At-risk school will not go down 'without a fight'

Parents are concerns class sizes will be too large when their children's primary school is merged with another

A parent at one of seven schools facing closure or a merger to tackle falling pupil numbers said it would "not go down without a fight".

Hazlewood Community Primary School is earmarked to move from its own site and merge with Greenfields Community Primary under plans proposed by North Tyneside Council.

Diane Scott, who has two boys at the school, said she had chosen one school but was now being "forced" to choose the other and feared her sons' "education is going to be affected".

Council director of resources Jon Ritchie said change was necessary but a public consultation would allow parents to offer alternative suggestions.

Under the proposals, Monkseaton Middle School would close with no new Year 5 admissions from September next year, while six primary and first schools would be merged.

Langley First would merge with Appletree Gardens First on the latter's site in Monkseaton, Forest Hall Primary would merge with Ivy Road Primary on its site in Forest Hall, and Hazlewood and Greenfields would merge on the Greenfields site in Wideopen.

Hazlewood Community Primary School is set to be merged with Greenfields Primary School

A parent at Hazlewood, Jill Brotherton, said the proposals would involve upheaval for children who had already faced disruption.

"They've been through Covid, they've been through their school closing down, working in marquees, having their lunch in marquees and now they're scared they're going to be split from their friends again," she said.

Rob Mathieson, a trustee for the school's parent, teacher and friends association, said the changes would result in "adding 300 children and 11 classes into an already pretty full school".

"That's going to force class numbers up, it's going to give less time per teacher, per student," he said.

The Labour-controlled council said the earmarked schools had untenable numbers of surplus places and it expected the situation to get worse due to falling birth rates in the area.

A quarter of all primary school places were expected to become surplus over the next five years and, with schools funded per pupil, 51 of its 57 schools were already facing deficits in the next financial year, it said.

Parent Jill Brotherton said the pupils had already faced enough disruption

Mrs Scott said she chose to send her children to Hazlewood rather than Greenfields but was now being "forced to choose Greenfields" because of the plan to merge the two schools.

"That wasn't my choice and my child's education is going to be affected by that," she said.

"I don't think we should go down without a fight because they've mismanaged their budgets."

Mrs Scott also raised concerns some teachers would lose their jobs because of the plans.

Mr Ritchie said the council would try to mitigate job cuts but admitted involuntary redundancies "could be inevitable".

The majority of children affected would stay "within a half mile radius of the schools" but a consultation process would allow residents to suggest an alternative to the mergers, he said.

"Something will have to change in terms of the financial position but, if these alternative proposals are put forward, of course we would look at that because we want to have the smoothest process possible."

Jon Ritchie, director of resources at North Tyneside Council, said things would have to change at the schools

The council's director of children's services, Julie Firth, said she understood the proposals could be upsetting for those affected.

"We deeply value the strong connections our communities have with their schools, and we recognise how unsettling this process will be for pupils, families, and staff," she said.

"Despite efforts to address falling pupil numbers, we are now at a point where change is essential to ensure our school system remains sustainable."