School Punch Up

The talking point locally for the last few months or so has been Cumbria County Council plans to shut Thorncliffe, Alfred Barrow and Parkview schools and replace them with a single 1,200-pupil academy. Even when the plans were first made public most local folk I talked to about it were dead set against the idea. But just as predicted by a lot of my passengers, and despite strong public opposition, the authority’s cabinet unanimously backed the plans and agreed it should proceed with a process to shut the secondary schools in August 2009. The council says it wants to transform the secondary system to improve standards and buildings. But most local folk remain unimpressed and the feeling is as one of my passengers put it “it’s just like a factory really, and the bigger the factory the cheaper the processing cost per; unit produced.” Unfortunately in this case the units in question happen to be our local schoolchildren. Others fares point out the traffic chaos near the proposed site at school starting and leaving times already, and predict total gridlock and an increase in traffic accidents. Some parents tell me that they will struggle to find the cash to fund the expensive new school uniform that will no doubt be required, especially those with several kids. But the last word goes to some of the older kids I take to and from the affected schools. They tell me that all the schools involved have always had a fierce rivalry towards each other, and as one put it “we all fight out of school, so when they mix us all together in one school it will be one big constant punch up.”