Cutting cash for transport 'could force schools to close'
A head teacher has warned reducing or removing funding for transport to religious schools could result in the closure of smaller schools in the city.
Raymond Friel, who is the executive head of both St Gregory's Catholic College and St Mark's CE School, has told councillors that changes to such funding could destabilise education just as schools emerge from a period of uncertainty and reshuffle.
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Raymond Friel
Bath and North East Somerset Council is carrying out a review of its spending on home to school transport, including for children in care, those with special needs, those from low income families and those whose walking route to school is deemed "hazardous".
But it is the £245,000-a-year cost of denominational transport which has come under the closest scrutiny.
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Mr Friel urged councillors on the council's early years, children and youth policy development and scrutiny panel to realise the importance of the subsidised bus fares for families living outside Bath, and said that any loss in funding could have a knock-on effect on other schools.
He said: "If this subsidy is removed, there will almost certainly be a drop in the number of Catholic pupils at St Gregory's. These places will be filled because St Gregory's is an attractive school but from where and by whom?
" My fear is for other, smaller schools in the authority. So once again we will be looking again at school closures, but this time in an unmanaged or politically unacceptable way."
A number of parents and pupils talked about what they saw as their right to attend the "closest appropriate school".
Tess Daly, who represents the Catholic Diocese of Clifton, echoed these concerns, saying that reducing the subsidy would be unfair to families who did not live close enough to a faith school.
She said: "Parents in more rural areas in north east Somerset, especially if they are middle income and not in receipt of benefits, are the ones who will be penalised."
Panel members voted to recommend the cabinet should seek to reduce the spend on denominational transport by looking at raising the financial contribution which parents have to pay, removing the 50 per cent reduction for second and third children or removing the subsidy for families with more than three children needing transport.
They rejected an option of a phased withdrawal of funding for pupils joining faith schools from 2014.
The final decision will be made by the cabinet, which does not have to accept the recommendations, in March.
The panel heard that a decision will have to be made relatively quickly because the new policy will need to be included in the September 2014 admissions booklet which is published this summer.
7 Comments
by tomsjan
Friday, February 01 2013, 5:51PM
“St Gregorys' argument would hold more water if they were strictly a faith school, but they are not so others who have chosen the school for whatever reason are getting the same funding for their travel when there may be a suitable school nearer to their home. Faith or non-faith, it is the parents' choice ultimately to send them there so it should be at their expense. Maybe faith schools have had their day and should be a thing of the past in the multi-cultural society we now live in. If all children went to the school nearest to their homes just think of all the traffic that could be taken off the roads. My kids always walked to and from school (unless I was going past the door in the car for some reason) or shared a lift on occasions, but had they needed to get a bus I would have had to pay the fare - my kids, my problem, not someone else's!”
by FrancinesPerm
Friday, February 01 2013, 3:31PM
“Actually, I would go even further than separate assemblies. Why do schools even have to adhere to the rule of having "broadly Christian" worship every day? The 1946 education act is outdated. Our society has evolved since then. There should be times when a school should gather all together for reflection and discussion on moral topics, such as friendship, charity, kindness, sharing etc. Of course, these things are the basis of most religions, but not exclusive to them, so why does there have to be any religious slant to daily assemblies? Practising religion is something that should happen at home, not at school. Fine to learn about religion in school, by the way. I have no objection to that. Learning about what others believe and why they believe it is very important
Can you tell this is an axe I like to grind regularly? ;)”
by ludwigvan
Friday, February 01 2013, 11:43AM
“I have never agreed with subsidising school transport because of religion and don't choose for my council tax to be spent in this way. St Gregory's are not bothered about the possible affect on St Brendan's College with the building of the new 6th form block which was not wanted by residents and is also being subsidised by the council. When Culverhay was under threat of closure Mr Friel was not bothered so why expect any sympathy from the populus now? Faith schools should not exist and I agree wholeheartedly with Francinesperm. Education should not be mixed with religion to the degree where it requires separate sites. I remember at school those who did not want to attend assembly being excused while the rest of us suffered! Surely several religions could live side by side with atheists and simply have separate assemblies? There are plenty of heathens at St Gregory's already if their skirt length and street behaviour are anything to go by!”
by Dave_Weston
Friday, February 01 2013, 10:25AM
“I'd hope his pupils aren't learning logical reasoning from him. If Catholic pupils no longer come to his school, they will have to go somewhere else, whilst pupils from somewhere else go to his school. The Catholic kids aren't simply going to vapourise because they can't get to St Gregs. So those displaced may help save another school from being closed!
I wonder if his concerns are more to do with St Marks (which is now under his control) which currently benefits from a degree of denominational transport, but which otherwise tends to be less popular as a choice than other schools.”
by FrancinesPerm
Friday, February 01 2013, 7:00AM
“He said: "If this subsidy is removed, there will almost certainly be a drop in the number of Catholic pupils at St Gregory's. These places will be filled because St Gregory's is an attractive school but from where and by whom?
Heaven forbid (no pun intended) that the local heathens be admitted to your school!
Comments like this are exactly why religion ought to play no part in school admissions policy. Schools should be about educating, not worshipping.”
by wheelie_bin
Friday, February 01 2013, 6:44AM
“So, in summary, you want us to pay for transport so that you can fill up the school with "your" (Catholic) pupils from far away and exclude as many of those riff-raff unbelievers as possible. Yes thats why I pay a not insignificant part of my income in council tax - make perfect sense to me - beats spending it on, say, street cleaning in Odd Down.”
by Imp-Act
Thursday, January 31 2013, 9:46PM
“The answer to your problem is very easy to solve! Sell off ALL the lands that these religious groups own. Jesus owned nada-thing! So DO as you PREACH!”