We have been for a tour of the Silcoates Junior School (included the Silcoates Senior School) and the Sunny Hill pre school.

The head teacher of the Junior School took us around and answered all of our questions very well.  While it is clearly a much larger school than St Hilda’s, much of the feel of the smaller school is retained and we feel that Elliot would not find himself in a huge class that was too overpowering.  Years 1 and 2 are very much kept together with a specific shared playground for their sole use as well as their being in the same building together for pretty much all classes.  They would then use the remaining school facilities such as Chapel and Sports facilities as the need requires.  There are some prefab buildings that are hidden behind the school that are used for Years 4 and 5 that were meant to be temporary but look to have been there 10 years.  Here’s betting that they will be there another 10 at the very least.

All in all, we left feeling pretty good about the school and were somewhat surprised at this as we half expected to walk out feeling at a loss.

Sunny Hill also gave us an impression of solidity which again was unexpected.  Our main issues were that the school appears (from the road) to look like a bit of a borstal and that it is right on the busy road a problem.  Internally, it was actually way better organised than the St Hilda’s nursery section, and the road does not look like it would pose much of a problem as the school playground is opened up in the morning and in the afternoon for drop off and collection purposes.

As the dust settles on the way in which the news was delivered to the parents at St Hilda’s on Saturday morning and the idiot (Bursar) that was in the St Hilda’s school to take questions on Monday morning (even though he did not really answer anything that he was asked) becomes a distant memory, it seems that we have certainly got a reasonably good plan of action if we decide to stay with the Silcoates School 🙂

Sadly it really is – we got a letter on Saturday morning advising us that the Silcoates Board were considering the closure of the St Hilda’s school and consolidating it with the existing Sunny Hill and Silcoates Junior school.  The proposal will close the school from the end of the current school year.  Clearly this was not the news that we wanted to be reading on Saturday morning as Elliot is really getting on well at the school.

It actually really frustrates us since the main reason for Elliot going to the school was because the class sizes were so handily small for Elliot as he was introduce to English education.  Hence we were comfortable spending as much money on his education vs. the state provided education system (30+ pupils per class).  The likelihood is that the junior school will now have 10 more pupils per class pushing those classes over the 30 number….

There does appear to have been significant frustration at the school this morning also with  a couple of Silcoates board representatives in attendance at the school this morning, but it seems that it was mainly a defensive stance that was taken by the main man.  Sadly this is not the sort of thing that you should expect from a representative in such a situation – if this is the best guy for the job, then it suggests that the Silcoates Foundation actually don’t care for their customer at all.  The guy talked over pretty much anyone who asked him questions and would not give answers that differed from the rather standard “this is a business and it is losing money” approach.  He absolutely must have known he was walking into a group of parents who simply want to understand what and why, and not to have some pompous idiot who clearly has not run through Customer Services 101 simply lose his temper.

We also found that the teachers were only advised of this situation themselves on Friday – a less than great start to any weekend 🙁

We have booked an appointment to go and see the Junior school and Sunny Hill (under 5’s) tomorrow so at least we will be able to compare it to the local school (that is now very much back in contention.

We now feel like we were not told all relevant and pertinent information 5 months ago when we signed up to the school.  Class sizes of 30 makes the school no better than a state school in one respect – something that we need to carefully consider now.

We will see over the coming days what happens next, but I think it fair to say Oliver will be taken out of Nursery ASAP.

Really feeling for the teachers and staff at St Hilda’s today 🙁