Isle of Wight school closures protest held at council meeting", Emily Hudson, BBC News, September 13, 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgxg185y3jo

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