“Dave,

Your comment makes sense to me. Ralph Allen is in a difficult position and it did not make sense to exclude it (and 2 other schools) from what was meant to be a comprehensive review.

Kirsten,

There may (or may not be) accademic advantages in single sex education. BUT we need choice. A family is Weston who want to send their son or daughter to a secular co-ed school only have Ralph Allen which doesn't give them any choice and is stupidly far away. One boy and one girls school is enought for the city and much more then most other places.”

“In view of the latest research, which suggests that children do better in single sex schools, is it sensible to press ahead with making schools co-ed?”

“The other alternative Tim, is to recognise that if you create more choice of co-ed schools in Bath, by having non religious co-ed schools at both Culverhay and Oldfield sites, the current popularity of Ralph Allen would quickly wane because of its difficult location, lack of bus services etc. At the moment it appears popular because if you want a co-ed school, and don't have a Catholic connection, then you have the choice of Ralph Allen or St Marks which in addition to its religious connections (which some may dislike) also doesn't match the academic results of other schools in Bath so tends to be shunned by parents of brighter children. That doesn't make it a bad school, and hopefully its federation with St Gregory's will over time help it improve further, but at the present time its relative unpopularity is artificially boosting the popularity of Ralph Allen in a way that would arguably disappear if it wasn't the only non religious co-ed school.

I think we need to start from locations - choose the 6 best locations - 2 single sex (which really means keeping the two central ones as present) 2 religious co-ed schools (question whether there is really a desire for Anglican education but I suspect that isn't an argument open for real debate) and 2 other co-ed schools. Once you have picked the best 6 out of 7 sites you can then ensure the best resources go into building good schools on those sites. As things stand we are heading towards a massive transport mess with increased congestion as parents criss cross the city to get to the schools with knock on effects on punctuality, truanting, and eventually academic performance.”

“JM, I agree with you partly in that I think that solution is to close Oldfield because it is not serving the local comunity which desperately needs a North of River Co Ed secondary school not the current Oldfield which has ahas not been able to reassure people that they are willing to go Co-Ed.

Replacing Oldfield and Culverhay with a single co-ed school is the answer (and sex descrimination law means that you can only loose a girls school if you also loose a boys school), but I would argue that the only sensible place to put it is the Oldfield site because there is already a large number of schools south of the river and if a co ed school isn't opened in BA1 there will be no single sex girls school, no co-ed school and no single sex boys school that doesn;t disriminate on religious grounds for the North of the city which isn't fair when South of the river there are so many schools.

Now I recognise that Culverhay is a pretty good school and one that does very well for the boys that attend it, sometimes in difficult circumstances. I would hope that the Council would see the good sense of trying to retain some of the excellent Culverhay staff in the new co-ed school and other schools in Bath. It might even make sense to make Culverhay co ed and to move it lock stock and barrel to Newbridge. That would have the advantage of avoiding the sad demoralising running down of a school.

I don't deny that I am biased in my views. I have a son and daughter and would like them to have a decent local school which I don't think is an unreasonable desire. We can argue about the relative merits of all the schools in Bath (the irony her being that they are all pretty good), but you can't argue with geography and providing a sensible geographical spread of schools makes more sense from the point of view of fareness and also things like reducing the number of cars on the school run.

Another alternative (which doesnlt seem to be on the table) would be to replace Culveryhay and Oldfield with a new co-ed school on Western Riverside which would be in reach of Southsiders, Newbridgers and Westoners.”

“So if the school is not going to become an academy and mostly serves girls from out of town, is the sensible solution not to close this school down and make Culverhay co-ed? With two schools remaining open in Keynsham the South Bristol girls could relocate there and the remainder within Bath.”