APPENDIX 3 E-Mail Responses

APPENDIX 3 E-Mail Responses Please note the views below are not the views of the Council, but are the views of people who responded to the consultation. I am a parent of a child currently in Y8 at High Storrs and one in Y2 at Sharrow Primary. My eldest also went to Sharrow Primary, and when we applied for secondary back in Oct 2007, we didn't put Abbeydale Grange on any of the three preferred choice. So I know support the closure of Abbeydale Grange and having High Storrs/King Edward VII as the catchment, as this will make it easier for my youngest, when the time comes to get into those school. There is no issue of distance, it's only a bus ride away, and my daughter frequently walks home with her friends from the same Sharrow area. I'm a mother of a child that goes to abbeydale grange school. My daughter, started at the school just last week and has already settled in really well. she is very happy at the school, is making new friends something she wasn't very good at doing before, likes the subjects and thinks the teachers are all really nice. When she was at primary school it was sometimes a real struggle to get her there, only in the final year did she start changing. Now , at abbeydale there hasn't been any of that which was such a relief. she loves the school. it is easiest for her to get to, we live just off london road and don't have a car. being a small school means the teachers have a better relationship with all pupils and she says she's already noticing that. of course all parents want the best possible education for their children and i do believe that is achievable at abbeydale, it is up to each individual child to make the most of their education no matter what school they go to. my daughter has expressed her views to me about the closure and is really worried and upset about it closing. we all are. she would rather stay at home instead of being shifted to another school something i've heard from another parent. why shove all the pupils into other schools which are already full? it makes no sense. the kids are going to end up being seperated from their friends and will have to try and fit in with all the other children whom will have already formed friendships. it isn't fair on the kids and the teachers who will be out of work. all because the council want the land for new homes!! it disgusts me that you'd rather cause upset and heartache for new homes. schools are far more important. i'm backing the school to stay open a million per cent. i'll do all i can for it. please please listen to the kids involved there. please. i beg you. I think its better to close it and redistribute resources. I would not want my child to go there - sadly. But do the other secondaries have enough places and resources to take all the children? I am writing about the future of Abbeydale Grange as part of the review to suggest it be used as a specialist secondary school for children with disabilities and Learning difficulties. I am co-founder and co-chair of ACCT: Asperger's Children and Carers Together and also one of the lead parents of the interim forum, the new group currently forming to represent all parents with children with disabilities here in Sheffield. One of the recurring themes and concerns of parents is the lack of specialist provision for our children here in Sheffield and this is behind this i enquiry about consideration of SEN children for the future of Abbeydale Grange. Please let me know if this suggestion is being considered and if you require consultation to be carried out amongst the parents of children with LDD about this issue? As the father of a pupil in Year 5 at Carteknowle Juniors you have asked for my views on the proposal to close the school and reallocate schools as detailed on the Sept 09 consultation document. I am very much in favour of closing the school as soon as possible. It is no longer a realistic choice for parents. Due to :- • so few of the parents in the catchment area actually choosing it for their children. This means the schools population does not reflect the children in this area. It is disproportionately made up of children who are low academic achievers and or have special needs such as behavioural problems or English as a second language. • it would be cruel to send my son to a school where none of his close classmates will be going • the very low academic success of the school compared to the other secondaries such as High Storrs, Silverdale etc • the school is not viable in the long term and I do not want my son to have to start at Abbeydale only for it to have the fear of closure hanging over it or for it to shut before he has finished. I am very happy for Carterknowle to be made a feeder for High Storrs as my daughter goes to High Storrs. She is happy at this school and is making good progress. It is fairly easy for her to get there and back. There are a number of buses and it is walkable. I would comment that its important for all the secondaries in the area to get a fair mix of children from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. To facilitate this Silverdale ought to have either Abbeydale Primary or Sharrow as a feeder school with buses provided for the children to get there. At present Silverdale is a small cosy school with very few children from a poor background or having English as a second language compared to High Storrs, King Ecgbert or King Edward VII. I would also like to point out that the present difficult situation with Abbeydale Grange is having a negative effect on its 3 feeder primaries. Some parents are moving house to ensure they are in the catchment area of a good school, whist others seem to be moving their children to other Junior Schools that are feeder schools for other secondaries. Both factors are reducing morale and pupil numbers at Carterknowle, Abbeydale Primary and Sharrow and having a negative impact on the wider community. Many thanks for your invitation to participate in the consultation on the future of Abbeydale Grange School. We chose High Storrs because we were instantly won over when we attended the open evening (with friends; we were not even considering High Storrs before and probably would not have visited at all). High Storrs had a very bad reputation among our acquaintances at the time, and we know two families who had removed their children from the school. If we had followed the consensus, we would have rejected High Storrs out of hand. ii Our positive choice for High Storrs means that we rejected Abbeydale Grange by default rather than because we felt there was anything wrong with AGS. My daughter learnt a lot at Porter Croft, so we know better than to believe global condemnation of an entire school on the basis of league tables or – worse – the family backgrounds of its pupils. From all I have seen of AGS for myself and heard from pupils and their parents, this is a school with highly motivated teachers and a culture of positive, and frequently very successful, learning. Results are improving, and maintaining one small secondary school is, in my opinion, of great value for children who thrive there, but would sink in the bigger secondaries. I suspect the school is held back by the fact that it cannot offer a Sixth Form anymore, and a clearer onward link might make it more attractive to some parents. I also believe that school is about more than academic performance: Learning to appreciate children with different backgrounds and abilities is a very valuable life lesson, of huge importance for each child and for social cohesion in Sheffield. Not only in this respect, AGS is successful. I have no opinion on the reallocation of catchments, but I feel that their publication gives the impression that the closure of the school is, despite all protestations to the contrary, a foregone conclusion. This is not likely to help the school to „regain the confidence of local parents“. I would be dismayed to see the school close, as I do not see how pupils would benefit from this. There are several schools in Sheffield with worse results, less improvement and considerably more serious discipline problems, yet only AGS appears to be the target for ill-informed and downright nasty calls for closure (see, for example, the frighteningly poisonous comments on the Sheffield Forum website). In my opinion, the aggressive and ill-informed manner in which this school is attacked by some people is, in itself, a very strong reason for supporting AGS and its pupils. I come at this from several angles. My mother, who died this year, attended Abbeydale in the 1940s so it is a school I have always been aware of and from a sentimental view would be sorry to see go. However I am a local resident living in the Abbeydale Grange catchment (but not in Dobcroft catchment area), my own children attended Dobcroft. My eldest son lost an appeal to get into Silverdale to be with his friends and spent half a term at Abbeydale – with which I was very impressed - before a second appeal (it was an odd year) which he was then placed at Silverdale.

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