TWO SCHOOLS, ONE DALE, A BRIGHT FUTURE
Rural schools need novel ways to maximise their potential; two schools in the Yorkshire Dales are doing just that, working together in a new model of confederation to ensure children within some of the most spectacular countryside in Britain get the best possible education.
Reeth Community and Gunnerside Methodist Primary Schools are two small rural primary schools nestling in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales serving the scattered population of Swaledale and surrounding areas. Their position within the National Park ensures that the landscape has a traditional appearance with dry stone walls, farmhouses and large unspoilt areas of hill and moorland, trampled only by sheep and the occasional long distance walker. The population of the area is a mixture of families who have lived in the dales for generations and those who have moved to the area often in search of an alternative life style; as more people are now able to work from home the dale has become an attractive option for many, but the high cost of housing can limit this movement as young people born in the area often move away to more affordable areas.
Changing numbers and population dynamics in these rural communities prompted the governors and local authority to get together to discuss the long-term future of Primary School education in Swaledale. Some children have to travel long distances to get to school and everyone was in agreement that a long-term future for the children in the catchment area was essential and that this could only be achieved by keeping both schools fully functioning.
Confederation was seen as the best way forward and after much discussion the governors of the schools worked with the local authority to set up the confederation of the two schools at Easter 2005. The schools share a Headteacher and, more unusually, transport children between the two school sites on a daily basis; this arrangement ensures that the children are taught in classes which contain one or two year groups only, instead of the previous arrangement where they were taught with four year groups together. It also ensures that best use is made of facilities across both sites.
The benefits to the children of the confederation in terms of teaching and learning are clearly evident as the teachers are able to focus much more closely on addressing the needs of each child. It has not all been easy as the schools’ communities have had to learn to look at things differently, staff have had to get used to working across two sites and to work together to solve a number of logistical problems. However, the children have adapted very quickly to the change in routine and at the children’s suggestion it was decided that a new confederated school logo and uniform would be a very positive way to reaffirm the long term sustainability of the confederation.
The children were invited to put forward their ideas for a new logo and after much discussion, a lot of work by one of the class teachers and many different suggestions, a final version was agreed. The blue and green jigsaw pieces show the colours of the old uniform, the children holding hands representing the confederation and the white circle symbolising the world beyond the dales. Each child was given one free uniform using money from the Scott Trial, a national annual one-day reliability trial for motorcycles that is held locally.
The children at the schools have a varied and challenging curriculum which seeks to both use the local environment as a tool for learning, eg events are organised in conjunction with the National Park, as well as looking beyond the dale to equip the children to be prepared for life in a rapidly changing world. The schools have a partner inner city school and established links with schools in France. The Y3/4 children took part in a community production of "Carmen" as part of the Swaledale Festival and the younger children visited a multifaith centre in Bradford. A recent project with Rural Arts has meant that mosaic tiles have been made to enhance the environment around the schools.
This year we will become part of a pilot scheme for video conferencing; this should assist us to give a feeling of cohesion as we share experiences across the two school sites. Once we have established links between our own schools we will look to ways of establishing contacts with other schools, both nationally and internationally, as we widen the experience of our children who live in such wonderful, though some might think fairly isolated, communities.
We have much to celebrate and have travelled a long way in a short period of time. The new logo and uniform mark an important milestone in the confederation’s history.
