Bishop backs

small schools
BISHOP Brian Foley of Lancaster has called for a halt to the closure of small schools in villages and rural areas.
Present local government policies on the closure of village and rural schools could bring an end to the Church school system and parental choice in wide areas of the country, he said.
In a letter to The Times last week. Bishop Foley claimed that Church schools were especially vulnerable to closure because their children were drawn from wider catchment areas than neighbourhood State schools.
Three Catholic schools in Bishop Foley's diocese have been at the centre of a public debate on village schools. The Sacred Heart School, Blackpool, closed this year with a roll of only 27 children.
Two more schools have been earmarked for closure in 1979 — St Mary's School, Lea Town,
Preston, and St Mary's School, Fernyhalgh. Both have fewer than 40 rolls and serve isolated rural districts.
Mrs Jean Andrews, head teacher. and one of the staff of two at the Fernyhalgh school, said the threat of closure for more than two years had seriously affected the intake to the school. which now has 25 pupils.
But a recent petition was signed by more than 2,500 people in favour of keeping the small school. A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said that the schools were not viable units.
Concern is mounting throughout the country that the closure of rural schools has a damaging effect on the local community as a whole. The National Association for Small Schools held its first conference two weeks ago. Reports from numerous areas showed that communities which are scattered and isolated depend on the school for much of their social life as well as basic education. Mrs Molly Stiles, secretary of the association, welcomed Bishop Foley's intervention. "I am very pleased to see that Bishop Foley had taken a stand. It has been very difficult to get anyone moving on the issue in the Churches," she said.
The Department of Education has a number of cases of small schools due for closure now under consideration, including the two Preston schools. A spokesman said that Ministers in the Department would make a decision within the next month.
Mr P. N. Blake, assistant secretary of the Catholic Education Council, said that since Catholic schools were more numerous in towns and cities than in rural areas, the problem of school closure was more likely to present itself in inner cities than in rural areas.
"But every effort will be made to ensure that Catholic school provision will be maintained in the event of declining numbers." he said.