Wow! After going quiet over the holiday period, our campaign to keep special schools local is heating up!
 
Thank you to everyone for signing our petition, the heartfelt comments you’ve given and the emails/tweets/letters etc you’ve been sending to MPs, county councilors and cabinet members to reverse their decision to close our special schools. Please keep it up and share away!
 
HELP US TAKE ACTION

Our campaign just got serious: St Nicks and Larkrise parents have teamed up to instruct a tenacious legal team who feel we have a strong case against Wiltshire Council and their ludicrous proposal to close our local special schools in place of a remote warehouse-style school.
 
However, getting the right legal representation doesn’t come cheap, so that’s why we’ve set up a Go Fund Me page to crowdfund for the legal fees (which we hope to get back from Wiltshire Council and put straight back into our schools equally). We’ve already paid a large sum up front and several of us from both St Nicks and Larkrise are travelling to London next week to meet with our legal team to discuss our case.

Please donate what you can as every little helps!! And please share!!
 
tinyurl.com/donate-keepspecialschoolslocal
 

HAVE YOUR SAY ON THE PROPOSAL

Even if you’ve signed our petition, it is essential that you take part in Wiltshire Council’s statutory consultation on special schools, which is now officially open. They count the number of responses as ‘evidence’ and it can be used to show just how many oppose their ‘vision’ and on what grounds, and it is what cabinet members will look to when making their final decision at the end of March.
 
The survey is only 3 questions and takes less than 2 minutes to complete!
 
You can access it here: http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council-democracy-consultations
 
Click on ‘Special Schools Consultation’ and then on the next page click on ‘online consultation’.
 
We hope you will agree that the answer to Question 1 is that you do not support the proposal. The one school proposal does not put the needs of children and young people first. We believe students with SEND will not flourish in big schools; this will only replicate the problems that they would experience in mainstream schools. It will also lead to an increase in passenger transport expenditure and make schools less accessible for parents and carers, not to mention putting some student’s health at risk due to the rural location, lack of transport links and distance to the nearest A&E. It also takes children away from their communities and is the opposite of inclusion.
 
Question 2 is only applicable if you support the proposal (please keep in mind that their estimate is a measly £20 million split across two 'Centres of Excellence') 

For Question 3, please mark your top three reasons why you oppose the proposal, keeping in mind all of the above. We feel strongly that ‘Closure of existing schools’ is a key reason as we need more special schools across strategic towns, not fewer! They wouldn't even think of doing this to mainstream pupils. Feel free to mark ‘Other’ to add a reason, such as the plans are too vague, weak or insincere as the school will be run by an academy, not the local authority, or to explain that all of the above options are cause for concern.
 
For Question 4, please mark as many as are appropriate to you. At the very least, mark ‘A relative or friend of a child/young person with SEND’.
 
 
You can also submit your feedback and opposition to Wiltshire Council’s proposal by emailing specialschools@wiltshire.gov.uk.
 
FULL COUNCIL TO DEBATE OUR PETITION
 
Finally, we wanted to show you how your signature counts! As we’ve reached the 5k threshold, our petition, along with the one from Larkrise School, has been submitted and scheduled for a full-council debate at their next meeting on 26 February in Trowbridge. During this meeting, county councilors across the spectrum of political parties will be able to debate this petition and suggest amendments to the proposal (but not to overturn it).
 
We understand that compromises will need to be made due to the financial pressures of Wiltshire Council’s limited budget, but SEND provision across Wiltshire has been in dire need of improvement for some years now (for instance, current special schools are over capacity due to Wiltshire Council's inaction). If you have any suggestions to make this proposal work, please email as many county councillors as possible.

You can find a full list of our county councillors here:
 
https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx
 
Factors to consider could be:
-      placement of primary and secondary special school provision
-      access to an ambulance and A&E department
-      road access and public transport links
-      size of school and the disruption to the local environment, including the influx of traffic
-      ways to include students within their own communities (ie dual enrolment with mainstream schools? Weekly trips to towns to learn essential life skills in their own communities?)
 
Many thanks for all of your support!! Together we can make sure that Everybody Matters!!

Watch this space for more information on upcoming events and proceedings as we have more in the works!
 

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