Saturday 8 May 2010

Save Gwernyfed High School

I've seen a few posters up round town saying that there's a threat to the future of Gwernyfed High School. I haven't taken much notice of the recent articles in the B&R, because I don't have kids myself, and I don't know any kids who go to Gwernyfed, but I do know that it's a school with a high academic reputation and it is the nearest secondary school to Hay.
It seems that the County Council wants to re-organise all the secondary education in Powys - which basically means saving money by shutting schools, as far as I can see. Now, Powys is a huge, spread-out area, and kids already have to take long bus rides to school. Centralisation would make that even worse, and larger schools always mean that there are kids who get overlooked and lost in the system. It also seems crazy to want to shut schools with a good academic record - surely those are the ones that should be saved!
There is a Facebook page - Save Gwernyfed High School - and a new website at http://supportgwernyfed.com/

By the way, there are still people around who remember the days when a child from Hay could only attend Brecon High School if they boarded in Brecon during the week and only came home at weekends - the journey was too long to do every day.

3 comments:

compman said...

Sorry about this I did send an earlier comment but I don't think it got through.
If I may I repeat my earlier observation regarding Brecon Grammar Schools (boys and girls):

Sorry but you are completely wrong here. I attended Brecon Boys Grammar School for 5 years between 1948 and 1953 and all the pupils from Hay, Talgarth and other villages en route travelled every day by bus to Brecon and had done for many years. After 1950 pupils were conveyed to Brecon by a special school train.
This continued until the closure of the railway at Hay in 1963.We used to leave Hay at 7:30 am and arrive home at about 5pm. No-one that I knew from Hay or Talgarth ever had to board in Brecon

Eigon said...

Sorry, but I do remember someone telling me this. Of course, I don't remember who it was now!

Briar said...

I'm wondering about the logic of closing a school which has recently had an expensive kitchen refurbishment.