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19
Oct 2022
Fate of Woodfield primary school to be confirmed next week
The fate of Harrogate’s Woodfield Community Primary School is to be confirmed next week after a recommendation was made to close it at the end of the year.
North Yorkshire County Council’s executive will next Tuesday be asked to agree to the closure on December 31.
It comes after council officials said they “exhausted all options” to try to keep the Bilton school open after years of falling pupil numbers and an inadequate rating by Ofsted inspectors in 2020.
But parents say the school has been “badly let down” by the local education authority, while councillors have labelled the planned closure a “disgrace”.
The school reception
There was just one pupil on the school roll earlier this month after the closure plans were revealed in summer and parents were forced to start looking elsewhere ahead of the new term.
Ward councillor Paul Haslam, who is also a governor at Woodfield, said the sudden death of a former headteacher in 2018 led to instabilities at the school and that an “unfounded slur” on social media then caused an “exodus” of about a third of the pupils later that year.
He said in a letter:
Cllr Haslam also argued the school should not be closing because Harrogate’s population is growing and it had made good progress since the inadequate rating in January 2020.
Read more:
- Parents vow to fight closure of ‘fantastic’ Woodfield primary school
- Woodfield school taking ‘effective action’ to improve, says Ofsted
But a report to Tuesday’s meeting said government legislation requires the school to close unless an academy sponsor can be found. Any school rated as inadequate is required to become part of an academy, but Woodfield has failed to find one to secure its future.
The school had also held merger talks with the nearby Grove Road Community Primary School, but these fell through.
If approved, the closure will mean the Woodfield catchment area will be shared with Grove Road and Bilton Grange Primary School.
The school’s debts, which were forecast to reach almost £100,000 by the end of 2022/23, will be absorbed by the council.
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