Report of a public meeting at Pencombe.

PENCOMBE Village Hall was the scene of a packed public meeting with over 220 people attending last Saturday night.

Parents, former pupils, staff from both Pencombe school and others in the Bromyard cluster, governors, members of the local community, councillors and the Mayor of Bromyard gathered to hear inspiring presentations from Mark Foster (chair of governors) and Chloe Evans (head teacher).

Mark Foster outlined how we at Pencombe C of E and the other schools in the local cluster of one high school and six primary schools had come to find ourselves in such a distressing and ill-thought-out situation.

Chloe Evans, who has been head for 16 years, gave a heartfelt presentation on what Pencombe has achieved over the time she has been in charge and the wonderful experiences both educational, spiritual, sporting and theatrical the school has provided for the children. Many questions were asked from the floor and cllrs Alan Seldon and Bernard Hunt gave objective answers which will aid in our fight against these proposals.

In her presentation Chloe Evans stated the following. "Pencombe School has had three outstanding OFSTED inspections. The school holds Gold awards for both Activemark, Healthy schools and Artsmark and an Eco schools Bronze award. We achieved the Quality Mark for Literacy and Numeracy for the second time and our pupils have been invited to be Healthy schools ambassadors. Pupil numbers have grown by 207 per cent since I came to Pencombe, and we regularly receive more applications for places than we can offer. OFSTED reported that Pencombe is a very good school with leadership both dynamic and inspirational and the school was placed on the Chief Inspectors list of outstanding schools and colleges. As such the Governors, staff and parents feel that the School is extremely well placed to continue its good work for future generations".

The accuracy and inconsistencies in the council data, their projections that birth rates would continue to fall and inward migration into the county would be balanced by outward migration, was one of many issues called into question during the presentation by Mark Foster. He suggested that no account had been taken of other available data. For example, the Office of National Statistics current upward estimates of the population over the next fifteen to twenty years, or recent figures from Herefordshire's midwives that the county birth rate was in fact rising. As a result, the school places we remove today will have to be reinstated. How could this be a long term plan for our schools if all population projections from a variety of sources had not been fully explored?

Most speakers from the floor were amazed that no consideration had been given to the potential devastation of rural Herefordshire communities, in addition to the massive environmental impact of transporting hundreds of additional children on busy, often dangerous rural roads following the closure of rural primary and secondary schools. There was also considerable concern and anger as to the modus operandi adopted by the council from the announcement of these proposals to head teachers on the January 10.

The meeting voted unanimously (no abstentions or votes against) for the resolution that current Herefordshire Council Education Review Proposals to be withdrawn forthwith.