Cardiff school saved from the wreckers.

This piece comes from the Socialist party wales website. On another note i've finished most of my coursework now so I'll be able to do a couple of things I've been putting off for a while, inlcuding making some updates to the blog.
Campaigners from Lansdowne Primary School in Canton in Cardiff are celebrating this week after winning their fight to save their school.
Report by Ross Saunders
( Cardiff West Socialist Party, Unison Steward Fitzalan High School)

Eight months of hard, well-organised campaigning by parents, staff and community members has proved that fighting back can win results. The victory has given a huge boost to schools like Llanedeyrn, Cefn Onn and Llanrumney, which still lie under the axe.The campaign forced school closures to the top of the agenda in the recent Council elections. Socialist Alternative candidates standing under the banner of Save Our Schools gained respectable votes and Plaid Cymru were pressured into opposing the school closures. Plaid has now joined forces with the Lib Dems on the Council Executive. Cantonian High School will also remain open and anew school for over-crowded Welsh-language Primary Ysgol Treganna. will be built. But the school closures programme has not been withdrawn.
These developments have exposed the lies peddled by local Labour councillors, who claimed building a new Welsh-language school was impossible without closing an English-speaking school.
Plaid, which has been able to fake left while in opposition, now faces having to administer closures in the city, or come up against its own party members in the WAG coalition with Labour. Canton has won its battle for now, but campaigners have expressed their sympathy with the other schools still on the closures list. People in other parts of the city will ask how Plaid can close schools in their area while saving those in their own back yard.
Socialist Party members, who have supported Lansdowne and the other schools campaigns from the beginning, are calling for so-called "surplus places" to be redistributed amongst all the schools in Cardiff in order to lower class sizes and raise standards, and demands the funding arrangements be changed in order to allow this. Colossal pressure has been able to divert the main parties from attacks in some parts of the city, but until a new party that acts in the interests of ordinary people is created, campaigners will have to continue their fight against school closures and job cuts in education

FIGHTING SCHOOL CLOSURES IN WALES

This piece is taken from the Socialist Party Teachers blog see - http://socialistteachers.org.uk/weblog/index.html

Iain Dalton & Ross Saunders (Socialist Party Wales)
Aschool closure is coming to every area of Wales. From Carmarthen to Cardiff, Powys to Gwynedd, the threats of cuts, closures and teacher redundancies are growing.
The root of the problem lies with the Welsh Assembly funding formula which funds each council according to the number of students going to each school, rather than their needs.
Now that student numbers are falling, a new formula is needed to allow smaller class sizes. We say abolish the formula not the schools! But parents, school students, teachers, school workers and local communities are uniting to oppose the threatened cutbacks.
All the parties, Liberal, Labour, Plaid and Tory, accept the argument that schools should close because student numbers have fallen. They claim money is being "wasted on empty places". But falling student numbers are a great opportunity to improve education without spending extra money, through reduced pupil/teacher ratios.
On 13th December, over 600 parents, children and other protesters marched through Caernarfon to protest against the closure of 29 schools and the federalising (one school over several sites) of many others. The march saw banners from many different schools and placards condemning the Plaid Cymru led Gwynedd Council proposing these cuts.
In Cardiff, the Liberal Council's attempt to close 22 schools was defeated last year by a barrage of meetings and demos. But now they have returned with a new closures plan.
School students would be expected to travel across Cardiff, increasing congestion, pollution and carbon emissions, to bigger schools with bigger classes. A united campaign, similar to the one which defeated these plans in 2006, is starting to develop. It could, if focussed on exerting maximum pressure on councillors, repeat the victory of two years ago. If local councillors only oppose closures in their own wards while backing all the others, then all the closures will go ahead. A joined-up Save Our Schools Campaign pledging to fight all attacks on Cardiff schools could extend pressure to all 72 councillors.
What use is the One Wales coalition between Labour and Plaid? Any hope that Plaid entering the government would move things substantially to the left is being snuffed out by these closures. And so much for the Liberal campaign promise in the Assembly election for smaller class sizes!
If councillors refuse to act to save schools, then parents and campaigners are preparing to stand against them in the May elections.

600 Demonstrate in Caernarfon against School Cuts

This is a report of a recent protest against school closures in Gwynedd (the county council Bangor is in). These cuts are similar to ones proposed by several other councils in Wales, partly as a result of the lower budgetary settlement from Assembley Government (and in turn from Westminster). There are other reports and info at http://www.socialistpartywales.org.uk

Report by Iain Dalton & Heledd Williams

On Thursday 13th December, over 600 parents, children and other protesters marched through Caernarfon to protest against the closure of 29 schools and the federalising (one school over several sites) of many others. The march saw banners from many different schools protesting against their individual school closures and placards condemning the Plaid Cymru led Gwynedd Council who were making these cuts. The march ended in a rally outside the council chambers where council members were meeting to discuss this issue. This action and other protests have seen the council extend the consultation period for this education 'reorganisation', but this will not be the end of this series of escalting protests.We spoke to several parents on the demonstration:John Allport, from Ysgol Borth-y-Gent near Porthmadog in the south of Gwynedd explained that council was giving innaccurate reasons for closures, saying that schools were suffering falling attendence rolls. On the contrary said John, the school had full attendence and was a succesful school. Anna Jones and Ffion Jones from Ysgol Baladeulyn in Nantlle ar Agor explained that the school is the heart of their village and is used for community activities after school hours. Under the reorganisation plan their children would have to travel 4 miles to the nearest school. With buses coming to the village once every two hours, chldren would have the choice of arriving at school over 45 minutes early or almost the same amount late!Louise Warren, Dawn Williams, Emma Pryce and David Connor from Ysgol Rhiwlas told us how the council had not maintened facilities for many years so that they have fallen into disrepair, which is the excuse they are using to close the school. There had been an attempt to raise funds to repair a portakabin, but the council pulled out of their part of the funding. Under the plan their school will be merged with two others, and a new school built 5 miles away, but why, they ask, do they have the funds for this but not maintaining the schools parents actually want.

Socialist Party Wales says:

- No cuts in education in Gwynedd
- For the Welsh Assembley to provide the necessary funds to keep primary schools open and reduce class sizes.
- Democratic control of schools by parents and staff
- Local campaigns should put up candidates in next year's local elections on an anti-cuts platform, linking up with publicsector workers ie. postal workers, civil servants etc.
- Link up the campaigns across Gwynedd and across Wales.