Ysgol Licswm - Organisational Update

The school’s Governors have shared the following update to parents to ensure members of the community are fully informed about the future plans for Ysgol Licswm.
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Monday 4th March 2019

Dear Parents,

School Organisational Update

As governors, we promised to keep you updated with any developments.

We were of course very pleased that Flintshire Cabinet decided against the forced amalgamation of ourselves and Ysgol Brynffordd.  The Local Authority have made it clear that retaining the Status Quo is not an option and we were tasked with helping them to find a way forwards to create a sustainable future for ourselves.

The time has come to share some exciting news with you.  Whilst we were fighting the potential closure of our school in the previous few years, one of the options that we investigated was the potential of becoming a ‘Church in Wales’ school.  At the time this turned out not to be possible, however, it is now a very real option which is supported by the Governors, the Local Authority, and the Church in Wales.

The main benefit for ourselves is that it allows us to gain the support of the Church to create a sustainable future for our school.  This includes the possible opportunity to become part of a federation with other Church in Wales’ schools.

I am sure that you will have lots of questions about what this involves, but primarily let me assure you that your child’s education will not suffer in any way, and as a community, we continue to keep a school in Lixwm village.

The Church in Wales seeks to provide the highest possible standard of education within a distinctively Christian context.  This is something that we already feel that we are close to and are already being supported to improve.

From a process point of view, we will have to go through the full consultation process that we went through previously based on a proposal to technically close Lixwm CP School and re-open as Lixwm VA School.  In practice, this would mean that we continue as normal, but with a change of status and changes in the governing body to reflect the new status.  The phrase VA means ‘Voluntary Aided’ and describes our relationship with the ‘Church in Wales’. This could take up to a year but should be able to be completed with a minimum of fuss.

We hope that you will agree that this is an excellent opportunity to safeguard the future of education in Lixwm and to further enhance our educational offering.  We look forwards to hearing your thoughts.

Prior to any formal process, we would like to invite you to an informal meeting at the school on Wednesday 13th March at 6pm to discuss this possibility with staff and governors.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Mark Cockburn
Chair of Governors, Ysgol Licswm