YOUR article on the Education page (Worcester News, Tuesday, September 20) is good propaganda for the school merger policy of Worcestershire LEA.
It may well be that it was the best choice for the Ronkswood schools - however, the headline to the piece implies that it would be the best choice in all cases. It is very dangerous to generalise from a single example to a universal conclusion.
The page also explains the LEA's rationale for the merger policy and these items are worthy of some comment.
Planning across the curriculum has been a legal requirement upon schools and teachers since the implementation of the National Curriculum Orders in the Education Reform Act, 1988. It hardly seems necessary at this late stage to merge schools in order to ensure that it happens.
There is no logical reason why a merged school should produce clearer rules. School policies are required by law and specified in some detail by the various regulations produced and modified since 1988, so there is no obvious gain here.
As the LEA is currently seeking to lower the admission numbers of a number of schools to deal with spare places caused by the fall in the birth rate, the uncertainty of a place at the junior school seems unlikely to arise.
What of the rights of those parents who prefer their child to go to a different school at the end of Key Stage 1?
The final point - about efficiency savings - seems to be the real motivation for the policy. A single management team and reduced administration are no guarantee of improved efficiency.
D S DENNIS,
Worcester.
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