Agenda item

To consider a report by the Head of Education (copy enclosed) detailing the feedback received in relation to the development of a process whereby schools could request consideration be given, by the Local Authority, to moving cluster.

10.05am – 10.35am

The Lead Member for Education, Children and Young People introduced the report (previously circulated) which provided members with feedback on the work undertaken by officers in response to a request by the Committee, in June 2017, that consideration be given to the development of a process to facilitate schools, if they so wished, to request to review their school cluster arrangements.  During his introduction the Lead Member advised that the Committee’s request had stemmed from consideration of the Council’s new Learner Transport Policy, effective from September 2018, and in particular in response to concerns from parents of pupils at Ysgol Pantpastynog, Prion and Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch, Llanrhaeadr on whether, dependent upon their home address, they would be entitled to free school transport to either Ysgol Glan Clwyd or Ysgol Brynhyfryd.  During the development of the new Learner Transport Policy it became apparent that school cluster arrangements and the ‘feeder school’ relationship with the secondary schools was extremely important to pupils, parents/carers and schools alike.  Consequently, provision was made within the new Learner Transport Policy to recognise the ‘feeder school’ relationship and provide discretionary free transport to either the nearest suitable secondary school or the recognised ‘feeder’ secondary school, providing the learner’s address and nearest pick-up point was further than three miles from the secondary school.  Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch had particular concerns in relation to parents/carers opting for Welsh-medium faith based education in order to access provision at Ysgol Pantpastynog and consequently transfer to Ysgol Glan Clwyd under the feeder school arrangements if Bro Cinmeirch pupils could not be given discretionary travel to Ysgol Glan Clwyd.

Members were advised by the Head of Education and Children’s Services that in order to progress the Committee’s request for consideration to be given to the development of a process for primary schools who wished to change their school cluster arrangements a Working Group was established.  An overview of the Working Group’s remit was attached at Appendix 3 to the report.  Each ‘secondary school cluster’ across the county was invited to appoint two representatives to serve on the Working Group.  The cluster representatives appointed constituted a cross-section of school expertise i.e. head teachers, business and finance managers and governors.  Local authority representation on the Working Group was made up of members from the School Finance and Passenger Transport teams.  The Head of Service informed the Committee that the Working Group at the conclusion of its work had deemed that there was no need to develop a process to enable primary schools to request to change their cluster arrangements.  In their view the Council should continue to focus on the School Modernisation Agenda.  This view was similar to that of the Council’s Education Service.

In response to members’ questions the Lead Member, Head of Service and the Planning and Resources Manager (Education Resources & Support) advised that:

·         whilst legislation stipulated that local authorities were required to provide free school transport to pupils who opted to receive Welsh-medium education, provided they attended the nearest suitable school and met the distance criteria, the provision of free school transport to faith-based schools was at the local authority’s discretion.  However, Denbighshire treated both Welsh-medium and faith-based choices on a par when determining school transport entitlement;

·         learner transport legislation stipulated that the amount of time a pupil should be expected to travel in order to receive an education had to be reasonable;

·         parental choice was a priority when parents/carers choose a school for their child, the Authority’s duty in relation to this extended to the provision of free school transport to the pupil to the nearest suitable school if it exceeded the expected distance for the pupil/parent to make their own arrangements to get to the school;

·         whilst one primary school had initially expressed an interest in asking the local authority to develop a process for changing school cluster arrangements once the Working Group was established it became evident that there was no appetite amongst the wider school cluster representation to progress this work further.  Officers acknowledged that neither Denbigh nor the Llangollen clusters were fully represented at the Working Group meeting, nevertheless neither cluster had indicated their support for or against developing a process;

·         the current school cluster arrangements had been in operation in Denbighshire for a number of years.  It was a recognised model for forging and building relationships between primary and secondary schools.  The school cluster model had been adopted by the Welsh Government (WG);

·         one of the risks identified with developing a process for schools to change their cluster arrangements was the detrimental effect this could potentially have on individual schools’ non-delegated budgets if they regularly opted to change their cluster arrangements; and

·         if the Committee recommended that a procedure to enable schools to change their school cluster arrangements should be developed parents and other stakeholders would be consulted on the proposed procedure prior to it being submitted to scrutiny for consideration.  The development of a procedure would require some significant work and resource on the Council’s behalf.

Following an in-depth discussion the Committee:

Resolved: subject to the above observations to determine that –

(i)           the development of a process to enable primary schools to amend their school cluster arrangements was not required as this would work against the co-ordinated approach to the modernisation of Denbighshire’s schools;

(ii)          the implementation of the new Learner Transport Policy 2017 be monitored, in line with the original resolution of the Committee on the 15^th June 2017, and that the review also monitor the concerns of Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch; and

(iii)          the Authority respond to the Headteacher and Governing body of Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch outlining the Committee’s resolution.