THREE schools on the Isle of Wight that had been slated for closure will not be shut this summer, it was decided on Thursday, in a decision welcomed by the diocese of Portsmouth.
The diocese’s director of education, Jeff Williams, said that the decision by the Isle of Wight Council “demonstrated that councillors have listened to our repeated concerns”.
Of five schools on the island that had been scheduled for closure, three were spared in a vote by the council’s cabinet. Two of those three are C of E schools.
Two other schools — Arreton St George’s C of E Primary School and Cowes Primary School — are still due to close this summer, with the council citing an excess of school places on the Isle of Wight.
Mr Williams said that the diocese remained “concerned regarding the process that led to the decisions”, and would be taking legal advice.
Further schools, perhaps including those spared on Thursday, might also be closed in due course, as the Council intends to restart the process of evaluating its education provision, BBC News reported.
The meeting at which the cabinet voted not to close Brading C of E, Oakfield C of E, and Wroxall primary schools was watched online by more than 300 people, and came a day after the surprise resignation of the councillor who had been in charge of education, Jonathan Bacon.
In February, the diocese sent a “letter before claim” to the council, setting out its opposition to the plans ahead of possible legal proceedings (News, 25 February).
The Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Revd Jonathan Frost, had previously urged council leaders to keep the C of E schools open, speaking of their “vital and distinctive” contribution (News, 8 November 2024).
In a statement last month, Mr Williams said the process by which the schools had been selected for closure had been “flawed from the start”.
“The reasons the council have given for school closures have been unclear, inconsistent, and risk doing further damage to communities that have already been hit hard by these ill-informed plans,” he said.
