After Lyndale School closure, Wirral Schools Forum told “Special schools in Wirral cannot collectively meet the needs or the demands of all Wirral children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability]”

After Lyndale School closure, Wirral Schools Forum told “Special schools in Wirral cannot collectively meet the needs or the demands of all Wirral children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability]”

Cabinet 17th December 2014 voting to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan

After Lyndale School closure, Wirral Schools Forum told “Special schools in Wirral cannot collectively meet the needs or the demands of all Wirral children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability]”

                                             

Cabinet 17th December 2014 voting to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cabinet 17th December 2014 voting to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan

Tonight (at the time of publication) the Wirral Schools Forum meets in public. If you’re a glutton for punishment, it starts at 6.00 pm in the Council Chamber at Wallasey Town Hall.

Bear in mind the Council Chamber is in a part of Wallasey Town Hall that the public don’t usually have access to though! Having public meetings behind locked doors is one of things Wirral Council tends to do. Maybe you’ll be lucky and someone will jam the door open!

I will however draw your attention to two items on the agenda which may be of wider interest. There is a ten page report titled Review of High Needs SEN in Wirral and a report titled Schools and High Needs Funding Formula 2018-19 Update.

I will give you a brief summary, at the December meeting of the Wirral Schools Forum decisions were made by the Wirral Schools Forum. Now at the January meeting officers are recommending that the Wirral Schools Forum change its decision made at the December meeting.

Just to recap the reasons given for closing Lyndale School were given by Cllr Phil Davies here as to quote his words exactly “because the viability of the School was compromised by its small size and falling roll” and “The Council has given careful consideration to its statutory duty to ensure that there is sufficient school places with further access to educational opportunities.”

This may be stating the obvious, but the closure of Lyndale School had the following impacts:

i) it removed an entire primary school worth of capacity within the special primary sector,

ii) apart from those who transferred to secondary school, the transfer of Lyndale School pupils put more pressure on the existing special primary schools.

As it states rather starkly in one of those reports I’ve referred to above:

“Special schools in Wirral cannot collectively meet the needs or the demands of all Wirral children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability] at the current time, as nearly all schools are at capacity.”

The report then goes on to state that there is no “appetite” for either building more schools or increasing places.

So where do these people go? Well despite no money for building more schools or increasing places they recommend “There is a need therefore to invest in the wider range of provision including mainstream provision.”

So from an educational perspective, the opposite of what Cllr Phil Davies has stated has happened. There are insufficient places, children have to be educated somewhere, so Wirral Council employees seem to be recommending putting them in mainstream schools instead. In fact the general view of some is this is already happening.

Please leave a comment if you have strong views on this!

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Author: John Brace

New media journalist from Birkenhead, England who writes about Wirral Council. Published and promoted by John Brace, 134 Boundary Road, Bidston, CH43 7PH. Printed by UK Webhosting Ltd t/a Tsohost, 113-114 Buckingham Avenue, Slough, Berkshire, England, SL1 4PF.

6 thoughts on “After Lyndale School closure, Wirral Schools Forum told “Special schools in Wirral cannot collectively meet the needs or the demands of all Wirral children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disability]””

  1. I wonder if any racist or sexist “jokes” are swapped behind those locked doors, when the brave ones feel nice and cosy and protected inside their “safe space”?

    These people really DO tick all the boxes as failed human beings don’t they John, with their bigoted, throwback attitudes and their selfish, ultra-defensive behaviour?

    When I worked there in Highway Services, I’d been diligently toiling away one afternoon, in 1996 in the Street Lighting Section, aged 36 or so, when a manager took me to one side.

    He had a smirk on his face and questioned me quietly, in conspiratorial fashion: “What do you call 100 black men working in a field?”

    I sensed a wave of trepidation building, but said, “I don’t know”.

    He said, “The Good Old Days.”

    I’d only been there a couple of months and my heart sank as I heard myself trying but failing to laugh in response. There were multiple similar incidents involving others as time went on. I actually thought, Christ, how am I going to wear a mask every day and keep up a pretense for the next God knows how many years? I made it to 2003 before Director David Green framed me for ‘bullying’. Haha. Friends often split their sides at that one.

    And with the alleged racist behaviour of Deputy Leader George Davies and former Mayoral Consort Elaine Foulkes, I really think this place is polluted with its own cloying prejudice and will never be able to shake it off because its so deeply embedded.

    It’s a kind of lumbering, corporate hatred, infecting all corners and protected under a glossy coat of fake respectability.

    I wouldn’t wish any ill on the twats who continue to breathe life into it because innocent people may be hurt in the process. But a good, generous helping of KARMA is certainly overdue around these parts, and particularly that poisonous hellhole centred upon the splendid looking building at the postcode CH44 7ED.

    The place where power is abused and cash is repeatedly squandered hand over fist to drag them all out of the shit.

    Keep up the great work John. Keep concentrating on what needs exposing to the public, and keep holding your nose, and you’ll be okay, I’m sure.

    Even a whole Pride of Lyons would struggle to wrestle this dangerous beast to the ground, slice through its jugular, spill its toxic blood and put it out of its diabolical misery.

    1. Thanks for your comment Paul.

      I think you mean CH44 8ED, rather than CH44 7ED?

      As to your last sentence, I think you’re starting to sound like bobby47!

      I remember at a public meeting, one of the Wirral Council employees stated that my wife shouldn’t be speaking at it as she wasn’t born here.

      It’s far worse than you describe though. There are those at Wirral Council that believe in using violence to achieve political ends. There are those that are violent too. Why do you think we have a policy of there always being two of us?

      There’s no point in making complaints about this sort of thing as you know though as the answer is, as Wirral Council states it’s always the fault of the person making the complaint!

      It is now less than four months to the elections. I’ve no idea what the result will be at this stage, but it’s up to the people to choose who they want as councillors.

  2. Yet Wirral Council can provide school bus services each day to and from home for childern that have been exclude from normal school as these childern are classed unteachable and any normal school, yet normal behaved childern have to make their own way to and from home/school?

  3. Not all kids who use the school bus services are unteachable.My daughter has autism & goes to Clare Mount.She uses school transport & if she’s having one of those days which are few & far between I take her myself.My other kids who are “normal” walked to school & back on their own.

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