I speak on behalf of a number of parents, staff and children at the school who feel very strongly that the evidence shows that the council are acting illegally in closing our school.

The proposal by the council to close another school last year was overturned as the proposed school the children were to transfer to had a lower standard of education as shown in their Ofsted report and as such as quoted by the councillor for education, even if there had only been a few children in the school they couldn't have closed it due to this.

In our submission, we compared the standards of education in 14 other schools local to Apperknowle. It clearly showed the standards in all the other schools fell well below, and in most cases significantly well below Apperknowle.

Four children from the village were identified by the council as possibly transferring to their local school, Unstone, which has just been reported on by Ofsted where again their standards were significantly below Apperknowle.

What do you think? Post your comments below.

This is a total breach of the Education Act and it looks as if no one in Government or any other official body, who should be monitoring this situation, has an ounce of backbone to look into this situation and stop it.

It is a case for a judicial review but when emails, letters, reports and other forms of contact have been attempted time and time again and no-one has the decency to respond or look into the situation, we feel very much let down and totally ignored.

Minister Jim Knight, just after our proposal was approved (strange that the appeal was brought forward by the council) stated that standards were to be improved and schools with a higher standard of education were to be supported not closed.

The children have been poorly treated, some were even told they weren't wanted by other local schools.

Parents have not been supported or aided in this and the teaching staff have been treated abysmally by the council.

When submitting official paperwork, where decisions are made that can alter a person's future, all the facts and evidence should be produced. But our council is allowed to get away with only supplying a fraction of the facts, to their advantage, and is not challenged when evidence proves its submission is not fact and is in breach of the Education Act. How can they then continue to close our school? .

E Bargh

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