Cymdeithas yn beirniadu Gwynedd a'r Cynulliad - Association criticises Gwynedd and Assembly

Mewn datganiad i'r Wasg mae'r Gymdeithas Cenedlaethol dros Ysgolion Bach yn feirniadol dros ben o'r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol a Chyngor Gwynedd ynglyn a'u hagwedd tuag at ysgolion bach. Mae'r datganiad hefyd yn beirniadu bwriad Cyngor Gwynedd i ail-ddechrau'r broses ddiffygiol fydd yn arwain tuag at gau ysgolion o fewn y Sir.
Bydd y mater yma yn cael ei drafod ger cyfarfod arbennig o Gyngor Gwynedd lle mae disgwyl i mwyafrif o aelodau bledleisio o blaid y bwriad all arwain tuag at gau oleiaf 25-30 o ysgolion ar draws y Sir.
Yn barod mae Llais Gwynedd wedi beirniadu y rhagdybiaeth sydd yn bodoli o blaid cau ysgolion yn y Sir ac yn gofyn am newidiadau yn y drefn.
Gweler y datganiad yn llawn isod.

In a press release, the National Association for Small Schools has slammed the National Assembly for Wales and Gwynedd Council for their attitude towards small schools. The press release is also critical of Gwynedd Council's defective plans as it prepares to re-start the process that will in no doubt lea to schools being closed across the County.
The matter will be discussed next week by a special meeting of the full Council where it is expected that a majority of members will vote in favour of the plan that could lead to at least 25-30 schools being closed across the County.
Already Llais Gwynedd has criticised the presumption connected to the proposals that favours the closure of schools within the County and has pressed for changes to the proposals.
A copy of the press release can be viewed below.

PRESS RELEASE: Assets NOT Liabilities

Having advised and supported small schools in Gwynedd facing closure in 2008 and noted the protest that brought electoral change, and having been invited to give evidence to the new Council, we are dismayed to see virtually the same agenda proposed again and using the stealth route of area piecemeal review masking the same level of intended destruction. Despite the new proposals almost entirely ignoring our hard data the facts have not changed. Moreover the Scottish Government, Nationalist-led and with cross-Party support, is promoting a Bill seriously protecting small schools, accepting its own data and that of the previous Lab-Lib coalition who began this process. Scotland roots policy in hard fact not the unproven glib assumptions of Councils supporting programmes such as Gwynedd again proposes.
Scottish data showed that children in its smallest schools had a 25% higher chance of entering higher education; children from impoverished, disadvantaged backgrounds in those schools made progress, unlike those elsewhere who remain a seriously under-achieving cadre of disaffection expensive to many public ser vice budgets; Gaelic-medium schools, most being small, obtained the best results of all, even in English, confirming our claim that the most effective education comes when parents and teachers are on the same wavelength. Nationalist conspiracy with Government priorities risks betraying Welsh-medium interests.
Estyn’s PR sheet covering its 2006 Small Schools Report stated that small schools did as well as any other and that they effectively engaged parents in the children’s education. The WAG Rural Development Report and Consultation document on school organisation ignore this, citing only the lesser complaint about some aspects of the heavily bureaucratic leadership role expected in schools these days. Where it matters, getting results, ESTYN has few complaints about small school Heads. English data conclusively affirms the same small school levels of success. Both countries show similar long-term, enduring achievement for children starting school in small and very small schools. Reliable analysis shows levels of derivation in smaller rural communities almost a high as in urban ones but with far higher levels of attainment. The urban poor deserve small buildings too, with similar quality home-school partnership.
WAG policy offers to selected groups a chance to help shape future organisation of education, except in one area, small schools, where it prescribes closure using a raft of wholly-unproven, mere opinions. With its Rural Development Committee it wants to close small schools and build larger area versions and so needs to justify fewer Heads and buildings. Gwynedd, Ynys Mon, Powys, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, all anticipate buildings moneys and do so despite WAG and the RDI Committee ignoring four major pieces of research showing that beyond minimum comfort levels the quality of buildings has little impact on performance. Gwynedd and the RDI deflect this hard evidence, the latter flatly stating that teaching quality is not more important than buildings.
The Scottish evidence was very telling on the costs, the real closure argument. Closure arguments are solely confined to simplistic comparison between individual school pupil-unit costs and a notional average but fail to show which of the “average” schools are the higher end that justifies the term. As Gwynedd’s budget statement shows, much more is spent per year on education than shows in school budgets. Birmingham is to spend £40m directly on reaching parents on just 50 schools with classroom discipline problems.
In 2007 Aberdeen spent £5000 per pupil overall on education. The average spend in wholly urban Councils was similar. Councils with a mix of urban/rural schools spent significantly less, the lowest being £3800. It has NEVER been true to say small schools are draining resources from the rest, and from the urban poor. The urban poor need small schools too. Much is spent in Gwynedd on education that does not reach small school pupils. US and other evidence show that small schools long-term deliver significant profit to the Exchequer by reducing the increasingly expensive costs of educational failure and achieving more enduring attainment giving better results, better jobs and more tax revenues. National Auditors report that even in the most rural Councils less is spent on rural citizens than urban citizens and for a higher tax take. The school can be the only return for taxpayers on moneys providing services largely in towns.
The average cost of heating, lighting, cleaning and maintaining Scottish small school buildings was between £15 000 and £25 000. The costs of the bus and driver to take the children to the likely alternative would be £35 000. Current estimates at the time showed £1000-£1500 per pupil per year per five-mile journey. Such facts are rarely exposed in closure proposals. Closure of rural schools has also threatened entitlement to other grants dependent on schools as part of defining rurality and community sustainability. Moreover new research in 2008 showed that most Victorian/Edwardian school buildings had a higher carbon footprint than the majority of buildings erected since the war.
National and local policy should derive from the more sophisticated economic arguments available. Instead it is fed by either wilful political and professional ideology or inexcusable ignorance of fact. Small schools are one of the most wholesome and effective models of education we have yet produced. If Wales erases this model it will damage children’s education and the rich rural fabric within national culture. The educational, community, social and financial arguments reveal small schools as assets, not liabilities, and that any policy ostensibly promoted in the name of standards needs to build on what exists not destroy it. Gwynedd plans for 2021 but no-one explains just how we shall provide education i in the name of a future, Gwynedd’s 2021, no-one explains, just how we shall provide education win a world changing so rapidly. NASS argues the two resources shown by research most children need, good parents and good teachers, will remain crucial. Small schools provide these almost free.
The Scottish Government has just kept four small secondary schools open because the Council used skewed, flawed and prejudicial arguments denying legally fair consultation and procedure. They also cited HMIe who said the four schools were effective and should not be closed. Currently Councils oppose Government. Sadly in Wales local and national government are aligned, perversely and wilfully dressing arguments with skewed and selective evidence. Gwynedd has financial problems as elsewhere in Wales but these are Government-created to put just such pressure on Councils. Across Wales 250-300 schools are at risk. Moreover they hide behind one of the most discredited pieces of so-called research, that by David Reynolds, a researcher openly endorsing particular political policy he has shaped through work described in a peer review by a leading expert in the field as unprofessional and wholly unreliable. Her final comment read: “If this is being used for policy, Heaven help us!”

Mervyn Benford Information Officer