Anger as Minister says yes to Cefn Onn School closure
The Education Minister has agreed to close a school in my constituency which serves an area with few community facilities.
Cefn Onn Primary School has been a central part of one of the large housing estates in Llanishen for 5 decades. I would like to place on record my praise for the headteacher, staff and governors who have worked hard to save the school from closure. It is an incredibly sad day for local families who will feel very let down as a result of this decision.
When Cardiff Council decided to close this school the birthrate in the city had been falling, and this became the premise on which the school closure programme would progress. Since 2002 however the birthrate in Llanishen and across Cardiff has been increasing and the council has had to amend its own pupil projection figures. Pupils from this area will now have the option of attending 4 other schools, and whilst the alternatives are all excellent schools the loss of Cefn Onn has the potential to fragment the community.
This latest closure not only ignores the new birthrate trend it is fundamentally a nail in the coffin for the community the school has served.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Why dont the parents take it over and run it as a community owned school,plenty of good examples of this and the schools really motor
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I thought your post deserved more of a response than I could give here, so I’ve written something on Syniadau:
http://syniadau–buildinganindependentwales.blogspot.com/2009/10/one-sided-blue-print.html
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:50 am
presumably the ‘community facilities’ as described are the buildings, classrooms etc. Are they being dug up and transported to Bangor or to Aberystwyth or something, because unless I am missing something, these facilities will still exist, even after the change in teaching medium??
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 am
missed something here at first glance, the quote
“local families who will feel very let down ”
- so I assume that the pupils who come to the new welsh medium school will be bussed in from the Nashy North and the Welshy West then will they?
God forbid that any attending pupils will actually be from Cardiff eh!!
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Complete rubbish, just as many local children now go to Y Wern as Cefn Onn. The Llanishen estate is also somewhat unlikely to suddenly start producing vast numbers of additional offspring!