Following news of the sod cutting for two brand new schools in Rhuthun/Ruthin, here is another school story.
It was a controversial decision, to close two neighbouring schools and plant a new one, especially given one was Welsh medium and the other bilingual. Ysgol Pentrecelyn was the loser: an under-subscribed Welsh medium school peripheral to Llanfair DC. The debate placed the Welsh language firmly at centre stage.
Yesterday, Denbighshire council decided *not* to close Welsh medium Ysgol Pentrecelyn. Is this the right decision? Who are the winners?
The parents and pupils at Pentrecelyn? Of course, but Ysgol Llanfair gets its new school regardless and the atmosphere there is strongly Welsh medium in any case. How long will it be before the lure of a new school building brings parents from Pentrecelyn to Llanfair? Llanfair's performance is already streets ahead of Pentrecelyn and the promise of a new building at Llanfair—as opposed to a worn-out one at Pentrecelyn—may yet prove decisive.
For parents and pupils at Llanfair? They win, regardless. Education opportunity, already very high, will continue to improve.
Politicians? You cannot blame politicians for such a change of heart. On the one hand, the closure of Pentrecelyn was a rationally thought-out process. Yet politics, on the other, is not always rational. It's actually instinctive, perceptive, sensitive and shrewd. And there are elections in May and closing schools is probably the political equivalent of letting off a stink bomb during a wedding. Decisions at Llanfair and Pentrecelyn affect the hard-working and popular council leader Hugh Evans because the school is in his patch; and equally assiduous senior Plaid member and education front man Eryl Williams—not that we anticipate anyone foolhardy enough to stand against him.
And for the rest of us? Is the decision good from a tax-payers' perspective, having two schools, two maintenance budgets and two heads where one would suit? Someone will need to maintain a school at Pentrecelyn for a small roll and that could be the future problem.
For now, though, the controversy is over and the future of the Welsh language and culture in this corner of Denbighshire is protected. And maybe that's enough.
It was a controversial decision, to close two neighbouring schools and plant a new one, especially given one was Welsh medium and the other bilingual. Ysgol Pentrecelyn was the loser: an under-subscribed Welsh medium school peripheral to Llanfair DC. The debate placed the Welsh language firmly at centre stage.
Yesterday, Denbighshire council decided *not* to close Welsh medium Ysgol Pentrecelyn. Is this the right decision? Who are the winners?
For parents and pupils at Llanfair? They win, regardless. Education opportunity, already very high, will continue to improve.
Politicians? You cannot blame politicians for such a change of heart. On the one hand, the closure of Pentrecelyn was a rationally thought-out process. Yet politics, on the other, is not always rational. It's actually instinctive, perceptive, sensitive and shrewd. And there are elections in May and closing schools is probably the political equivalent of letting off a stink bomb during a wedding. Decisions at Llanfair and Pentrecelyn affect the hard-working and popular council leader Hugh Evans because the school is in his patch; and equally assiduous senior Plaid member and education front man Eryl Williams—not that we anticipate anyone foolhardy enough to stand against him.
And for the rest of us? Is the decision good from a tax-payers' perspective, having two schools, two maintenance budgets and two heads where one would suit? Someone will need to maintain a school at Pentrecelyn for a small roll and that could be the future problem.
For now, though, the controversy is over and the future of the Welsh language and culture in this corner of Denbighshire is protected. And maybe that's enough.