Dozens of worried parents from Highbridge’s soon-to-merge St Johns and Beechfield Schools expressed their concerns over the amalgamation during a stormy meeting on Wednesday afternoon (July 14th).
New headteacher Wendy Nelder faced questions from 60 parents during the meeting, which was held in St Johns School’s main hall.
“Parents expressed their concerns at the lack of communication over the merger of the schools, the high cost of the new green pupil uniforms and the small size of the merged school,” one parent told Burnham-On-Sea.com following the meeting.
“We’re amazed that the merged school will have less than 20 new spaces for pupils despite the ever increasing growth of Highbridge. The new school will be inadequate for the town’s needs.”
He added that parents were also unhappy that the new headteacher was unable to provide answers to all of the parents’ questions.
Burnham-On-Sea.com reported last year how plans to amalgamate Beechfield Infants School and St John’s Church of England Junior School were given a green light by Somerset County Council.
The newly-amalgamated school, to be called Churchfield Primary School, will open this September.
Included in the proposal is a huge multi-million pound building programme to replace the current infants and junior school buildings. The new facilities are due to be built on the current site at a cost of £6.3m, with the new school due to open in September 2012.
There has been no confirmation from the government as to whether the building project is threatened by its countrywide cuts to dozens of school construction schemes as part of its bid to cut the UK’s budget deficit.
